Topic: Newsmax
Over the weekend, Semafor reported that Newsmax told the campaign of Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy that if it wanted better coverage of the canddiate, it should buy more ads on the channel. (Newsmax has denied this.) Semafor, and later Media Matters, cited the case of Perry Johnson, who is running well behind Ramaswamy in polls (he didn't even qualify for the first Republican debate) yet gets loads of favorable coverage on Newsmax. It presumably helps that Johnson pays Newsmax to run a reality-style show about his campaign.
While Newsmax has not addressed the Ramaswamy allegations on its website, it has ramped up its negative coverage of him. Around the time Semafor's story was posted, Newsmax posted a column by Dick Morris attacking Ramaswamy over his stance of cutting U.S. aid to Israel:
Whenever an inexperienced neophyte runs for president and ventures into foreign policy, he almost always puts his foot in his mouth due to ignorance and lack of preparation.
Now Vivek Ramaswamy, an interesting candidate, has made a big blunder by calling for a cut in U.S. aid to Israel.
He even wants its hostile Arab neighbors to get U.S. aid equal to what Israel gets.
[...]
He dangerously argues that Israel should not get any more U.S. aid than neighboring Muslim countries.
On what basis is that fair? Israel's aid package should be determined by what we give terrorist state Syria?
This being Morris, he then turned his attack into yet another endorsement of Donald Trump: "there is no reason to bet on an amateur when we have a seasoned 'pro' like Donald Trump."
That was followed by an Aug. 21 article by the apparently unironically named Charlie McCarthy claiming that Ramaswamy "is doubling down on his criticism of U.S. aid to Israel, now arguing that all military support should be cut off by 2028," adding tha t"Ramaswamy’s stance regarding Israel has drawn criticism" and citing Morris' column. That was followed by more attacks over his israel stance:
- Jewish Republicans Reject Ramaswamy Plan to Cut Israel Aid
- ZOA Slams Ramaswamy's Call for Ending Israel Aid
An Aug. 22 article credited only to "Newsmax Wires" launched a different attack on Ramaswamy:
Vivek Ramaswamy didn't tell the truth about the real reason he took money from the family of George Soros.
After criticism for receiving a $90,000 grant from the Paul & Daisy Soros Fellowship to attend Yale Law School, Ramaswamy claimed that he did so only because he "didn't have the money" pay for it.
But in 2011, the same year he started Yale, Ramaswamy reported he made $2.2 million in income, according to his tax returns reviewed by Fox News.
His returns also show for the the three years before 2011 he made over $1.1 million income working as a hedge fund analyst.
Ramaswamy's connection with Paul Soros, the brother of the controversial George Soros, has raised eyebrows in Republican circles.
An Aug. 23 article by Charles Kim noted that Ramaswamy "called CNN host Kaitlan Collins a 'petulant teenager' in a social media post Tuesday following a contentious interview on the network" over his apparent conspiracy theories about the 9/11 terrorist attacks, but pointed out that "Collins, however, kept her question narrow to the point that he said federal agents were on the planes on 9/11."
Following the Aug. 23 Republican presidential debate, Newsmax published an article on an exchange between Ramaswamy and Ron DeSantis, followed by two articles featuring attacks on Ramaswamy by other candidates:
Newsmax is not exactly making the the case that it treats all Republican presidential candidates fairly.
