A new book on Matt Drudge by journalist Matthew Lysiak is pulling back the curtain on the early life and career of the secretive media master, and by doing so, may provide some answers about the website’s seemingly abrupt political shift.
The book, The Drudge Revolution: The Untold Story of How Talk Radio, Fox News, and a Gift Shop Clerk With an Internet Connection Took Down the Mainstream Media, is also being made into a biopic.
Lysiak’s extensive research into the man behind the website included speaking to over 200 sources who have known the reclusive figure over the years and even obtaining handwritten notes from when he was in high school, which he has exclusively shared with the Gateway Pundit.
The gripping unauthorized biography will dive into the early life of Drudge, as well as his massive influence over politics from the Clinton scandal through the Trump campaign.
“Every single campaign, beginning in the late 90s, had someone they referred to as a ‘Drudge Whisperer’, and the Trump team chose Jared Kushner to fill that role,” Lysiak told the Gateway Pundit. “I think it was a really intelligent move because Kushner had a background as a publisher for the Observer. He understood the media. For a while, this was like the ultimate Matt Drudge win-win, because Kushner and team Trump were feeding him stories and that was getting tons of page hits.”
Lysiak added that Drudge’s influence on the campaign should not be understated.
“Inside the campaign there was a nickname for Matt Drudge — we called him Lady Drudge,” former Trump aide Sam Nunberg asserts in the book. “Drudge essentially began acting as Jared’s publicist.”
While Drudge may have been instrumental in getting Trump elected, the 180 that Drudge has spun, Lysiak believes, is a business decision rather than an ideological one.
“He thinks that in the long run it’s going to pay off for him,” he said.
The evidence that Drudge’s content direction is based more on money and influence than ideology is something that Lysiak’s book is flowing with. For example, when Andrew Breitbart was working for Drudge as the morning editor, he became convinced that the news aggregator was working to get then-Senator Barack Obama elected.
“In 2008, he became absolutely convinced that Matt was working very hard to have then-Senator Barack Obama elected to the presidency. He was pulling his hair out over this. Andrew would post a story about Rev. Jeremiah Wright and from whatever undisclosed location Drudge was working at on his computer, he would go and replace those stories with something favorable about Obama.”
“Eventually, Andrew Breitbart got up the courage to ask him ‘what gives?’ and Matt told him that while yes, an Obama presidency might be absolutely terrible for the country, it would be great for the website.”
“The truth is that he was 100% right, I can’t think of many people who did better than Matt Drudge under an Obama presidency. Matt is focused on the bottom line, he always has been,” Lysiak asserted.
When asked about rumors that Drudge sold the website, Lysiak seemed unconvinced and pondered why people are surprised to see an ideological shift, especially considering that he has never claimed to be a conservative.
“Matt has never been a conservative. He describes himself as a Libertarian,” he said.
“The mistake people make when analyzing Matt Drudge is that they often look at him through a political lens. The reality is that Matt Drudge loyalty isn’t to any political party or ideology — but to his website,” Lysiak added.
The book also dives into Drudge’s younger years, and everything from how he had to undergo at least twelve “individual psychotherapy sessions,” at the Jewish Social Agency in Rockville, Maryland, to his love of dancing. The book, and upcoming film, will show how someone who struggled in high school went on to become one of the most famous and influential media figures of our time.
Vanity Fair reports that the film rights have been acquired by “entertainment-honcho Jeff Kwatinetz, who has worked with everyone from the Backstreet Boys to Steve Bannon, and now runs a production company with Ice Cube called CubeVision.”
“This is really a story about how one man had an outsized impact on how news is uncovered, hidden, spun, reported, and what it means for the First Amendment,” Kwatinetz told the magazine.
