Donald Trump loves to talk about how lucrative his candidacy has been for cable television networks that have covered him obsessively for the past year, giving him the equivalent of several billion dollars worth of free air time.
Finally an accurate story from the Washington Post!https://t.co/0nNKEBSd73
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 15, 2016
According to a report in Vanity Fair, the presumptive Republican nominee is actually a bit annoyed that cable networks are raking in profits without cutting him in on the action, and is thinking about starting his own media platform in order to cash in on his millions of adoring fans. Trump has “gotten the bug,” one source said, and “wants to figure out if he can monetize it.”
The report cites “several people” briefed on discussions the real estate mogul has had about launching a “mini-media conglomerate” as way to monetize his “audience” of die-hard supporters. Trump has reportedly enlisted his daughter, Ivanka, and her husband, Jared Kushner, owner of the New York Observer, a middling newspaper that endorsed Trump earlier this year.
One source told Vanity Fair that it really doesn’t matter whether Trump wins or loses in November, because his campaign has “triggered a base of the population that hasn’t had a voice in a long time,” and that would presumably be easy marks for a new television network featuring the likes of self-abasing pundits like Mike Huckabee and Jeffrey Lord.
