Breitbart downplays Trump congratulating Erdogan's win

From "Trump Congratulates Erdogan on Turkey Vote Cementing His Rule" [1]:

President Trump called President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on Monday to congratulate him on winning a much-disputed referendum that will cement his autocratic rule over the country and, in the view of many experts, erode Turkey’s democratic institutions.

Those concerns were not mentioned in a brief readout of the phone call that the White House released Monday night. After noting Mr. Trump’s congratulations, the one-paragraph statement pivoted to a recent American missile strike on a Syrian airfield, which it said he and Mr. Erdogan had also discussed.

The statement did not say whether Mr. Trump had raised independent reports of voting irregularities during the Turkish referendum or the government’s heavy-handed tactics in the weeks leading up to it, when the country was under a state of emergency. The State Department noted both issues in a more cautious, less laudatory statement issued a few hours earlier...

This also moves Turkey closer to being an Islamic state and further from secularism. All of that is against the U.S.'s long-term interests, even if Turkey helps us fight ISIS in the short term.

The White House release on the call is below [2] and it's clear that Trump didn't call just to chat about ISIS but to congratulate Erdogan on his win.

So, how did Breitbart News spin Donald Trump congratulating someone on moves that are bad for the U.S.? By hiding the news away on their back pages.

Breitbart wrote at least four articles about Erdogan's win, here are the titles with the comment counts - a proxy for how visible the articles were on Breitbart's index pages - in parentheses:

  • Erdogan Declares Victory in Turkish Referendum: ‘Belittling’ Results ‘Will Be in Vain’ (354 comments)
  • Islamists Celebrate Erdogan’s Victory In Referendum For Expanded Powers (219 comments)
  • Turkey Referendum: Opposition Parties Cry Fraud, Demand Recount of ‘Yes’ Vote (138 comments)
  • Erdogan wins Turkey referendum as opposition cries foul (145 comments)

None of those mention Trump. For that, you have to turn to Breitbart's wire service reprints:

  • (AP report) Trump congratulates Erdogan after contentious win (2 comments)
  • (AFP report) Trump congratulates Erdogan on disputed Turkey poll (0 comments)

Whatever pages those were linked from, few Breitbart readers saw them.

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[1] nytimes . com/2017/04/17/us/politics/trump-erdogan-turkey-referendum.html
[2] twitter . com/RosieGray/status/854130883825213441/photo/1