President Donald Trump on Saturday criticized journalist Matt Drudge after the legendary website highlighted critical headlines about the president for months.
“TRUMP CLAIMS ‘PASSED THE PEAK,'” a Drudge Report headline read Wednesday about the coronavirus pandemic, next to a headline noting that “U.S. Deaths Set Another Single-Day Record”
That prompted the president’s critical message on Twitter.
“I gave up on Drudge (a really nice guy) long ago, as have many others,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Saturday afternoon.
Drudge has not spared Trump from critical headlines during the coronavirus crisis. Drudge has also featured polls with bad news for the president, one headline noting a poll reporting, “65 percent Say Trump Was Too Slow in Initial Response to Coronavirus Threat”
Another headline noted that Trump was “on pace to spend more than biggest liberals of last 100 years!” and another headline said that Trump’s breakthrough on coronavirus testing was “elusive.”
Trump appeared frustrated by the critical coverage, asserting that traffic was down at the website as a result.
“People are dropping off like flies!” he wrote.
However, Matt Drudge publicly refuted Trump’s assertion in an email to CNN’s Oliver Darcy.
“The past 30 days has been the most eyeballs in Drudge Report’s 26 year-history,” he said. “Heartbreaking that it has been under such tragic circumstances.”
Drudge featured Trump’s comments in one of four links on his front page banner slot.
“TRUMP SLAMS DRUDGE,” the headline read, linking to the CNN story, which states that a person with access to Drudge’s web traffic additionally provided data to CNN showing a significant traffic surge in March — up to 1.2 billion page views from 781 million page views in February.
In November 2019, Trump reportedly asked his son-in-law Jared Kushner, ‘What’s wrong with Drudge?” after the website highlighted critical stories of the president during the impeachment hearings.
The question of why Matt Drudge has not spared the president from criticism has perplexed conservative readers for months.
Journalist Bob Norman even traveled to Drudge’s house in Florida in January to question the legendary online journalist, but he did not get an answer.
“That was three years ago,” Drudge responded, after Norman asked him about his previous support for the president.
Until now, Trump appeared reluctant to criticize Drudge publicly, even speaking favorably about the famous journalist during a campaign rally in February after the impeachment process was over.
“Drudge, he’s started to treat me good again. He’s starting to like me again. I like him,” Trump said.
The Drudge Report highlighted Trump’s comment the following day.
TRUMP TOUTS DRUDGE… the headline read.