Here’s a metaphor, the media is either Vince McMahon being forcibly shaved or a fake ref watching, hard to say

Ted Cruz has a new theory: the American political media is in possession of “bombshell” stories about Donald Trump that could ruin him, but are choosing to not publish them for some reason. Ted, I’m here to tell you: we’ve got nothing, and we’re all really fucking freaked out about it.

From a post over the weekend on The Hill:

“I think an awful lot of reporters — I can’t tell you how many media outlets I hear, you know, have this great exposé on Donald, on different aspects of his business dealings or his past, but they said, ‘You know what? We’re going to hold it to June or July,’” Cruz said on CBS’s “Face The Nation” Sunday.

“We’re not going to run it now.”

Haha! This conversation has not happened nor will it happen. This is a hypothetical from a science fiction novella. In real life, reporters, bloggers, commentators, (et cetera) are not patient enough to sit on an enormous story until June or July. It’s March, man—a cold, long March. We need something now. Not many of us are even confident enough that our jobs or publications will even exist in their current forms by June or July to sit on something big, so if you’ve got something worth publishing, we’ll put it up today, promise.

Even for those in the media confident in their abilities and job security, the fear of getting “scooped” (someone else writes your shit before you can write your shit) outweighs all other considerations. I can’t imagine a single reporter or editor in the world sitting on a good story for months, for the simple reason that (on both sides of the political spectrum) we’re all desperate for attention and completely bent on destroying Donald Trump.

God, Ted, we’ve been trying! It’s not like we haven’t tried. Over the past year Gawker has posted:

The Time Donald Trump’s Ex-Wife Accused Him of Brutally Raping Her

The Best Theory of 1992: Donald Trump Took Amphetamine-Like Diet Pills

Does Donald Trump Want to Have Sex With His Daughter?

Voicemails Reveal Donald Trump’s Cozy Relationship With the Liberal Media

Donald Trump Spun a 9/11 Conspiracy Scenario So Loony It Ended Up Almost True

How We Fooled Donald Trump Into Retweeting Benito Mussolini

Donald Trump Brags About Fucking Another Guy’s Girlfriend in Old Howard Stern Interview

None of it has even slightly hurt Trump or changed the mind of his supporters. We’re at a complete loss. We’re out of ideas. I honestly can’t even imagine something at this point that would scuttle the Trump campaign given how perfectly calibrated his core following is to reject anything and everything they see in the media. I could publish a recording of Donald Trump screaming “ISIS IS GOOD! ISIS IS GREAT!” during sex and he would brush it off in one tweet—Gawker, a loser website. They want me to be politically correct. Sad!

What bombshell could anyone be holding onto at this point? What, conceivably, could be left out there? More shady business dealings? Even more racism? This is a man who boasted that he could kill innocent people in the middle of New York and not lose voters. He’s right! He would probably gain voters. What the media loathes about Trump is what endears him to voters. Oh, we’re going to reveal to the world that he’s a boor, a horror, a bully? When you see us making fun of Donald Trump’s orange face or misspelled tweets, what you’re really seeing is our deep, rapidly rising levels of dread. We mock Trump’s complexion and dumbassery because we’ve never felt more impotent in our lives, so powerless to stop such a manifestly bad, bulletproof man. We are sublimating our own sense of terror and irrelevance via blogs. We will be spinning our wheels like this until Trump either self-destructs or wins the election. We’ll be spinning our wheels because we don’t have any bombshells. Donald Trump has neutralized the very concept of the bombshell.

We are desperate and scared, Ted Cruz, and we wish, we would beg you for some scandalous hidden scoop about Donald Trump. Do you have one? It’s entirely possible that opposition researchers and the like might be holding on to some big shameful Trump story for some time they consider opportune—but as for the media, we’re on empty. Fumes. The gun is not loaded. We had to sell the trigger. So, about a bombshell: Please email it to me. I’ll publish it today, Ted. That’s my promise to you, Ted Cruz: give me a bombshell (or even an old grenade, something, any kind of explosive device, any ordnance will do, PLEASE man) and I will let loose ASAP. I will pull the trigger on anything, Ted. We all will, any of us at any outlet. Pick your favorite. Please. Help.

Photo: Getty


Contact the author at biddle@gawker.com.
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