‘A Political Rick-Roll’ — Trump Tricked Media Into Broadcasting an Entourage of Endorsements

Donald Trump‘s campaign announced that he would finally address “birtherism” in his own words at a rally Friday morning.

What he did was dupe all three cable news networks into broadcasting an infomercial for his new hotel and an uninterrupted lineup of veterans singing his praises.

Lured by the promise that Trump would recant his contention that Barack Obama was not born in the United States, all three networks dutifully covered the rally, which began with Trump touting his “under budget” hotel that newly opened in D.C. and its ballroom that served as the event’s venue.

What followed was over 20 minutes of veterans praising Trump, wrapped up by a perfunctory, uncharacteristically terse statement from Trump, in which he blamed Hillary Clinton for first raising the birther notion (false), credited himself for ending it (false), and affirmed that the president was born in the U.S. (true).

The rally coverage began at 11:04. CNN was the first to cut away from the event at 11:27, Fox News followed a little less than a minute later, and MSNBC one minute after that.

Jake Tapper called the bait-and-switch “a political rick-roll.”

“We got played by the Trump campaign, which is what they do,” John King said. “He got a live event broadcast for, what, 20-something minutes […] We just got played, we just got played. And voters can decide what to make of that.”

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Sam Reisman (@thericeman) is a staff editor at Mediaite.