Senate Republicans Are Apparently Sick of Trump’s Tweets. Will the Media Ever Join Them?

Morgan PhillipsAug 1st, 2019, 4:14 pm

Senate Republicans can’t wait to get home to “sanity” where they’ll stop being badgered about Trump tweets over which they have no control, according to a new Politico report published just in time for their summer break.

But it’s not just Republicans who are fed up with President Donald Trump’s tweets. A few days ago, Democratic Sen. Chris Murphy tweeted that he was unfollowing Trump. At first thought, he sounded ridiculous. A) Who cares? No need for the dramatic announcement, just do it. B) As a member of Congress, you’re probably going to need to know what the president is saying.

But on second thought — and for the record I am not willing to start this trend — what if the media went on a Trump tweet cleanse?

What the President is saying is important to know, but how often does it tangibly affect the lives of Americans? I would venture to assume it has far less of an affect than the legislation, or lack thereof, whirring around Washington D.C. — legislation most people know nothing about.

To be fair, the president’s tweets are news. They are bite-sized statements from the president of the United States, statements he posts to an open social media platform in an attempt to bypass the media (and manipulate it). Mediaite — as well as the rest of the media — covers Trump’s posts extensively. But should the principle focus — of everyone from reporters chasing down lawmakers in the halls of the Senate to anchors leading primetime cable news programs — be the tweets?

Republicans trying to legislate in the chaotic age of Trump have for years argued: No.

“It’s frustrating because we’re doing a lot of work on lowering health costs. And I did a major speech on the Senate floor and it gets no coverage. Instead what I’m asked about is the latest tweet, which I obviously I don’t agree with,” GOP Sen. Susan Collins told Politico.

It’s not that people don’t care about policy. No one would contest that Americans are rightfully outraged that the cost of insulin, for example, for Type 1 diabetics in America is ten times that of Canada. But how many know what their legislators are or aren’t doing to right this wrong, and what even caused the disparity in the first place?

The Lower Health Care Costs Act includes patent transparency that requires companies to provide earlier and broader disclosure of the patents that protect some of the most expensive drugs on the market. This would make it easier for competitors to plan for the development of these drugs and be able to list their own version.

Another health care bill making its way through the upper chambers is the We PAID Act. Under this bill, drug companies that have benefitted from taxpayer-funded research would not be able to turn around and gouge those funders with exorbitant prices. Drugs that have patents tied to NIH research would be required to offer reasonable prices.

According to broadcast search engine TVEyes, the words “Trump tweets” were mentioned together more than 1,400 times on CNN in the past month. There was zero mention of either bill underway. Health care in general was talked about less than 1,000 times.

Fox News wasn’t much different. “Trump tweets” were mentioned together more than 1,000 times. The broad category of “health care” was mentioned less than half that.

A quick Google search revealed that Vox was the only major outlet to cover the act. Meanwhile, every outlet daring to cover the Trump administration — Mediaite included — has covered the tweets, often obsessively.

Who knew that senators have been working on bipartisan legislation to tackle climate change? Dem. Chris Coons and Rep. Martha McSally introduced this week a bill to extend the lifespan and efficiency of America’s fleet of nuclear energy plants. It would take steps to make nuclear power produce less waste and generate electricity more reliably. America gets about 20% of its power from nuclear energy, which is virtually emissions-free.

Two bipartisan carbon tax bills were introduced last week as well. Another Republican Brian Fitzpatrick is expected to unveil a bill to tax emissions after the August recess.

A TVEyes search of “Trump” and “Cummings” appearing on programming over the past month on CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News revealed 655 results. A search for mention of “nuclear power,” leaving out results that were in reference to nuclear weapons in North Korea or Saudi Arabia, revealed 33 findings. A search for “carbon tax” revealed less than 20 results.

Sen. Lamar Alexander spoke to Politico of viewing Washington as a split screen. “Watch the one screen, you would think everything is chaos. If you look at the other you would see a two-year budget agreement and important movement to reduce out of pocket health care costs,” said Alexander. He said the work is “not really as newsworthy, it’s not as exciting but it’s more important.”

But the Senate is also failing in a lot of ways the American people are missing out on. Over the past week, they gave up on bipartisan asylum reform efforts, and now nothing will be dealt with until after the August recess. Meanwhile, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has dubbed himself the “grim reaper” out of pride over the legislation he’s blocked. The mainstream media, driven by a complex web of incentives, chose to let Trump’s tweets calling Baltimore “infested” push this out of the news cycle.

“Go back home and leave the nation’s capitol? Yeah. I can’t wait,” said Sen. John Cornyn. “People talk about stuff here that people back home aren’t so obsessed about. Like what the president tweeted and what he said.”

It’s true — only 22% of adults nationwide are on Twitter, according to Pew Research. And 10% of Twitter users write 80% of the tweets.

“All of us want to get back to where there’s a lot of sanity. And that’s back home,” said Sen. Mike Rounds.

“I don’t respond to all of the things that come forward that in many cases are inappropriate. I just don’t think it’s productive to do a daily commentary on what the president’s doing,” said Sen. Mitt Romney. “You don’t have to comment on every issue going on the planet. Or every political statement,” added Sen. Marco Rubio.

As the Trump administration careens forward with little regard for the preferences of Republican lawmakers, fewer of them seem interested in commenting on the latest Twitter controversy. Would it be for the better if D.C. reporters took the hint?

[Photo by Saul Loeb/Getty Images]