Only a day or two after the mainstream media overreacted to President Trump’s “bleeding facelift” tweet against Mika Brzezinski, they fell helplessly into the cycle again when Trump tweeted out a video of him “beating up” CNN. The video, which was a stylized version of a clip familiar to almost anyone who uses the internet, showed Trump at WrestleMania from several years ago, putting the smackdown on WWE founder Vince McMahon. But in the video, McMahon’s face had been replaced by the CNN logo. Was it the most, ahem…cough cough…elitist sniff, presidential message ever sent? No, but it was funny, and there’s nothing wrong with a little bit of lighthearted humor every now and again, is there? Obviously, no one in the right mind thinks that Trump was actually threatening CNN with violence…
Oh wait, apparently everyone in the media thinks exactly that.
On ABC on Sunday, anchor Martha Raddatz suggested to Homeland Security Adviser Thomas Bossert that the tweeted video “seemed like a threat.”
Bossert immediately waved off her fake concern. “No one would perceive that as a threat,” he said. “I hope they don’t. I do think that he’s beaten up in a way on cable platforms that he has a right to respond to.”
Bossert said he was impressed with Trump’s ability to speak directly to the people without relying on news outlets like CNN to get his message out correctly.
“There’s a lot of cable new shows that reach directly into hundreds of thousands of viewers and they’re really not all very fair to the president,” Bossert said. “So I’m pretty proud of the president for developing a Twitter and a social media platform where he can talk directly to the American people.”
For their part, CNN chose to play the role of the martyr, whining about the president’s tweet in an official press release that laid it on thick.
“It is a sad day when the President of the United States encourages violence against reporters,” the network said in a statement. “Clearly, Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied when she said the President had never done so. Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, 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. We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his.”
CNN and the rest of Trump’s media critics could have easily used this opportunity to “rise above” the fight and take the video in the humorous manner with which it was intended. Instead, by treating it with the UTMOST seriousness, they just fed right into their own fake news folly. Really? Using this silly wrestling tweet to suggest that Trump is “encouraging violence against reporters”? THAT’S the problem. THAT’S why Americans are fed up with the media and their war on the president.
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