A regular Wednesday feature that takes a summary look at hot news issues surrounding Trump during the past week
The regular three-part synopsis format of the Trump Scorecard is on vacation for the summer or until the political news cycle favors a hasty return . In it’s place is a single stream of consciousness regarding Trump news.
For this weeks Trump report, I’ll highlight an episode of the news cycle during this past week that was as much or more about the media, CNN to be exact. Over the past year, we’ve had many days where we were slapped up a-side the head with some new unprecedented break with Presidential expectation. Then CNN says, ‘hold my beer’.
Last week, Trump tweeted a wrestling gif meme, disparaging of CNN, produced by a presumable young adult that hangs out on ‘Reddit’. All of Washington was a-flutter for days. The news became Exhibit A of a Maryland congressman’s effort to set up a psycho-committee to try and run Trump out of office on medical grounds. A few days went by and the news died down as we enjoyed the holidays.
This morning we learned that CNN pursued the Mr. young-Redditor and essentially threatened blackmail. By the end of the day, it was major media headline news. The best coverage I’ll seen was found in an Intercept article by Glenn Greenwald.
The media implications are obviously huge and will be watched closely but what does this mean for Trump now? The great fear of the blue states has been to worry of a media/press that is diminished and controlled by an overbearing Trump. CNN has just given us reason to fear the opposite, a vocal free-speech populace threatened by a vindictive overbearing press. Today, Trump’s war with the media has just received the single most significant validation to date, thanks to CNN.
Commentary by Lee Jones