The same weekend that President Trump failed to condemn white supremacists and neo-Nazis by name for their domestic terror attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, that left one dead and 19 injured, he released a video calling journalists “enemies.”
The video, posted on his personal website by his re-election campaign, says, “The president’s enemies don’t want him to succeed.” After shots of politicians such as Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), it shows a mosaic of journalists’ photos, including CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Dana Bash and Gloria Borger, ABC’s George Stephanopolis, and MSNBC’s Brian Williams, Rachel Maddow and Joe Scarborough.
After naming a list of alleged presidential accomplishments, the video showed the journalists’ images again and said, “Let President Trump do his job.”
April Ryan, of American Urban Radio Networks, who also appeared in the video, tweeted, “Sad day I am singled out as an enemy of the White House as this racial hate is going on just for asking real questions and speaking truth.”
Sad day I am singled out as an enemy of the White House as this racial hate is going on just for asking real questions and speaking truth. https://t.co/lFem4bzDKQ
— AprilDRyan (@AprilDRyan) August 13, 2017
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough tweeted, “Something about being called ‘the president’s enemy’; after Trump acts like white supremacists are his friend that takes the sting out of it.”
Something about being called “the president’s enemy” after Trump acts like white supremacists are his friend that takes the sting out of it. https://t.co/QV3mUkePQN
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) August 14, 2017
Trump had previously described the press as the “enemy of the American people.” On an almost-daily basis, he continues to claim that stories unfavorable to his administration are “fake news.”
This month, Trump launched a video series on his Facebook page that claimed to give “the real news.” Hosted by his daughter-in-law Lara Trump, the first edition covered stories such as the president donating his salary, a new Foxconn manufacturing plant in Wisconsin and economic growth. It did not mention events such as the week’s White House staffing turmoil, including the departure of chief of staff Reince Priebus and new communications director Anthony Scaramucci; the failure of the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare; and the president’s tweets announcing he would ban transgender people from serving in the military.
Watch the video below:
