Toxic tweets turn D.C. stomachs
Trump’s own party urges him to stop poisoning political discourse
Once again, President Trump sent shockwaves through the political world with a few keystrokes from his Twitter account.
Trump often uses Twitter as a way to attack his political opponents and other critics. Thursday morning, he hurled insults at the hosts of MSNBC’s
Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough.
“I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore),” Trump tweeted.
He followed that with another burst: “Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho
Joe, came to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a facelift. I said no!”
The insults sent to Trump’s nearly 33 million followers — particularly the mention of female host Brzezinski’s “bleeding ” — prompted media organizations to loudly denounce the comments and triggered an outcry even from members of the president’s own party.
“Obviously, I don’t see that as an appropriate comment,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis. “What we’re trying to do around here is improve the tone, the civility of the debate. And this obviously doesn’t help do that.”
Sen. Lisa Murkowski was more succinct. “Stop it!” the Alaska Republican wrote on Twitter. “The presidential platform should be used for more than bringing people down.”
Other Republicans, such as Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Ben Sasse of Nebraska, said the epithets were unbecoming.
“Your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America,” Graham said.
As Sasse put it: “Please just stop. This isn’t normal, and it’s beneath the dignity of your office.”
Brzezinski may have drawn the president’s ire because of her comments Thursday morning. On Morning Joe, she said: “Let’s say someone came into NBC and took over NBC and started tweeting wildly about people’s appearances, bullying people, talking about people in the competition, lying every day, undermining his managers, throwing them under the ( bus) — that person would be thrown out. It’s just not normal behavior.”
Trump spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders defended the president’s tweets, saying he was simply fighting back against criticism.
“I think the president is pushing back against people who attack him day after day after day,” Sanders said. “Where’s the outrage on that?”
The graphic mention of Brzezinski’s face “bleeding ” was reminiscent of another Trump feud with another female media personality: Megyn Kelly.
In 2015, in the early days of Trump’s candidacy, he attacked Kelly, then a journalist for Fox News, after she questioned him about the language he used to describe women.
“She starts asking me all sorts of ridiculous questions, and you could see there was blood coming out of her eyes,” he said. “Blood coming out of her wherever.”
The president’s criticisms on Twitter have not been limited to women.
After the election, he called out a union leader on the social media platform, saying he had done a “terrible job representing workers.” Chuck Jones, president of United Steelworkers 1999, said the president’s tweets led to him receiving threats from Trump supporters.
Twitter, which bans “targeted abuse or harassment of others” on its network, declined to comment on individual accounts for privacy and security reasons.
Trump’s comments launched a day-long discussion about whether his tweets are cyberbullying, given that he is the president of the United States and more powerful than nearly everyone he interacts with.
“Donald J. Trump: CyberbullyIn-Chief,” Rep. Lois Frankel, DFla., wrote on Twitter.
Several journalists and commentators pointed out that first lady Melania Trump pledged to create an anti-cyberbullying campaign last year. That effort has yet to be launched in any official or public way.
Many of the president’s targets have some kind of power — Brzezinski is the co-host of a show that had its best-watched quarter this year — to fight back.
That didn’t quell the criticism that the president abuses the power of the presidential podium.
Trump has insisted time and time again that he isn’t a bully. The White House prefers another term.
Spokeswoman Sanders said, “The American people elected a fighter.”
“Please just stop. This isn’t normal, and it’s beneath the dignity of your office.” Sen. Ben Sasse, R-Neb.