Jake Tapper thread: Trump's attack on Woodward and the media

[Nevilledog]

Link to tweet

Unrolled thread here:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1304027369481605124.html

1/Folks are noting “there’s always a tweet” re the below but backstory is illustrative.

On Feb 22, 2013, the WaPo published a @realBobWoodward oped about the “$85 billion in ugly and largely irrational federal spending cuts set by law to begin Friday.”

washingtonpost.com/opinions/bob-w…

2/ Woodward said in 2013 that Obama’s desire to replace the automatic spending cuts (called the “sequester”) with a new package that helped reduce the deficit via tax increases as well as spending cuts was “moving the goal posts.”

(It was.)

3/ Concluded Woodward: Obama’s “call for a balanced approach is reasonable, and he makes a strong case that those in the top income brackets could and should pay more. But that was not the deal he made.”

4/ So what of an “attack” on Woodward?

Wrote @kathleenparker: “Before his piece was published, Woodward called the White House to tell officials it was coming. A shouting match ensued between Woodward and Gene Sperling, Obama’s economic adviser, followed by an e-mail...

5/ “... in which Sperling said that Woodward ‘will regret staking out that claim.’ Though the tone was conciliatory and Sperling apologized for raising his voice, the message nonetheless caused Woodward to bristle.”

washingtonpost.com/opinions/kathl…

6/ Parker wrote that “Sperling’s words, though measured, could be read as: ‘You’ll never set foot in this White House again’” and could be seen as a threat to a journalist to cut off “access to the most powerful people on the planet as they execute the nation’s business.”

7/ THIS is what then-citizen Trump was characterizing as an “attack” on Woodward.

The same Trump who continues to personally insult and lie about journalists, attack news organizations, have his campaign frivolously sue news organizations bc of opeds he didn’t care for, ...

8/ The same Trump who has pushed deranged conspiracy theories about an anchor he doesn’t like, publicly called for the firing of journalists (even at Fox) who reported stories he didn’t like, who has revoked press passes from and banned from events reporters he doesn’t like....

9/ The same Trump who in February 2017 declared that “FAKE NEWS media” is “the enemy of the American people.”

What impact might that have on some of his supporters? Calling journalists the enemy of the people?

10/ Some supporters of the president hear these calls and some of them take action, issuing death threats, requiring journalists to hire security, causing some to flee their homes temporarily.

One sent bombs to news organizations and others.

Cesar Sayoc, Who Mailed Pipe Bombs to Trump Critics, Is Sentenced to 20 Years
Mr. Sayoc sent the bombs to prominent Democrats, setting off a frenzied investigation that unnerved the country before last year’s midterm elections.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/nyregion/cesar-sayoc-sentencing-pipe-bombing.amp.html

10/ WaPo exec editor Marty Baron says that’s their point, that the presidential attacks on journalists are “clearly for the purpose of subjecting them to harassment and threats.”

google.com/amp/s/www.wash…

11/ The president’s “leadership” on attacking the news media to avoid accountability has gone international.

“When Amnesty International released a report about prison deaths in Syria, the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, retorted that ‘we are living in a fake-news era.’...

12/ “... President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela, who is steadily rolling back democracy in his country, blamed the global media for ‘lots of false versions, lots of lies,’ saying ‘this is what we call “fake news” today.’

‘Fake News,’ Trump’s Obsession, Is Now a Cudgel for Strongmen
Leaders who don’t like to be criticized or investigated have embraced the term. Scholars fear that it further erodes trust in democracy.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2017/12/12/world/europe/trump-fake-news-dictators.amp.html

13/ So it’s not just that Trump is hypocritical when he attacks Woodward today after criticizing the Obama WH for doing so in 2013.

It’s that the attacks aren’t even comparable.