Why Did Conservative News Mogul Matt Drudge Turn on Donald Trump?
By Katie GarrityUpdated June 23 2020, 12:58 p.m. ET
It’s hard to keep track of who is feuding with the President of the United States, Donald Trump, on a daily basis because it seems like he is always making comments about someone on his Twitter that paint them in an unflattering light. Lately, in a surprising twist, it has been right-wing news mogul Matt Drudge.
Matt Drudge, a prominent conservative news mogul and founder of The Drudge Report, has been going back and forth with the president about his news site and the claims the president has made about his page views. So, what happened between the two to get to this level of petty?
In 2016, ‘The Drudge Report’ backed Donald Trump for president.
The Drudge Report boasts a wildly impressive 10 billion views a year, and during the 2016 election, they used all that clout to promote and back the now-president, Donald Trump. They were even on the Trump Train before other conservative news outlets like Fox News.
Matt Drudge and President Trump were fast friends, with the president even hosting Matt at the White House and referring to him as a “great gentleman.” So, when did the foundation of their friendship start to crack? In 2018, Matt Drudge lost faith in Donald’s promises to build his infamous wall on the Mexico border when two years into the presidency, he could not deliver the funds to build said wall.
Things between Matt Drudge and the president just kept going downhill.
According to the Columbia Journalism Review, things just went downhill from there. They reported, “Through July and August last year, Drudge warned that big government had expanded on Trump’s watch, that his “trash talk” turned off suburban women, that farmers were struggling and that the president was ruining markets with his trade wars. And since the impeachment proceedings began, Drudge has gone further anti-Trump, pounding him day after day.”
President strategically stretches truth to manipulate media, former adviser says... https://t.co/423OrttLUD
— Drudge Report Feed (@drudgefeed) June 23, 2020Many have wondered what happened between the two, including on conservative radio host Joe Pagliarulo, who tweeted, “[D]oes anyone know what @realDonaldTrump did to @DRUDGE to cause him to go from great news aggregation provider to anti-Trumper number one? What gives?”
Matt Drudge and his news site officially soured on the president after he was impeached.
When the president was impeached, Matt Drudge was ready to wipe his hands clean of his support for the POTUS. "He's reacting to changing circumstances," a person close to the media mogul, who said Drudge had grown exasperated with Trump, told CNN Business.
Matt Drudge’s new and open opinions about the president’s job performance obviously irked the POTUS, and he took to where else but Twitter to express his disappointment in his ex-friend. "I gave up on Drudge (a really nice guy) long ago, as have many others," Trump commented. "People are dropping like flies!"
While Matt Drudge typically does not comment to press and stays out of the spotlight, he did have some rebuttals to Donald’s claims that The Drudge Report was failing. "The past 30 days have been the most eyeballs in Drudge Report's 26 year-history," Drudge said in an email to CNN. "Heartbreaking that it has been under such tragic circumstances."
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