In Case You Missed It...Donald Trump, Christopher Ruddy and Fake News

I'm not sure if you caught this piece from Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush (Boo!) of the New York Times.  It starts with this:

President Trump loves to set the day’s narrative at dawn, but the deeper story of his White House is best told at night.

Aides confer in the dark because they cannot figure out how to operate the light switches in the cabinet room. Visitors conclude their meetings and then wander around, testing doorknobs until finding one that leads to an exit. In a darkened, mostly empty West Wing, Mr. Trump’s provocative chief strategist, Stephen K. Bannon, finishes another 16-hour day planning new lines of attack.

But that's not what I wanted to talk about.  What I wanted to talk about is found about seven paragraphs later.  It's this:

Chris Ruddy, the chief executive of Newsmax Media and an old friend of the president’s, said: “I think, in his mind, the success of this is going to be the poll numbers. If they continue to be weak or go lower, then somebody’s going to have to bear some responsibility for that.”

“I personally think that they’re missing the big picture here,” Mr. Ruddy said of Mr. Trump’s staff. “Now he’s so caught up, the administration is so caught up in turmoil, perceived chaos, that the Democrats smell blood, the protesters, the media smell blood.”

See that?

Wait, I'll give you another example.  This time from Politico:

"Most of the people around him are new to him. One of the things they don't understand about him is he likes pushback. They are not giving him the pushback he needs when he's giving advice. He's a strong guy. He's intimidating to a lot of people," said Christopher Ruddy, a Trump friend who talks to him often and is the CEO of Newsmax. "If he doesn't have people who can tell him no, this is not going to go very well."

Now you have to see it.

This is about Christopher Ruddy, CEO of Newsmax and "old friend" of Donald Trump's.

This is the same Christopher Ruddy who wrote "The Strange Death Of Vince Foster."  A conspiracy theory tell all that implicated Bill and Hillary Clinton in the death of Vince Foster, even though official investigations (including the Starr Investigation) all concluded it was a suicide.  Of Kenneth Starr (remember him?), Christopher Ruddy is quoted as saying that he was "a patsy for the Clintonites."

Christopher Ruddy reported a number of completely untrue things; that the Clintons killed Vince Foster, that the Park Police staged the scene of Foster's death, that the White House covered it up and that Kenneth Starr was a patsy for the Clintonites.

And this guy has Trump's ear.  Can we talk about some fake news now?