Well this is a doozie, huh? It’s almost impossible to know who these purported leaked voicemails are worse for. Donald Trump, or the several notable members of the “liberal” news media with which Trump has become notorious for trading disparaging remarks with through the course of his campaign for the White House.
From the outside looking in, one wouldn’t dream that the likes of MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, and Tamron Hall would be friends with Donald Trump. Never in a million years. But if these alleged voicemails have any veracity to them, then evidently the friendship is strong enough in one case to solicit a decent discount at Gucci.
On one hand, these are people who work or news organizations that Trump has repeatedly rebuked, but on the other, they have independently criticized or distanced themselves from Trump’s campaign on air, so who’s in bed with who?
Hard to say and I don’t know; that’s a determination for you guys to make.
But it goes without saying that Gawker’s decision to publish these supposedly hacked voicemails from Trump’s phone after receiving them from an “anonymous” source certainly raises a multitude of legal questions.
Gawker apparently got hold of quite a few other voicemails that have yet to be released, one from the likes of Tom Brady, who has made no secret about his friendship with Trump.
The voice mailbox also contains several messages from prominent figures who are not members of the media. In one message, a man who seems to be David Axelrod, the chief strategist of Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns, thanks Trump for a check. In November 2012, Trump donated money to Slash the Stache, an organization backed by Axelrod which sought to find a cure for epilepsy.
The caller who appeared to be Tom Brady, whose friendship with Trump is well-documented, opens one message with “Donald, it’s your favorite quarterback.” He opens a second with, “Hey big guy, it’s your favorite NFL quarterback calling.” (Don Yee, Brady’s agent, said his client did not recall leaving any voice messages for Trump and could not speak to the authenticity of the messages one way or the other.)
Someone identifying himself as the outspoken boxing promoter Don King also left multiple messages, addressing Trump as “Big Don.” “You’re a Republicrat, that is so great for America,” he said in one of the messages
All told, Gawker received 35 voicemail messages intended for Trump—many of which appear to have been left by strangers after Trump encouraged supporters to call his cell phone number—totaling 26 minutes and 40 seconds of audio. We are publishing three messages amounting to two minutes and 10 seconds.
In due time, I suppose we’ll see how this all plays out. How Trump supporters take the coyness in these voicemails, and probably how The Donald sues the shit out of Gawker (or, at least, you know, threatens to in order to uphold that hard right Republican image these voicemails stand in the face of).
[via Gawker]