Tonight Trump hammered ABC News reporter Jon Karl for what he called a “phony hurricane report” that he said was intended to demean and belittle him:
Such a phony hurricane report by lightweight reporter @jonkarl of @ABCWorldNews. I suggested yesterday at FEMA that, along with Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina, even Alabama could possibly come into play, which WAS true. They made a big deal about this…
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 2, 2019
….when in fact, under certain original scenarios, it was in fact correct that Alabama could have received some “hurt.” Always good to be prepared! But the Fake News is only interested in demeaning and belittling. Didn’t play my whole sentence or statement. Bad people!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 2, 2019
Below is the report that Trump is referring to from Jon Karl. I’ve got it cued up for you:
In the report Karl quotes Trump saying that he’s never even heard of a Category 5 hurricane, before pointing out that we’ve had ‘several’ since Trump has been president. And he’s not wrong. Irma, Maria, Michael and now Dorian were all Category 5 hurricanes.
But the part that Trump took issue with was his warning about Alabama, along with several other states. In the report Karl says Trump misstated the Dorian’s possible trajectory. Here’s Trump’s full comments from yesterday on this point:
My administration is coordinating closely with state and local authorities. Today, we’re joined on the phone by some great people that have been working very, very hard: Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida. Thank you, Ron. Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia. Brian, thank you very much. Governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina. Thank you, Henry. And Governor Roy Cooper of North Carolina. Thank you very much, Roy.
The federal government stands ready to assist their readiness, response, and recovery operations.
And, I will say, the states — and it may get a little piece of a great place: It’s called Alabama. And Alabama could even be in for at least some very strong winds and something more than that, it could be. This just came up, unfortunately. It’s the size of — the storm that we’re talking about. So, for Alabama, just please be careful also.
I ask everyone in Hurricane Dorian’s path to heed all warnings and evacuation orders from local authorities. It looks like they’re going to have to be giving them, unfortunately. And I wish you’d watch.
It is true that on Friday Alabama was considered to be in the overall path of the storm. However, all that changed by Saturday with news outlets reporting there would be no impacts on Alabama. I’m honestly not sure why Trump chose to mention Alabama, unless he was using outdated information, which I suppose is possible. But it doesn’t make the administration sound like they are on top of things.
After Karl pointed this out, he went on to attack Trump for playing golf yesterday instead of monitoring the storm. Honestly, that seems petty to me, especially since the storm was still out to sea yesterday.
I would agree with Trump overall though that the point of Karl’s segment to make him look bad, since all Karl did was highlight Trump’s mistakes and attacked him for playing golf while the storm was out to sea.
But at the same time, I can’t ignore the fact that Trump made mistakes in his comments and that he needs to do better to keep from giving people like Jon Karl ammunition to use against him.