Donald Trump is looking for this cycle’s Comey Letter. Four years ago, Hillary Clinton seemed poised to win a healthy victory when FBI Director James Comey announced in a letter to Congress that he was reopening an investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails because he had new information. Her numbers plummeted in the polls and Trump swooped in for a narrow victory. That letter dropped eleven days before election day. For perspective, today is eleven days before the election.

This year, he’s trying desperately to make the race about Hunter Biden’s business dealings with China. The NY Post, a right-wing tabloid, tried to reopen an issue that has been investigated and found to have no merit with a dramatic announcement that they had found new emails that tied Joe Biden to his son’s business deals. Trump tried to land blows in the debate last night, making sketchy and vague accusations. They fell flat. 

The public and the press aren’t going to fall for it again. However, Conservative media are beating the drum, trying to make the non-story stick. Outlets like the Washington Examiner are pushing the shady accusations, but the journalists are not buying in. Even at the NY Post, where the story was originally published, reporters refused to attached their names to the hit piece. At the Wall Street Journal, now owned by Fox News owner Rupert Murdoch, the reporters debunked the story saying there is no credible evidence Joe Biden benefitted from any deals with China despite an op-ed by a WSJ columnist implying he did. 

The Hunter Biden non-story does not just highlight Trump’s desperate attempt to change the narrative. It shows how much the conservative press is willing to attack real journalists to drive a false narrative. Conservatives developed their own news eco-system to combat what they have long seen as the “liberal media.” In their view, the Washington Post brought down Nixon, not the scandal itself. The news media pushed the story of climate change, not the rapid rising of the earth’s temperature. Income inequality is not nearly as much of a problem as high taxes for corporations and millionaires. Guns don’t kill people; people kill people. 

In North Carolina, several “news” sites funded by conservative moguls and donors regularly attack journalists working for mainstream outlets like WRAL and McClatchy-owned newspapers like the Charlotte Observer and News & Observer. They whine about not getting to ask questions at Governor Roy Cooper’s press briefings and yet they hire right-wing bloggers and call them reporters. At a recent press event with Democratic Senate candidate Cal Cunningham, the conservative media blasted mainstream reporters for not pushing Cunningham to talk about his affairs. In contrast, Paul Kane, a respected Washington Post reporter, complimented the North Carolina press corps for holding Cunningham accountable. 

Four years, ago the mainstream media helped Donald Trump get elected to the White House. News outlets that are regularly attacked by conservative media covered his rallies in their entirety, essentially giving the New York conman free advertising. They covered Hillary Clinton’s email story as if it were a real scandal. And when James Comey announced he was re-opening the email investigation, they covered like it was the most significant event of the campaign. 

This year, the mainstream media is covering Trump and last-minute news dumps with appropriate skepticism. Conservative media are howling about a biased press, when in fact, they are the biased outlets, giving credence to propaganda and creating an ill-informed conservative base that believes conspiracy theories while dismissing credible scandals in the Trump administration. This year, they won’t get the Comey Letter story they need to save their candidates. Eleven days to go and Donald Trump is still in real trouble.