Politics

Keith Olbermann Blasts The Media: Stop Giving Trump A Free Pass

(Photo: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

Kaitlan Collins Contributor
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Keith Olbermann criticized the media for giving Donald Trump a free pass on hard questions.

Keith Olbermann Donald Trump

(Photo: Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

In a guest column written for the Hollywood Reporter on Wednesday, the sports commentator said the media goes too easy on the Republican presidential candidate because they need him for ratings. (RELATED: How Donald Trump Wins Over A Crowd, Explained By Donald Trump)

“Now you can ask any question about Trump, Trumpism or anti-Trumpism except the existential ones, because the existential ones could lead him to stop calling in to your morning show and providing you with your highest-rated hour for free,” Olbermann writes. “You can’t go meta on the perfect storm that has thrust up this Howard Beale of presidential candidates.”

“You can’t say, ‘Never mind the politics, what kind of man could boast on national television that he’d just raised $6 million for veterans’ groups, then deny he’d ever said 6, then when told his boast is on tape demand that you play it for him, then make it impossible for you to play it for him?'”

Donald Trump

(Photo: Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

Olbermann said it was a form of self-censorship “based purely on cash.” (RELATED: Simon Cowell Reveals Why Americans Are So Drawn To Donald Trump)

“With their own jobs hanging in the balance, who in the American media of 2016 could invoke not the politics of reproductive rights but question if there’s something far more than inconsistency involved when a candidate says he believes women who have abortions should be in some way punished, then weeks later insists he meant they should punish themselves?” Olbermann continued.

“Or in that environment, who can ask not about religious intolerance but instead what is amiss with the thought process of a candidate whose campaign pivoted from the fringes to a hateful lane in the mainstream the day he insisted Muslims be banned from entering this country, yet who could manage to later seriously claim all that was ‘just a suggestion’?” (RELATED: Obama Assures Hollywood: Donald Trump Will Not Be President)

“Or ask what kind of person suggests killing the innocent relatives of suspected terrorists, then throws it away like it was a poorly timed proposal to raise rates at the Fed?”