President Donald Trump took time out this morning from “taking care of” North Korea’s Tuesday intercontinental ballistic missile launch, as he promised, cutting taxes for corporations, and killing Obamacare to tweet about NBC News’ bombshell announcement it had fired longtime Today show anchor Matt Lauer.
“Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for ‘inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace,” tweeted Trump, who is now questioning the authenticity of NBCUniversal’s Access Hollywood tape in which he got caught on a hot mic boasting he was so famous he could grab women “by the p*ssy,” and for which he went on national television to acknowledge and apologize for. Trump, as a candidate, also vowed to sue the dozen women who came forward saying he sexually harassed and/or assaulted them.
In his morning tweet, the President of the United States said executives at NBC and at parent Comcast should be fired for “putting out so much Fake News, adding “check out Andy Lack’s past!”
A couple hours later, Trump appeared to have remembered MSNBC is an operation of NBC News, and tweeted again, to ask if, now that Lauer is gone, the news operation will cancel “low rated Joe Scarborough” and fire MSNBC chief Phil Griffin.
CNN already has said it will not attend the White House Christmas Party on Friday, to which the press traditionally is invited, because it would be inappropriate for the cable news network to be the guest of a man who has so ferociously attacked the First Amendment and CNN individually. We will keep you posted as to whether NBC News follows suit.
Wow, Matt Lauer was just fired from NBC for “inappropriate sexual behavior in the workplace.” But when will the top executives at NBC & Comcast be fired for putting out so much Fake News. Check out Andy Lack’s past!
So now that Matt Lauer is gone when will the Fake News practitioners at NBC be terminating the contract of Phil Griffin? And will they terminate low ratings Joe Scarborough based on the “unsolved mystery” that took place in Florida years ago? Investigate!
U.S. President Donald Trump urged a boycott of CNN on Wednesday, ramping up his fight against the television network as his administration fights AT&T Inc’s deal to buy CNN’s owner Time Warner Inc.
Trump has criticized the proposed deal, which the Justice Department has sued to stop. Legal experts have said the president’s attacks on CNN could hobble his administration’s case.
The president, who regularly assails mainstream media, has long criticized CNN, calling the network “fake news” and saying he no longer watches it, while lauding rival Fox News. His call for a boycott appeared to be a step up in his attacks.
“Great, and we should boycott Fake News CNN. Dealing with them is a total waste of time!,” Trump wrote in a Twitter post.
Trump was responding to a post by his spokeswoman Sarah Sanders, who in her own post on Tuesday night praised reports that CNN would not attend an annual holiday party held at the White House for news media.
It was not immediately clear if Trump in his post was calling for a wider boycott against CNN or one by White House staff. Representatives for the White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Representatives for CNN also did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s tweet on Wednesday. A CNN spokesperson told Politico that it would not attend the party “in light of the President’s continued attacks on freedom of the press and CNN” but would send a reporting crew to cover the event, Politico reported on Tuesday.
The network and its journalists have repeatedly defended CNN’s work against previous presidential attacks.
The Department of Justice’s challenge is unusual move given that pay TV and wireless company AT&T does not directly compete with TV show maker Time Warner. The department has said the lawsuit is a law enforcement decision, not a political one.
President Trump took a shot at the news media on Monday ahead of a busy week that could help determine the fate of his agenda.
“We should have a contest as to which of the Networks, plus CNN and not including Fox, is the most dishonest, corrupt and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite President (me),” Trump tweeted. “They are all bad. Winner to receive the FAKE NEWS TROPHY!”
We should have a contest as to which of the Networks, plus CNN and not including Fox, is the most dishonest, corrupt and/or distorted in its political coverage of your favorite President (me). They are all bad. Winner to receive the FAKE NEWS TROPHY!
Trump also mocked NBC’s “Morning Joe” for airing a pre-taped segment the day after Thanksgiving.
“The good news is that their ratings are terrible, nobody cares!” he wrote.
The president’s messages come one day after he returned from South Florida, where he spent Thanksgiving with his family.
Trump made five trips to his golf courses and took repeated jabs at the media on Twitter over the holiday weekend.
His latest shots come just hours before he is set to meet with members of the Senate Finance Committee to discuss their push to pass a major tax-reform bill.
Senators are hoping to approve the legislation in the coming days in an effort to send a finished product to Trump’s desk before Christmas. But some Republicans in the upper chamber are not yet satisfied with the bill.
Congress must also race to pass a funding bill before Dec. 8 in order to avoid a government shutdown.
President Donald Trump shared an article about the website magapill.com showcasing his “accomplishment list” — though, aside from including a faulty link, the Twitter account associated with the site frequently posted content that was antisemitic or conspiratorial in nature.
“Wow, even I didn’t realize we did so much. Wish the Fake News would report! Thank you,” tweeted the president — promoting an article from a site that believes Seth Rich was “murdered” by Hillary Clinton and banking is corrupted by “certain bloodlines.”
Wow, even I didn’t realize we did so much. Wish the Fake News would report! Thank you. https://t.co/ApVbu2b0Jd
The front page of the website is titled “President Donald Trump’s Accomplishment List.” This page touts articles — in a Drudge Report style format — that supposedly reflect the president’s successes on the economy, crime, and business.
However, things get significantly stranger and disturbing when examining MAGAPill’s Twitter account, as the site obsesses over conspiracy theories — including the idea that Luciferianism, in part, controls the world, along with George Soros and the Vatican.
In the same wild flow chart, the account shares the theory that “banking families” — a seeming reference to the Jewish community — control all of the world’s financial institutions for their gain. “Banking families, Certain bloodline families have dominated global financial institutions, including: BIS, FED, IMF, World Bank, Wall Street,” states the chart.
Ironically, Trump’s tweet praising the work of MAGAPill came just after a post in which he attacked CNN as “fake news.”
President Donald Trump on Saturday blasted CNN, calling it a source of “fake” news and comparing it unfavorably to its competitor Fox News.
“@FoxNews is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly,” he said on Twitter. “The outside world does not see the truth from them!”
.@FoxNews is MUCH more important in the United States than CNN, but outside of the U.S., CNN International is still a major source of (Fake) news, and they represent our Nation to the WORLD very poorly. The outside world does not see the truth from them!
CNN’s communications team fired back minutes later, tweeting, “It’s not CNN’s job to represent the U.S to the world. That’s yours. Our job is to report the news. #FactsFirst.”
It's not CNN's job to represent the U.S to the world. That's yours. Our job is to report the news. #FactsFirst 🍎
Trump’s remarks come at a significant time for the media outlet, whose parent company Time Warner is merging with AT&T in an $85 billion deal. The Department of Justice has sued to block the merger, and legal experts have speculated that Trump’s previous comments about CNN may be brought up during the litigation.
CNN is a frequent target of Trump’s ire, and he has labeled the network “fake news,” “dishonest,” “disgusting” and “ratings challenged” in the last several months alone.
Trump’s Saturday tweet also marked the second time in as many days that Trump lashed out at a major media outlet on Twitter. On Friday, he went after TIME Magazine, claiming he “took a pass” at being named its “Person of the Year.”
“Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named ‘Man (Person) of the Year,’ like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot,” Trump tweeted. “I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!”
The magazine shot down at Trump’s claim shortly afterward, tweeting that “the President is incorrect about how we choose Person of the Year. TIME does not comment on our choice until publication, which is December 6.”
What Donald Trump did today was give dictators around the globe validation on their own attacks on a free and open press.
No, really. This is what dictators do.
While almost every dictator from Mao Zedong, to Joseph Stalin, to Adolf Hitler has branded some part of the population as an enemy of the people, its specific application to the free press has more recent examples.
In September 2014 the head of the military junta that rules Myanmar said the media was constantly: “condemning and providing false information again, with some truths omitted, some issues exaggerated, and some news reported without scrutiny.”
In 2007, Hugo Chavez shut down the RCTV and then made a televised address, on all channels, in which he branded the media group Globovision his next ‘enemy of the state.
In 1997 Russian state media named Noyaya Gazeta-Mir Ludei (The New Newspaper-World of People), a small 15-member of staff paper that scrutinised the actions of the regional government, was called ‘unpatriotic’ and ‘enemy of the state’.
In a Friday afternoon tweet, President Donald Trump claimed that in 2016 after winning the U.S. presidency he turned down being named “Man of the Year.”
“Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named ‘Man (Person) of the Year,’ like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot,” Trump tweeted. “I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!”
Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year, but I would have to agree to an interview and a major photo shoot. I said probably is no good and took a pass. Thanks anyway!
In 2015, Trump seemed to play a game of chicken with TIME, saying he knew they’d never pick him.
“I told you @TIME Magazine would never pick me as person of the year despite being the big favorite They picked person who is ruining Germany,” Trump tweeted.
I told you @TIME Magazine would never pick me as person of the year despite being the big favorite They picked person who is ruining Germany
TIME could end up being purchased by Charles and David Koch, conservative billionaires who are looking into purchasing the parent company, Meredith Corp. The media empire publishes Family Circle and Better Homes and Gardens among other titles. They are rumored to have approached Time Inc. about a possible deal worth more than $500 million, the Los Angeles Times reported.
TIME disputed those remarks, however, writing on its own Twitter account, “The President is incorrect about how we choose Person of the Year. TIME does not comment on our choice until publication, which is December 6.”
The President is incorrect about how we choose Person of the Year. TIME does not comment on our choice until publication, which is December 6.
President Donald Trump wrote online Wednesday that he was “forced” to watch CNN during his recent trip to Asia, refreshing his animus towards the network he has bemoaned for nearly his entire political career.
“While in the Philippines I was forced to watch @CNN, which I have not done in months, and again realized how bad, and FAKE, it is. Loser!” Trump wrote on Twitter Wednesday morning, one of a flurry of posts from the president that appeared online before 6 a.m.
Trump has roundly critiqued the news media as a whole throughout his presidency, but he has focused many of his attacks on CNN, which he claims covers him unfairly and is biased against him.
While Trump eagerly slammed CNN, he also directed his followers to tune in on Wednesday to Fox News’s “Fox & Friends,” the morning show where he is given consistently fawning coverage. Trump predicted the show, which had not yet come on the air, would feature positive coverage from his recently concluded five-nation tour of Asia.
“.@foxandfriends will be showing much of our successful trip to Asia, and the friendships & benefits that will endure for years to come!” the president wrote.
After President Trump boasted of his “great relationship” with Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte during a meeting in Manila Monday, American reporters pressed Trump on whether he brought up human rights issues.
“Whoa, whoa,” Duterte said, cutting off the journalists. “This is not a press statement. This is the bilateral meeting.”
Then, Duterte told reporters: “With you around, guys, you are the spies.”
Trump laughed, according to a transcript of the conversation.
“You are,” Duterte repeated.
Hearing the Philippine president once again demonize journalists — and seeing Trump chuckle in response — struck a nerve among journalists and activists in the Philippines and beyond.
The Philippines ranks as the fifth most dangerous country for journalists, according to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists. At least 177 Filipino media workers have been killed since 1986. In the past decade, 42 journalists have been killed with total impunity, the report said, and at least four journalists have been killed in the time since Duterte took office in June 2016.
Duterte came under fire last year for appearing to defend the killing of journalists, insisting that many slain journalists had been corrupt and had “done something” to justify being killed.
“Just because you’re a journalist you are not exempted from assassination if you’re a son of a bitch,” Rodrigo Duterte, then president-elect, said in May of last year, Agence France-Presse reported.
He suggested many of the killings were done in retaliation for journalists accepting bribes or criticizing people. He also called one recently slain journalist “rotten,” the Associated Press reported.
The comments spurred widespread condemnation from journalists and activists worldwide. The Committee to Protect Journalists said his remarks threatened to turn the Philippines into a “killing field for journalists.”
Duterte himself has been accused of ordering the assassination of a journalist. In February, a former Philippine policeman, Arturo Lascanas, acknowledged his role in the 2003 killing of radio journalist Juan “Jun” Pala.
He said the assassination was ordered and paid for by Duterte, then mayor of Davao City, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists and local news reports. The former policeman said Duterte ordered a “death squad” to carry out extrajudicial killings, which Duterte has repeatedly denied, Reuters reported.
Duterte’s administration has pledged to investigate and solve the murders of journalists. In October of last year, he formed a Presidential Task Force on Media Security designed to speed up investigations and prosecutions of media killings. But so far, there have been no convictions, and “little evidence that the task force has actively pursued attacks on journalists,” according to Human Rights Watch.
In a span of two days in August, two radio journalists were shot dead. Rudy Alicaway, a 46-year-old radio host, was fatally shot on his way home from work in the southern province of Zamboanga del Sur. Two gunmen on a motorcycle shot him, before getting off the vehicle and shooting him again as he tried to flee, ensuring his death, according to the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines.
The following day, a 60-year-old local columnist and radio reporter, Leodoro Diaz, was fatally shot on his way home in Sultan Kudarat province. Earlier that day, he told his colleagues he planned to publish a report on illegal drugs, according to Human Rights Watch. Authorities have not determined a motive for the killing of either Alicaway or Diaz.
On Aug. 10, three days after Diaz’s death, an assailant shot 65-year-old columnist Crisenciano Ibon in Batangas City. Ibon survived the shooting, which police suspect may have been ordered by operators of illegal gambling. Ibon’s recent columns had shed a negative light on the industry, according to the Philippine Star.
The single deadliest attack on journalists anywhere in the world took place in the Philippines. The 2009 Maguindanao massacre left 30 local journalists and two media workers dead, along with 26 other civilians.
A convoy of family members and supporters had been accompanying a local vice mayor on the island of Mindanao to register his candidacy for upcoming gubernatorial elections, according to a lengthy report in Human Rights Watch called “They Own the People.”
Around 30 members of the news media went along to cover the event. As the group drove down the highway, about 200 armed men forced them out of their vehicles and summarily executed them all, burying them at the site.
Eight years later, not a single person has been convicted in connection with the mass killing. Three suspects were acquitted in July because of lack of evidence, the Philippine Star reported.
“The fact that no one has yet been convicted nearly eight years after the massacre underscores the fact impunity reigns in this country,” the National Union of Journalists of the Philippines said in a statement.
“Impunity exists to this day under the Rodrigo Duterte government, which is not doing any better than his predecessors,” the union continued. “In fact, he himself justified the killings of journalists.”
“Fake news” in the Philippines — in the form of dubious and counterfeit online news sites — has built support for Duterte, Miguel Syjuco, a Filipino professor at NYU Abu Dhabi, wrote in the New York Times. These sites have featured false endorsements of Duterte from leaders such as Pope Francis and Angela Merkel, and celebrities including Angelina Jolie and Dwayne Johnson.
During the presidential election, Duterte’s social media team paid hundreds of prominent online commentators to post a barrage of pro-Duterte comments on social media and bash critics. As the New Republic reported, online trolls with fake social media accounts can earn up to $2,000 a month to post pro-Duterte propaganda on the Web.
The messages seemed to work — the president maintained approval ratings above 60 percent until last month, when his net satisfaction rating fell to 48, classified as “good,” the Wall Street Journal reported.
The drop in ratings comes as the president continues to wage a bloody drug war that has claimed thousands of lives in extrajudicial killings by police or hit men.
According to the International Press Institute, Duterte’s assaults on the news media seem to be rubbing off on his supporters. Journalists who are critical of Duterte’s policies or write about issues such as drug trafficking or corruption face defamation suits and online backlash, IPI reported.
On Monday, journalists and human rights activists on social media were quick to point out that accusing journalists of being spies is no joke in the Philippines — or anywhere, for that matter. Some criticized Trump for laughing at Duterte’s comment, while others said they weren’t all that surprised.
Barely any mention of Duterte’s gross human rights abuses and then Trump let Duterte steamroll American journalists? I’d say I am shocked, but Trump’s embrace of dictators and animosity towards the press isn’t new. https://t.co/7EXg0stvhX
I’ve had too many friends run out of countries or worse to find this even slightly amusing. And it’s usually the spy agencies of authoritarians who harass and torture journalists. So, yeah. Hilarious.
My dad was a journalist, not a spy, but after he was kidnapped, he was repeatedly tortured while his captors tried to get him to admit he was. Hilarious. https://t.co/CJ2H7qTC7j
Trump has frequently lashed out at the news media, which he has called “the enemy of the American People.” He wrote on Twitter last month that NBC News should be punished by regulators after the organization published a report that he did not like.
He suggested that networks that report “fake news” should be stripped of their licenses. First Amendment advocates condemned his comments as an attack on the Constitution.
“It’s frankly disgusting the way the press is able to write whatever they want to write,” Trump said. “And people should look into it.”
In August, Zeid Raad al-Hussein, the United Nations’ human rights chief, said that freedom of the press is “under attack from the president.”
“To call these news organizations ‘fake’ does tremendous damage,” he said. “I have to ask the question: Is this not an incitement for others to attack journalists?”
President Donald Trump insulted the parents of children dressed in Halloween costumes during an Oval Office event.
“I can not believe the media produced such beautiful children,” Trump said of the photo-op when young kids of White House journalists visit in costume.
The comments came the same week Trump claimed he is not uncivil because he went to an Ivy League school.
“Do you know they are?” Trump asked as he pointed to the reporters against the sounds of motor-driven cameras clicking away.
“They’re the friendly media, that’s the press,” Trump told the children, one of whom started to cry.
“Are you going to grow up to be like your parents?” Trump asked one young girl. “Hmmmmm? Don’t answer, that can only get me in trouble, that question.”
“Nah, you have wonderful parents, right?” Trump reassured.
As President Trump began to hand out souvenirs, he again returned to his fixation on the media.
President Trump vouched for his own character Wednesday by citing his diploma from the University of Pennsylvania, claiming it proves he is not as bawdy as the media portrays him.
“I think the press makes me more uncivil than I am,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before boarding Marine One for a trip to Texas. “You know, people don’t understand. I went to an Ivy League college. I was a nice student. I did very well. I’m a very intelligent person. You know, the fact is I think — I really believe — I think the press creates a different image of Donald Trump than the real person.”
Note that Trump did not say he is civil; he said the media depicts him as more uncivil than he actually is. He did not describe himself as a kind person or a polite person; he described himself as an intelligent person.
Trump is certainly smart enough to know what he was doing — deflecting a question about one personality trait by addressing another.
What’s striking about the president’s claim that “the press creates a different image of Donald Trump than the real person” is that Trump prides himself on shaping his own image through social media. And it is on Twitter — where there is no media filter — that Trump often appears to be at his most uncivil.
Trump’s remarks assume that more-educated people are also gracious people, which is, of course, not always the case. Trump voters — 69 percent of whom do not have degrees from any colleges, never mind Ivy League institutions, according to the American National Election Study — surely would disagree with the president’s logic.
The surprising thing about Trump’s comments is not that he cast blame on the media or employed a straw-man argument but that he betrayed a mind-set that is anathema to so many of his supporters. If, as Trump said, “people don’t understand” that he graduated from Penn, it is because as a politician he has worked hard to cast himself not as an elitist but as an everyman. The president praises himself regularly but seldom talks about his educational background.
Regaling voters with the story of how he, a millionaire’s son, arrived on Penn’s stately campus in a flashy convertible in 1966 somehow never made it into Trump’s stump speech.
Put on the spot Wednesday, however, Trump reached for a credential that he considers impressive. And it had little to do with civility.
Has Donald Trump met Donald Trump? Has he seen his speeches where he wished he could physically assault his protesters and called Colin Kaepernick a “son of a bitch“?
Has he seen his tweets where there is no press interactions, like where he attacked Gold Star parents, lied about his predecessor wiretapping him, and slandered the mayor of London immediately after a terror attack.
