Trump Issues Fiery Response to Coordinated Attack from 300 Newspapers
On a day when more than 300 newspapers published editorials attacking President Donald Trump’s constant friction with the nation’s news media, Trump made it clear he wasn’t backing down.
In a Twitter post published early Thursday, just as newspaper print editions were hitting the streets in the east, Trump denounced his worst critics in the media as tools of the Democrat Party.
“THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA IS THE OPPOSITION PARTY. It is very bad for our Great Country….BUT WE ARE WINNING!,” Trump wrote in the tweet.
THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA IS THE OPPOSITION PARTY. It is very bad for our Great Country….BUT WE ARE WINNING!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 16, 2018
Trump critics will read that wording as a blanket attack on the nation’s press. But as Trump made clear in follow up tweets, he was not taking on the First Amendment.
He has been in a constant struggle – from even before he won the election – with a segment of the media that could not abide the thought of Hillary Clinton losing in 2016.
His perennial targets are the likes of CNN and MSNBC, of course, but on Thursday, Trump singled out The Boston Globe, the lead organizer of Thursday’s mass editorial stance, for his criticism.
“The Boston Globe, which was sold to the the Failing New York Times for 1.3 BILLION DOLLARS (plus 800 million dollars in losses & investment), or 2.1 BILLION DOLLARS, was then sold by the Times for 1 DOLLAR,” Trump wrote. “Now the Globe is in COLLUSION with other papers on free press. PROVE IT!
The Boston Globe, which was sold to the the Failing New York Times for 1.3 BILLION DOLLARS (plus 800 million dollars in losses & investment), or 2.1 BILLION DOLLARS, was then sold by the Times for 1 DOLLAR. Now the Globe is in COLLUSION with other papers on free press. PROVE IT!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 16, 2018
Then he got to the real heart of the matter, which is that what Trump critics call a “free press” today is little more than an attack machine for the Democrat Party — what he calls “fake news.” Anyone who remembers the mainstream media’s coverage of the Obama administration and can compare it to the constant warfare of Trump’s time in office can see his point.
“There is nothing that I would want more for our Country than true FREEDOM OF THE PRESS,” he wrote. “The fact is that the Press is FREE to write and say anything it wants, but much of what it says is FAKE NEWS, pushing a political agenda or just plain trying to hurt people. HONESTY WINS! “
There is nothing that I would want more for our Country than true FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. The fact is that the Press is FREE to write and say anything it wants, but much of what it says is FAKE NEWS, pushing a political agenda or just plain trying to hurt people. HONESTY WINS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 16, 2018
Naturally, editors of the newspapers that took part in Thursday’s mass denunciation of the Trump White House see it differently. There were more than 300 newspapers involved, according to CNBC.
In its editorial, published under the headline “A Free Press Needs You,” The New York Times acknowledged that reporters and editors can make mistakes, but insisted that Trump’s words pose the real danger:
“But insisting that truths you don’t like are ‘fake news’ is dangerous to the lifeblood of democracy. And calling journalists the “enemy of the people” is dangerous, period.”
Thursday’s editorial broadside on a national scale, and Trump’s fiery response, signal this conflict has no end in sight.
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