In a Twitter-rant on Friday, President Donald Trump, who claims that his administration is "running like a fine-tuned machine," described the media as "the enemy of the American People," (ABC News, 2/17/17). In his first tweet, Trump singled out the New York Times, CNN and NBC News. After that tweet was deleted, Trump tweeted again and this time added ABC and CBS to his "enemies list." The President described all of these networks and media entities as constituting the "Fake News Media," and, as "the enemy of the American People."
'The most dishonest people'
In his meandering press conference on Thursday, the day before he had his "Twitter-rant," Trump described the media as being "The most dishonest people," and stated: "If we don't talk about it, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American People," (ABC News, 2/17/17).
The President then noted in yet another tweet that Rush Limbaugh called his press conference, "One of the most effective press conferences I've ever seen," (ABC News, 2/17/17). Trump then concluded his tweet by stating: "We are doing a tremendous disservice to the American People," (ABC News, 2/17/17). Steve Bannon, Trump's very controversial and embattled chief strategist, has gone so far as to call the media, "the opposition party."
The FAKE NEWS media (failing @nytimes, @NBCNews, @ABC, @CBS, @CNN) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American People!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017
"One of the most effective press conferences I've ever seen!" says Rush Limbaugh. Many agree.Yet FAKE MEDIA calls it differently! Dishonest
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 17, 2017
Nixon's 'Enemies List'
President Richard Nixon, who served as President from 1969 to 1974, had a well-known "Enemies List" which included actor Paul Newman, ABC News reporter Daniel Schorr, noted author Hunter S.
Thompson, and dozens of others. The Enemies List was compiled by Nixon's legal counsel Chuck Colson, who later went to prison for obstruction of justice. Nixon later was forced to resign after being caught in the Watergate quagmire, and was succeeded by Vice-President Gerald Ford, who had been appointed to office as Vice-President after the forced resignation of Vice-President Spiro Agnew.
Although Trump has not yet had his legal counsel compile a formal enemies list, his specific references to television networks and media outlets by name, is getting him off on a head start toward such a compilation. If Trump continues down this path, instead of bringing people together and being positive, his problems will escalate and the "disarray" of which GOP Senator John McCain, (Ariz.), talked of earlier this week, will become even more chaotic.
