Donald

During the 1980s, Donald Trump played the media like a fiddle to herald his transformation from the son of a racist Coney Island apartment complex owner to a dashing man about town Manhattan real estate developer.

Now suffering from abysmal polling numbers and in obvious physical and mental decline, Trump is counting on the media to throw a lifeline to his sagging presidency.

That’s my take on his extraordinary nearly two-hour Jan. 7 Oval Office interview with New York Times reporters David Sanger, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, Tyler Pager and Katie Rogers.

It was only a month ago that Trump reiterated his “true enemies of the people” rant at the NYT after it ran a piece about the president’s health.

“The best thing that could happen to this Country would if The New York Times would cease publication because they are a horrible, biased, and untruthful 'source' of information,” he posted on Truth Social on Dec. 9.

He’s singing quite a different tune these days.

The NYT interview covered the kidnapping of Venezuelan president Nicolas Maduro and future US oil theft, threatened Greenland grab, Russia/Ukraine war, NATO, White House renovations and the horrific murder by ICE of a 37-year-old mother of three in Minneapolis.

The interview session even featured a time-out when Trump took a phone call from Colombian president Gustavo Petro. The Times reporters listened in on the conversation but promised not to write about it.

The shocking ICE shooting of Renee Nicole Good was the most telling part of the interview.

The president said the video of the killing showed Good trying to run over her assailant. The reporters disagreed, saying the video showed Good was driving away from the officer when he opened fire.

“Well, that's the way I look at it,” responded the president.

And that's the nub. Trump sees only what he wants to see, which does not bode well for the country during the next three years.

Let the reporters in. As viceroy of Venezuela, Marco Rubio should encourage the country’s new president, Delcy Rodriquez, to allow foreign journalists to report on developments.

Reporters Without Borders says there are about 200 foreign journalists in Colombia waiting for authorization to enter Venezuela. Maduro was a noted press predator.

The lack of independent media outlets in the country has created an information vacuum and triggered a wave of disinfomation, including videos of Venezuelans celebrating the US attack.

Trump has said some of the proceeds made from the sale of Venezuelan oil will benefit the country’s people.

That would be great PR for the US but who will be reporting that bit of good news?

Porter Novelli goes poof Down Under. And so it begins. Omnicom, which fashions itself as "the world’s leading marketing and sales company" in the wake of the Interpublic takeover, has folded Porter Novelli’s 30-member Australian operation into FleishmanHillard.

The move, according to a statement from OMC, followed a portfolio review of its PR agencies.

It decided to simplify its brand, reduce overlap and join related capabilities. But that overlap existed before the IPG takeover, since both PN and FH were part of the original OMC.

You can count on more consolidations to come.