This is insane.
How long before Trump’s vendetta against the media culminates in violence?
Even in Europe for the G20 Summit, the president couldn’t resist taking a shot at the media.
Last week, Trump’s utter lack of maturity or decency was put on display, when he tweeted out a meme from a Reddit user that showed Trump attacking someone with the CNN logo over their face.
The outrage that followed was quickly surpassed by CNN apparently tracking down the creator of the meme and (maybe) threatening to reveal his actual identity.
That set off cries of condemnation for CNN’s efforts to intimidate the maker of a meme, and in fact, resulted in many more “Trump beats up CNN” – themed memes.
According to a story from the Washington Examiner, Andrew Kaczynski, the CNN reporter behind tracking down the Reddit user who made the meme, is receiving death threats from Trump supporters.
The Daily Beast reported that the parents and wife of Andrew Kaczynski, a CNN investigative reporter behind a story describing how the network tracked down the Reddit user who created the Trump wrestling GIF, has received around 50 harassing phone calls. Trump tweeted out that GIF over the July 4th weekend.
More intimidating messages have been sent to other members of the investigatory unit of which Kaczynski is a part, the K-File. The report notes the messages likely originate from Trump supporters.
“The only thing I worry about is somebody getting hurt,” a CNN insider told the Daily Beast. “These far-right trolls are really threatening people and coming after people. Somebody’s gonna do something stupid at some point.”
Coming just weeks after Rep. Steve Scalise’s shooting and calls for a cooling of hateful rhetoric, it’s inexcusable that the supposed leader of the free world has been so willing to incite his base this way.
In an interview Wednesday with the New York Times, CNN President Jeff Zucker defended recent attacks against CNN, and vowed to not be intimidated by Trump.
“He’s trying to bully us, and we’re not going to let him intimidate us,” he said. “You can’t lose your confidence and let that change the way you conduct yourselves.”
No, but protect yourselves.
We have a president who is actively working to silence media, and he doesn’t really seem capable of understand how his rhetoric might be dangerous.
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