Washington
Nobody in President Donald Trump’s orbit stirs up headlines quite like Christopher Ruddy, chief executive of the right-leaning media outlet Newsmax, and Trump’s longtime friend.
Since the early days of the administration, Ruddy has fashioned himself into something of an unofficial spokesperson for Trump, a freelance translator of sorts with a unique insight into the president’s thought process and the workings of his inner circle. Put differently, he’s a Trump whisperer.
Ruddy has been a ubiquitous presence in Trump’s sphere over the past several months, the “Zelig” of the administration, as the Atlantic’s Rosie Gray wrote. He converses regularly with Trump and White House officials, and says he has given the president advice on everything from health care to Chinese relations to fake news.
On more than one occasion this year he has stirred controversy by inserting himself into conflicts among Trump’s staff.
But what has really put Ruddy on the radar lately are his frequent media appearances, in which he is fond of telling reporters, candidly and on-the-record, what Trump is thinking — or rather, what he thinks Trump is thinking.
That was the case this week, when Ruddy made the explosive assertion on PBS NewsHour that Trump was pondering whether to fire Robert S. Mueller, the former FBI director tapped by the Department of Justice to oversee the probe into Russia’s meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.
“I think he’s considering perhaps terminating the special counsel,” Ruddy said recently, adding that he believed the move would be a mistake. “I think he’s weighing that option.”
The remark made waves not only because Ruddy has become one of Trump’s most sought-after and loquacious confidants, but because he had visited the White House just an hour before heading to the PBS interview, leading some to speculate that he was testing the waters for Trump, as The Washington Post reported.
Though no one in the administration specifically disputed Ruddy’s claim, White House press secretary Sean Spicer responded that Ruddy had not met with Trump that day, saying he “speaks for himself.”
As Washington buzzed about whether Trump would indeed give Mueller the axe, Ruddy went on to give more interviews about the possibility of such a move. He also criticised the White House press office’s response, saying “it’s amateur hour over there.”
What sets Ruddy apart from other Trump allies is his dual role as a newsman and a close friend of the president. As the head of a prominent conservative news organisation with a monthly audience in the millions, his takes on the West Wing carry more weight than they might otherwise. He is quoted almost weekly in The Washington Post, the New York Times and other outlets, and makes regular rounds on cable news.
Ruddy goes out of his way to say he speaks only for himself, even if his remarks come suspiciously soon after a meeting with the president or White House insiders.
“I’m a newsman, so I’m going to give my views,” Ruddy told The Post on Wednesday. “I’ve never on a very confidential matter ever gone on a show and quoted the president on it. People sometimes make the false jump that ‘he met with the president, therefore he must be talking on his behalf.’ I’ve never spoken on his behalf.”
But it’s not always easy to tell why, or for whom, Ruddy so readily offers his insights.
“Perhaps Ruddy tries to have it both ways,” CNN senior media correspondent Brian Stelter wrote on Tuesday. “He trades on his access to Trump but emphasizes that ‘I am not speaking for the president.’ “
Ruddy, 52, founded Newsmax in 1998, catering mostly to right-leaning baby boomers through the outlet’s website and a series of newsletters that quickly gained scores of subscribers, as he told Bloomberg in a 2014 profile. He met Trump shortly after. Both lived part time in Palm Beach, Florida, and would bump into each other intermittently, Ruddy said.
Their friendship grew in the mid-2000s after Ruddy joined Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Over the years, Trump and Ruddy would discuss their views on a range of issues and occasionally bounce ideas off one another. In the run-up to the 2012 election, Ruddy said, Trump expressed his frustration with Mitt Romney, the Republican nominee, and said he was mulling a run of his own. Ruddy encouraged him.
Different payoffs
Republican operative and Trump ally Roger Stone wrote in the Atlantic earlier this year: “Newsmax is one of the earliest promoters of Trump. They were in fact promoting Trump for president in 2012. Ruddy has always been a Trump promoter when others were not yet taking his candidacy seriously or his potential candidacy seriously.”
Trump has not publicly bristled at any of Ruddy’s commentary, even if it causes trouble for those around him. Ruddy said that may be because he always tries to be forthcoming with the president. If anything, he said, Trump seems to welcome his outspokenness.
“People who know us tell me that they think that because I’m honest with him in my assessments,” Ruddy said. “I think at the end of the day he respects it and values it.”
“We’ve had many frank discussions where we disagreed,” he added, “and it hasn’t changed the nature of our relationship one iota.”
— Washington Post
