While giving a speech to U.S. troops today, President Trump made a claim that is enraging journalists about the media.
Watch below:
Citing no evidence, Pres. Trump claims at address to troops that news outlets are not reporting terror attacks https://t.co/4KSzwmArQc pic.twitter.com/9Uf1gA8kjN
— CBS News (@CBSNews) February 6, 2017
Here’s how CBS reported it:
The president began talking about how “radical Islamic terrorists are determined to strike our homeland” as they did on 9/11, in the Boston bombings and in San Bernardino. He said it’s also happening “all over Europe” like in Paris and Nice.
“It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported. In many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons and you understand that,” Mr. Trump said.
Reporters were outraged:
Trump in Tampa speech claims that terror attacks "all over Europe" are so frequent that media no longer reports them. That's ludicrous.
— Carl Bildt (@carlbildt) February 6, 2017
Trump just said that the media is conspiring to hide terrorist attacks. They are not reporting them "4 their own reasons."
I am speechless.
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) February 6, 2017
Reporters die covering terrorists. They get kidnapped, they get beheaded. They are in war. And Trump has the GALL 2 say media hides attacks?
— Kurt Eichenwald (@kurteichenwald) February 6, 2017
Trump says media doesn't report terrorist attacks. Meanwhile he has not commented on Quebec City massacre of Muslims by white nationalist.
— Clara Jeffery (@ClaraJeffery) February 6, 2017
And Sean Spicer says they will provide a list!
On President Trump's assertion that the media doesn't want to report some terror attacks: “We’ll provide a list later,” Spicer says—per pool pic.twitter.com/QmlKpnhf3X
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 6, 2017
I do think that the media is reticent to report on such attacks, but as usual, Trump exaggerates to an absurd extreme. I don’t think there’s any evidence of the media hiding a terrorist attack from people, there’s just no way they can do that. But there are plenty of instances where media figures accidentally tip their hand and show how liberal they actually are. Unfortunately, Trump is going to make that position sound ridiculous by exaggerating it too much and letting news outlets slam him on it.