CNN's Stelter On Trump's Media Attacks: 'Who's Going To Speak Up?'
Don't count on his propagandists at Fox or the spineless Republicans in the Congress to keep him in check.
Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter read CNN's official response to Trump's attack against their network on Twitter this Sunday morning and he also asked when other media outlets or members of the Republican party are going to speak out against his behavior.
As Stelter noted, some in the media are coming to their defense, but don't count on his cheerleaders over on Fox to do anything but just that... cheer him on. All you need to do is go look at the lead story at their blog, Fox News Insider to find out what the response to their Dear Leader was from Republican Pravda.
Here's a screen shot of the top of the page at their site:
They love this stuff. And as long as his base loves it, Republicans and their leadership aren't going to raise a finger to keep Trump in check.
Here's Stelter's editorial where he read the statement via CNN:
STELTER: As President Trump's war with the media gets even more personal, the president is grappling with Senate Republicans who missed a self- imposed deadline on health care. He's preparing for a stare-down this week with Russian president Vladimir Putin. But on Twitter, he's wrestling with us.
Look at this video from his Twitter account this morning. This is a WWE Wrestlemania video from years ago when Trump used to show up at WWE events. You can see that the CNN logo has been superimposed onto the other fighter's face.
Now, this showed up on a Reddit message board days ago. Now, it's showing up on the president of the United States' own Twitter feed.
The early reaction in the last 90 minutes have ranged from: this is juvenile, ridiculous, idiotic, or wait, no, it's just funny. He's just having fun. Wait, no, it's actually scary, dangerous. We've heard a wide range of reactions to this. And we have a panel standing by.
But first, CNN's response. The strongest statement I've seen from CNN or any news outlet this year in response to the president's attacks.
Quote: It is a sad day when the president of the United States encourages violence against reporters. Cleary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied when she said the president had never done so. Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, dealing with North Korea and working on his health care bill, he is instead involved in juvenile behavior far below the dignity of his office.
The statement from CNN ends by saying: We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his.
And, look, this is day six of Trump's anti-media tweet storms. We've been covering this all week long. His offensive tweets about Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski took up days of news coverage and those came after days of attacks against CNN and "The New York Times" and "The Washington Post." Now, his target on Sunday is CNN again. Who knows which outlet will be next?
Who's going to speak up? Are other media outlets going to speak up? I think they will today. We've already seen solidarity from journalists on Twitter.
What about GOP leaders? What about Republican leaders?
I think we should be clear about the Trump strategy here. The president's strategy, let's think about this, he's trying to build up news outlets that promote him while trying to tear down outlets that dare to challenge him. He is promoting his friends in the media, talking with friendly interviewers who won't ask him tough questions while he's demeaning voices who criticize him.
Now, don't take my word for it. Take his. At a private fund-raiser this week, Trump asked the donors if he should sue CNN. And then he called CNN staffers, quote, horrible human beings.
And on Saturday, he continued his campaign against the broader media. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The fake media is trying to silence us. But we will not let them, because the people know the truth. The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House. But I'm president, and they're not.
(CHEERS)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
STELTER: Is this president trying to impersonate Hugo Chavez, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Vladimir Putin? Because this is exactly the kind of language that leaders use when they're trying to undermine the press.
Of course, the American press is much more free than reporters in places like Russia and Turkey and Venezuela. On this Independence Day weekend, that's something we should all be celebrating.
So, where's Paul Ryan? Where's Mitch McConnell? Are GOP leaders going to speak up about these attacks against the media?
Like I said, right now, it's CNN. Earlier, it was "The Washington Post" and "The New York Times". It's been other networks, it's been other outlets. This president continues to demean the media.
Are GOP leaders going to support him?
I want you to know, we reached out to the White House earlier this week to invite a spokesperson onto the program given all the president's media attacks. Unfortunately, they did not respond to our requests.