Breitbart Staffers Believe Trump Has Given Money To Site For Favorable Coverage
August 9, 2015
Inside the most pro-Trump news outlet on the right, some employees say the billionaire candidate has provided financial backing in exchange for fawning headlines — a charge management strongly denies. This story is from my reporting for the forthcoming book The Wilderness: Deep Inside the Republican Party’s Combative, Contentious, Chaotic Quest to Take Back the White House.
As Donald Trump faces a growing backlash from conservative media over his recent attacks on a Fox News host, one prominent right-wing outlet remains firmly in his corner: Breitbart News, which has set itself apart by plastering its homepage with fawning headlines about the candidate, and all-caps assaults on his critics.
But not everyone within the website’s editorial ranks is on board with Breitbart’s boosterism, and many inside the company believe Trump has provided undisclosed financial backing to the outlet in exchange for glowing coverage, as I report in my forthcoming book about the GOP and 2016, The Wilderness.
According to four sources with knowledge of the situation, editors and writers at the outlet have privately complained since at least last year that the company’s top management was allowing Trump to turn Breitbart into his own fan website — using it to hype his political prospects and attack his enemies. One current editor called the water-carrying “despicable” and “embarrassing,” and said he was told by an executive last year that the company had a financial arrangement with Trump.
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