Liberal New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said the news media should work together and saturate the public with negative coverage of President Trump in order to erode his popularity among Republican voters.

Friedman said in an op-ed published Wednesday afternoon that if the media emphasize Trump's personality instead of news about the strong economy, it may discourage enough GOP voters from continuing to support the president and benefit Democrats.

"Some healthy soul searching is taking place in newsrooms across the country these days over whether the mainstream media should be covering President Trump’s every tweet and rally," Friedman wrote. "My answer: Absolutely! It’s the right thing for us to do professionally, and, as last night’s election results indicated, it’s the right thing to do politically if you want to see a check on Donald Trump’s power."

"No question that the press should not allow itself to be props at Trump’s rallies, and that can be dealt with by using a single pool camera that feeds all the networks, or reporters just sitting among the rally attendees, not in a special pen," he wrote. "But the whole country needs to see every tweet, every rally, every word and every reaction so that they can ask themselves: 'Is this who I want my kids to see as our president? Are these the people with whom I want to be aligned?' It’s too late to move Trump’s core base on these questions, but I would not give up on his passive supporters."

Trump currently has a 43 percent job approval rating, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average, down from a high of 46 percent last December. Among just Republican voters, however, Trump is closer to 90 percent, according to most polls.