GOP presumptive nominee Donald Trump praised Fox News and blasted CNN Monday after a weekend of bloviating. He said FNC got it right while CNN interpreted what he said all wrong.
“I am watching @FoxNews and how fairly they are treating me and my words, and @CNN, and the total distortion of my words and what I am saying,” he wrote on Twitter.
But that was nothing compared to his tweet that was heard around the world. Trump essentially congratulated himself for being right about his call to temporarily ban Muslims from entering the United States. It was reminiscent of BuzzFeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith‘s blatant bragging last week about about the site’s traffic explosion from the Stanford rape story. The compliment from Trump (to himself) came after a weekend of terror in which 50 people died at a gay nightclub in Orlando, including the Islamic radical who gunned them down.
Some journalists gave Trump a whipping for this.
The Atlantic‘s Ron Fournier: “A victory lap in blood.”
Jezebel senior reporter Anna Merlan: “Delete your existence.”
New York Times Mag, Men’s Journal‘s Stephen Rodrick: “It takes a special man to say ‘Appreciate the congrats’ after a mass shooting.”
The Washington Examiner appeared to mock the media for dumping on Trump for not expressing more anguish over the weekend blood bath. “Media hit Trump for not crying after Orlando massacre,” reads the headline of a story by media writer Eddie Scarry.
Politico‘s Glenn Thrush also went after Trump for his self-congratulatory remarks.
“Another Trump first: Patting himself on back with bodies still on the floor. A Pres test not only failed but flouted,” he wrote.
And this: “No one plays a winning hand worse than Trump.”
Politicususa’s Sarah Jones also jumped on the hate Trump bandwagon, rhetorically asking in a story, “What does it say about a politician’s policies that they are so eager to revel in death and destruction?”
WaPo‘s writer Greg Sargent, who writes the liberal Plum Line blog, also knocked Trump for his entire weekend. He, too, prominently featured Trump’s self-appreciate tweet. His headline is damning: “Trump just faced his first leadership test. He failed miserably.”
Sargent quotes Steve Benen, who writes for MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow blog, who says Americans may put pressure on Republicans about Trump’s bad behavior. He doesn’t bother to say who Benen is or what his political leanings are. (Please note: Benen is the douchebag who disparaged The Daily Caller and then quoted our reporting.)
In an all around lame move, he also quotes his own newspaper, WaPo, writing that his newspaper said Trump reacted with “bombast” while Hillary Clinton “expressed sympathy” for the victims.
WaPo’s Chris Cillizza, who writes The Fix blog, was perhaps hardest on Trump, declaring this: “Orlando shooting exposes Donald Trump’s biggest weakness: A total lack of empathy.” In his story he compared and contrasted Clinton and Trump reactions to the terror attack. He called Trump “triumphant and aggressive” and Hillary “empathetic and sorrowful.”
It’s really tough to know who to be more annoyed by here: Trump for being so relentlessly boastful or the journalists who are so sanctimonious about it.