Attacks on media and critics can't hide administration's failures
By Timothy L. O'Brien
October 1, 2017, 3:46 PM EDT
... Trump awoke on Sunday still on a war footing, seemingly unaware of some of the strategic, long-term political costs he may have incurred by engaging in risky, multi-front battles over his performance during the relief effort. He also took another moment to slap around the media ...
Trump’s media slurs are hardly the most important facet of the ongoing tragedy in Puerto Rico. Unlike some other Trump targets, the media can give as good as it gets ...
But “POTUS vs. the media” is still of note because of the fear that animates the president’s attacks. He isn’t slagging the media merely to score political points. Trump is waging a war on the press because of the role it plays in recording, sometimes imperfectly, what occurs in real time all around us and during harrowing events, such as those in Puerto Rico. The president is waging a war on the media as part of his war on the public’s collective memory ...
Criticisms about the U.S. response to the crisis in Puerto Rico haven’t only been about first responders (or "first R's"
or the scale and delivery of federal aid to the island, however. They have also been rooted in deep dissatisfaction and distaste for the president’s leadership, which he surely knows and is why he wants to rally around the first responders ...
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-10-01/trump-s-new-puerto-rico-tweets-in-same-old-war