British Prime Minister's Comment Makes CNN's Attack on Trump Backfire
This is one Twitter post that isn’t making CNN look good.
As word spread Tuesday that a car had struck and wounded several pedestrians in London before slamming into a security banner protecting Britain’s Parliament, one of the Atlanta-based CNN’s first Twitter posts on the incident was a clear slam on President Donald Trump for declaring the incident a “terrorist attack” in a way that CNN editors must have thought was premature.
President Donald Trump seizes on what he calls a "terrorist attack" in London, even though the incident is still in the early stages of investigation https://t.co/z2qEYHryeF pic.twitter.com/AatPX4wZsh
— CNN Politics (@CNNPolitics) August 14, 2018
The implication was that Trump was flying off the handle. The sad reality, as British Prime Minister Theresa May made clear in a statement, is that Trump was deadly accurate:
London had been attacked again, right in the heart of its democracy.
According to the U.K. Mirror, May’s statement recalled the attack in March 2017, when an Islamist terrorist killed four outside Westminster before being shot to death by police. (CNN should know about that attack. It had a report on it at the time.)
“Today’s suspected attack outside of the Houses of Parliament is shocking,” May said.
“For the second time in as many years, the home of our democracy, which is a potent symbol of our precious values of tolerance and freedom, has witnessed terrible scenes just yards from its door.”
After sending good wishes to the victims and praising first responders who were on the scene of Tuesday’s attack, May got to the heart of the matter.
“The threat to the United Kingdom from terrorism remains severe,” she said. “The twisted aim of the extremists is to use violence and terror to divide us. They will never succeed.”
In his Twitter post, Trump put the situation more bluntly. “Another terrorist attack in London…,” he wrote. “These animals are crazy and must be dealt with through toughness and strength! “
Another terrorist attack in London…These animals are crazy and must be dealt with through toughness and strength!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 14, 2018
The wording is a lot tougher, but the underlying message isn’t much different from May’s: What happened in London was a terrorist attack. Terrorist attacks will be defeated if countries like the United States and Great Britain remain strong and determined.
Twitter users responding to CNN’s post had a pretty tough message, too.
CNN is broke……. Confirmed by Met police Theresa May and Counter terrorism unit and your first thought is Trump's tweets…..sort yourselves out.
— The Wanderer (@JustWeeMary) August 14, 2018
https://twitter.com/MarkDwy56446714/status/1029386309012471808
https://twitter.com/TDifunto/status/1029416391479185408
For CNN, any opportunity to pound Trump seems like it’s too much to resist.
In this case, though, when the network implicitly accused Trump of jumping the gun, the prime minister of Britain ended up proving him right.
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