Topic: Newsmax
It should come as no surprise that WorldNetDaily is reveling in Donald Trump's outbreak of birtherism, with articles on his appearance on "The View" spewing his birther views and Sean Hannity's subsequent shift to birtherism in defending Trump and Rush Limbaugh's echoing it.
The surprise is that Newsmax is following WND's birther lead.
A March 24 interview by Jim Meyers and Ashley Martella touts how Trump "is not backing down from his demand that President Barack Obama produce his birth certificate and stepped up his criticism by questioning why he has not released other personal records, including college transcripts and legislative papers."
The article even repeats some bogus birther tropes. Meyers and Martella write that "former Pennsylvania Deputy Attorney General Philip Berg has claimed that Obama’s paternal grandmother says she was in the delivery room when he was born in Kenya," but don't mention that Berg's claim has been discredited.
Newsmax followed up with a March 25 article by Dave Eberhart regurgitating Limbaugh's praise of Trump's birtherism.
Newsmax has previously resisted overt birtherism despite some of its columnists (and even CEO Christopher Ruddy) embracing the idea, its coverage has been intermittent at best and certaintly nowhere near the rabidly obsessive levels of WND.
But Newsmax is weirdly in the tank for Trump, beginning with Ronald Kessler's slobbering over his presidential prospects in January and even bragging about how he and his wife "spent the Martin Luther King holiday weekend with [Trump] at Mar-a-Lago, his home and club on Palm Beach." Indeed, Newsmax's Trump interview is accompanied by an article by Chris Gonsalves on how Trump's show "Celebrity Apprentice" is "drawing record viewers and topping the ratings in key demographics" and an S.E. Cupp column claiming other Republican presidential candidates could learn from Trump.
Newsmax's fealty to Trump, it seems, has given it cover to go fully birther.
