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 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.
President Trump told reporters in the Oval Office on Wednesday afternoon that he found it “frankly disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write.”
Asked later whether he believed there “should be limits on what the press should write” — which would likely conflict with the First Amendment, which guarantees both free expression and a free press — Trump said, “No. The press should speak more honestly.”
Still, his comment raised eyebrows, especially because it was the latest remark in a string of heightened attacks Trump has leveled against the press in recent days.
Just Wednesday morning, Trump had tweeted that media companies which report critically on him should be punished by having their television station licenses revoked.
In a tweet, the president decried the supposed “fake news coming out of NBC and the Networks.” He asked, “At what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!”
Trump seems to have been furious over an NBC News report that said he wanted a tenfold increase in the U.S.’ nuclear arsenal. Earlier in the morning he claimed the story was “pure fiction” and “made up to demean.”
Trump’s veiled threat may contribute to the increasingly chilly atmosphere journalists in the U.S. are working under during his administration. But his threat is essentially toothless.
First of all, there is no single license for NBC or any other national television network. Licenses are granted to individual local stations — and NBC doesn’t even own most of the stations that broadcast its content across the country. And it is extremely unusual for any station’s license to be taken away for any reason, much less for a political vendetta.
The licenses for local television stations are subject to review by the Federal Communications Commission every eight years.
It would not be possible for Trump or his allies to challenge all of the licenses held by NBC in one fell swoop. Individuals who reside in the areas the local channel airs would have to submit complaints to the FCC.
There is precedent for political allies of a president challenging local licenses. It happened under Richard Nixon in the 1970s, when a friend of Nixon’s tried to take over a license held by the Washington Post. Nixon’s ally did not succeed in his bid.
Short of gross misconduct on the part of a challenged station, it’s unlikely any other such attempt now would be successful either.
“Whatever other legal problems [NBC parent] Comcast may have, this is not one of them,” Andrew Jay Schwartzman, an attorney who works at the Georgetown University Law Center and specializes in telecommunications law, told CNN. “Comcast knows full well that the FCC will never, ever, deny its license renewal applications.”
The FCC is technically an independent body, not subject to the president’s orders. FCC Chairman Ajit Pai — who is a Republican appointed to his current post by Trump — said in March that his job is not to be a “political actor.”
“It is simply to be somebody at the FCC who, as I said, is administering the laws of the United States,” Pai said. “I’m simply not going to wade into that kind of political debate.”
Neither Pai nor an FCC spokesperson immediately responded to requests for comment about Trump’s tweet. But former FCC officials were quick to skewer the president.
“To me it’s just incomprehensible that because of the content of NBC News that somehow their license would be at risk,” Alfred Sykes, a Republican who served as chairman of the FCC under George H.W. Bush, told The Wrap.
“This madcap threat, if pursued, would be blatant and unacceptable intervention in the decisions of an independent agency,” echoed Michael Copps, a Democrat who served as FCC commissioner under both George W. Bush and Barack Obama, in a statement to HuffPost. “The law does not countenance such interference. President Trump might be happier as emperor, but I think the American people would strip him of his clothes on this issued.
A spokesperson for NBC declined to comment.
Trump has increased his attacks on the media in the past week. Last week, he urged the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate news outlets for publishing supposed “fake” stories. Over the weekend, he hinted it was perhaps time for a law that would require broadcasters to give equal time to both sides of the political debate when discussing public policy.
“At what point are we going to silence media critical of the President?” tweeted Rep. Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. “When we cease to have a First Amendment and a democratic government.”
President Donald Trump wanted to increase the U.S. nuclear arsenal by nearly 10 times, NBC News reported Wednesday.
The president brought up his desire for a buildup during a meeting with top national security advisors in July, according to the report, which cited three officials at the gathering. Advisors told Trump about treaties that would be endangered and other hurdles preventing such a move. There is no planned expansion of nuclear weapons, NBC reported.
After the meeting ended, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was heard calling Trump a “moron.” That comment reportedly sparked more tensions between Tillerson and Trump following an NBC News report last week. Tillerson denied the piece of the report that said he was close to resigning this summer, but did not refute calling the president a “moron.”
The report on the July meeting comes as the U.S. pushes for the denuclearization of North Korea.
Trump has made public statements before about boosting the U.S. nuclear arsenal. In December, he tweeted that the “United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.”
The White House and Pentagon could not immediately be reached for comment.
In a Wednesday morning tweet, the president claimed “fake” NBC “made up” the story. He called it “pure fiction, made up to demean.”
Fake @NBCNews made up a story that I wanted a "tenfold" increase in our U.S. nuclear arsenal. Pure fiction, made up to demean. NBC = CNN!
In a second tweet, he suggested that the NBC coverage is “bad” for the country. He asked: “At what point is it appropriate to challenge their License?”
With all of the Fake News coming out of NBC and the Networks, at what point is it appropriate to challenge their License? Bad for country!
Trump is apparently referencing the licenses granted to individual television stations by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC does not license news originations or television networks.
NBC Universal, through its television stations division, owns 28 NBC and Telemundo local television stations.
The licensing of television stations dates back to the early days of radio, when the government set regulations based on the idea that the spectrum belonged to the public. Radio and television stations are required to renew their licenses periodically, and those licenses can be revoked if the station’s owner violates FCC regulations or other laws.
But as recently as December, the commission made clear that individual broadcasters have “broad discretion” in what they choose to air.
“The Commission will not take adverse action on a license renewal application based upon the subjective determination of a listener or group of listeners that the station has broadcast purportedly inappropriate programming,” the FCC commissioners wrote in a recent decision challenging a local radio station license.
