Donald Trump is displeased with the media. He expressed this displeasure during his speech in West Palm Beach, Florida on Thursday. The problem is that the media has taken his own words about how he lunges at women and starts kissing and groping them, and turned up real-world instances of him allegedly doing so. Trump is used to getting away with this sort of chatter, these sorts of actions. He’s not getting away with it now, and it infuriates him.

So disruptive is this rare moment of accountability to everything Donald Trump’s ever known in 40-plus years of public life that he can’t just blame the media, either. He can’t just blame the Clintons. That he’s losing the presidential race, and facing public allegations of past sexual assault from more women every day is, in his mind, the sign of a global conspiracy. It’s all he’s got.

A conspiracy. As we’ve seen in the WikiLeaks hack, Trump said early in his speech, “Hillary Clinton meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty in order to enrich these global financial powers, her special interest friends and her donors.” (Donald Trump’s Jewish son-in-law Jared Kushner has assured us that he’s not an anti-Semite.) After this line, the crowd began chanting “lock her up!”

“So true,” Trump responded. “Honestly, she should be locked up. She should be.”

But back to the conspiracy. The vehicle through which this globalist “plot” is carried out, Trump asserted, is the “corporate media,” the “most powerful weapon deployed by the Clintons.” He then went on this rampage:

The corporate media in our country is no longer involved in journalism. They’re a political special interest no different than any lobbyist or other financial entity with a total political agenda. And the agenda is not for you, it’s for themselves. And their agenda is to elect crooked Hillary Clinton at any cost, at any price, no matter how many lives they destroy.

For them, it’s a war. And for them, nothing at all is out of bounds. This is a struggle for the survival of our nation. Believe me. And this will be our last chance to save it on November 8th. Remember that. This election will determine whether we’re a free nation or whether we have only the illusion of democracy but are, in fact, controlled by a small handful of global special interests rigging the system. And our system is rigged. This is reality. You know it. They know it. I know it. And pretty much the whole world knows it.

The establishment and their media enablers wield control over this nation through means that are very well known. Anyone who challenges their control is deemed a sexist, a racist, a xenophobe and morally deformed. They will attack you. They will slander you. They will seek to destroy your career and your family. They will seek to destroy everything about you, including your reputation. They will lie, lie, lie. And then, again, they will do worse than that. They will do whatever’s necessary. The Clintons are criminals, remember that, they’re criminals.

He described all of the groping allegations flooding into media streams Wednesday evening as “false,” “vicious,” “fabricated,” “outright lies.” He seemed to signal that he would go on the offensive against each of them: “These events never, ever happened. And the people that said them fully understand. You take a look at these people. You study these people and you’ll understand also.” In particular he singled out the New York Times and People magazine stories. Of the latter, he instructed his supporters to “take a look. You take a look. Look at her. Look at her words. You tell me what you think. I don’t think so.” In other words, the People reporter who is alleging assault wasn’t hot enough to be assaulted.



“These attacks are orchestrated by the Clintons and their media allies,” Trump said as he tried to move on. “The only thing Hillary Clinton has going for herself is the press.”

Read more Slate coverage of the 2016 campaign.