Trump just viciously attacked the press by publicly targeting two Washington Post reporters
Faced with another batch of blatant evidence of his corruption, Donald Trump went on the offensive yet again this morning to distract the public from his misdeeds by turning his attacks on the credibility of the media. He turned his ire towards The Washington Post by retweeting and commenting on an article from its right-wing newspaper rival The Washington Examiner that condemned a Post editorial attacking Trump.
The angry tweet comes as The Washington Post and the other mainstream media that the president loves to decry as “Fake News” report on the latest scandal involving the president lining his pockets by ensuring that the Pentagon unnecessarily spends a portion of its budget at Trump-owned properties.
The Washington Post’s @PhilipRucker (Mr. Off the Record) & @AshleyRParker, two nasty lightweight reporters, shouldn’t even be allowed on the grounds of the White House because their reporting is so DISGUSTING & FAKE. Also, add the appointment of MANY Federal Judges this Summer! https://t.co/7d33tzKxXq
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 7, 2019
Let’s start with The Examiner op-ed which Trump liked so much that he retweeted it again this morning after posting it yesterday, sans his own editorializing.
The opinion piece, written by the White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham and White House principal deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley, slams The Washington Post‘s coverage of the president, in particular, an article by the above mentioned Mr. Rucker and Ms. Parker entitled “Trump’s lost summer: Aides claim victory, but others see incompetence and intolerance.”
Trump’s press flacks attack the article — which details the many missteps that the president has made this summer but also includes the White House response of “a detailed, 26-point list of what officials characterized as key successes” — as opinion masquerading as fact, despite the clear delineation, evident in the article’s title, between the White House’s own self-congratulatory view of its performance and those of other Trump “advisers and outside allies” who are quoted by name, not as anonymous sources.
The retweeted Examiner op-ed goes on to throw a tantrum about supposed “media bias” and claim that “despite record-setting accomplishments in record-setting time, data shows the news coverage of Trump has been 92% negative.”
In actuality, the Trump administration is looking in the mirror that the press is holding up to its face with its coverage of the abuse of refugee asylum seekers, the farmers bankrupted by the president’s trade war and tariffs, obstruction of justice, embarrassing and alienating meetings with world leaders at the G7, and massive corruption.
Also, as Trump concludes his personal defamation of The Washington Post reporters, add the appointment of MANY Federal Judges this summer. While Trump may crow about this accomplishment, anyone outside of right-wing zealots views these appointments as a lingering stench that will continue the president’s negative influence on American society long after we rid ourselves of his presidency.
Faced with the reality of its own despicable performance, Trump and his cronies don’t like what they see and blame the mirror instead of their own failings which are so enormous that they could likely be seen by naked eyes of astronauts in the orbiting International Space Station.
Trump’s contempt for the First Amendment and the concept of a free press is obvious and made more dangerous by his attacking the two Washington Post reporters by name in his tweet, exposing them to potential physical harm by armed Trump supporters even more deranged than the president himself.
If one thinks this is an overly alarmist view of the danger these two journalists face, think back to the case of Cesar Sayoc, the Florida man who mailed pipe bombs to media outlets and Democratic congressional leaders out of his zeal for the Trump agenda.
Today’s tweet is a triple reminder of Trump’s venality, of his mental instability, and of why we need to remove him from office as soon as possible. #ImpeachNow
Follow Vinnie Longobardo on Twitter.
