READY TO RUMBLE
CNN rips Trump’s vid spoof
President Trump’s Twitter wrestling spoof of him pummeling CNN puts his unique signature on the historic antipathy between the media and commander in chief, political and media analysts said, in a spiraling battle that is serving both sides well.
“It’s almost like one needs the other — they are co-dependent,” GOP operative Patrick Griffin said. “The media needs to cover Trump, and you know what, the bottom line is the media helped create Donald Trump. I’m sure a lot of people in America, they may find it offensive, and a lot of them say, ‘This is Trump being Trump.’ That’s what this has come to. Trump can say and do almost anything. The people in this country who support this guy haven’t moved. ... Trump is trying to make his point with his people in a way he thinks they would most appreciate it.”
Yesterday’s tweet featured a doctored video of Trump pouncing on WWE honcho Vince McMahon at a pro wrestling event in 2007, only with the CNN logo superimposed on McMahon’s head as Trump fired punches at it. “#FraudNewsCNN #FNN,” The video was apparently lifted from an internet forum for Trump supporters.
The president followed up hours later with: “The dishonest media will NEVER keep us from accomplishing our objectives on behalf of our GREAT AMERICAN PEOPLE!”
On Saturday, Trump — slammed by critics as behaving in an unpresidential fashion — labeled his social media tact “MODERN DAY PRESIDENTIAL.”
Yesterday’s digital body slam, coming days after Trump took direct aim at MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, drew a haughty response from CNN, which saw the video as a call to violence.
“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, 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. We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his.”
Some said the back-andforth was only different in tone but not substance to former President Barack Obama’s yearslong rancor with Fox News or President George W. Bush’s beef with Dan Rather. David Gerzof Richard, a Boston marketing exec and Emerson College communications professor, said any outlet is fair game in Trump’s world view.
“With Obama and Fox, that was one network ... everybody knew where everybody stood,” Richard said. “That’s not the case here. Donald Trump has gone after Fox reporters. It doesn’t seem to matter what the politics of the news organization is, it just matters if Donald Trump likes or dislikes what that news happens to be reporting on that day, and that’s what it is. This, I hate to say, is the new normal.”