{"id":91214,"date":"2016-03-24T16:18:22","date_gmt":"2016-03-25T00:18:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=91214"},"modified":"2016-03-24T16:18:22","modified_gmt":"2016-03-25T00:18:22","slug":"donald-trump-lands-endorsement-of-the-national-enquirer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/?p=91214","title":{"rendered":"Donald Trump lands endorsement of The National Enquirer"},"content":{"rendered":"

MSNBC March 10, 2016<\/a>: Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has been leading in the polls for months, but he\u2019s just received his first endorsement from a major publication \u2013 the infamous tabloid The National Enquirer<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In this stranger-than-fiction presidential race, Trump has been championed by a publication that has recently purported to \u201cout<\/a>\u201c a number of celebrities, discovered unsubstantiated cheating scandals<\/a>, prematurely predicted the imminent deaths of Hillary Clinton,<\/a> Angelina Jolie<\/a>, Cher<\/a> and Oprah Winfrey<\/a> (just to name a few), claimed repeatedly that President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama were on the brink of divorce<\/a>, that the Obama daughters were embroiled in a cocaine scandal<\/a>, and accused comedian Bill Cosby of plotting the murder of his own son<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cTrump Must Be President,\u201d blasts a headline from within the Enquirer<\/em>\u2019s pages, which includes a list of reasons why the real the estate mogul should be elected, including: \u201cHe will chase down illegal immigrants and toss out the criminals who came streaming through our open borders.\u201d That particular statement is ironic, considering the fact that the Enquirer<\/em> recently published a racially insensitive article<\/a> about one of its reporters dressing as a \u201cterrorist\u201d and crossing the U.S.-Mexico border, in their estimation damning evidence of how porous it is.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Donald Trump attacks Muslims: \u2018Islam hates us\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

This appears to be the first time <\/span>The National Enquirer<\/em> has ever endorsed a candidate for president. MSNBC reached out to the tabloid’s parent company for comment about why the Enquirer <\/em>decided to take the plunge with this year\u2019s contest but has not heard back at this time.<\/span><\/p>\n

According to The Daily Beast<\/em><\/a>, the Enquirer<\/em>\u2019s endorsement of Trump is not surprising considering the friendly relationship he and their owner David Pecker enjoy. Trump has repeatedly sung Pecker\u2019s praises on social media and has even penned self-congratulatory op-eds<\/a> for the tabloid, including a three-part series under the banner \u201cThe Man Behind the Legend!\u201d<\/a> The Enquirer<\/em> has gushed<\/a> over \u201cthe man who has energized millions of voters with his no-nonsense and businesslike run for the White House\u201d and have praised Trump for \u201cquietly donated a huge chunk of his fortune to charity\u201d and for being a \u201cdoting dad\u201d to his young son.<\/p>\n

They have also credited Trump with \u201cfinally\u201d <\/a>getting Obama to release his long-form birth certificate in 2011. That same year, the Enquirer<\/em> predicted a Trump presidential run and promoted polls<\/a> that showed him competitive in a one-on-one race with the president. Meanwhile, their recent \u201creporting\u201d on Clinton includes pieces speculating about her weight gain<\/a> on the campaign trail and allegations<\/a> that she is \u201cterrified of revelations about her secret lesbian lifestyle!\u201d<\/p>\n

The tabloid has also frequently echoed Trump attack lines on his opponents throughout the campaign and even introduced some tawdrier ones, like alleging that Jeb Bush has an extramarital affair with a \u201cPlayboy bunny turned lawyer.\u201d<\/a> Last fall, New York<\/em> magazine reported<\/a> that Trump\u2019s camp was the source behind a salacious Dr. Ben Carson headline (\u201d<\/a>Bungling Surgeon Ben Carson Left Sponge in Patient\u2019s Brain!\u201d<\/a>) but his campaign vehemently denied it.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the Enquirer – <\/em>which has a circulation of 371,925<\/a> – has made a bid for respectability<\/a> as of late. The tabloid actually broke the story of former presidential candidate John Edwards\u2019 extramarital affair and illegitimate child with former campaign staffer Rielle Hunter<\/a> after a months-long investigation, which culminated with the Enquirer<\/em> reporting on their secret visits to each other. There was even a brief flurry of speculation<\/a> that the Enquirer<\/em> might receive the coveted Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for their work, which the San Francisco Examiner<\/em> likened at the time to \u201cnominating a porn flick for an Oscar.\u201d<\/a> The tabloid was nominated in the investigative and national reporting categories, but ultimately missed the cut<\/a> for finalists.<\/p>\n

An unnamed source told The New York Daily News<\/a><\/em> last summer: \u201cTrump is a big friend of Pecker \u2026 so no John Edwards-type investigations.\u201d<\/p>\n

And despite all their efforts to be taken seriously, they haven\u2019t strayed too far from their formula (and their \u201cEnquiring minds want to know\u201d catchphrase). Among their more recent articles is a piece alleging that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia was murdered by a prostitute<\/a>. <\/p>\n

A significant number<\/a> of the nation\u2019s major newspapers have backed Gov. John Kasich<\/a> for the GOP presidential nomination, but their seal of approval has done little to prop him up in the polls with Republican voters. The latest surveys suggest Kasich is trailing Trump<\/a> in his home state of Ohio and he has yet to win a 2016 presidential primary. Trump, on the other hand, has seen his unconventional campaign build a formidable lead in delegates and has enjoyed a number of sweeping victories in nearly every region of the country.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MSNBC March 10, 2016: Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump has been leading in the polls for months, but he\u2019s just received his first endorsement from a major publication \u2013 the infamous tabloid The National Enquirer. In this stranger-than-fiction presidential race, … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29752,20,42738],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-91214","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-donald-trump","category-journalism","category-national-enquirer"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91214","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=91214"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91214\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":91215,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/91214\/revisions\/91215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=91214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=91214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lukeford.net\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=91214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}