Donald Trump shut down CNN for being “fake news” and then took a question from Breitbart
First Amendment freedom of the press, we have a problem. Donald Trump held is first press conference in several months today, and the first in his “president-elect” role. But instead of answering questions from reporters, he spent most of his time insulting them and yelling insults at them. In fact, when a CNN reporter tried to ask him a question, Trump refused, announcing that CNN was “fake news” – and then he proceeded to take a question from an actual fake news site, Breitbart.
In a level of propaganda never before seen from an American leader, Donald Trump decided to falsely label one of the nation’s most prominent news networks as being “fake news.” CNN’s track record is far from perfect, but Trump’s characterization was a bald faced lie. And it was a stunningly dishonest attack on freedom of the press from a man who is nine days away from being in charge of the Executive Branch, which is responsible for protecting the First Amendment among other things.
Even more alarmingly, after Trump tried to sound a death knell for CNN, he ended up taking a question from a Breitbart reporter. Not only is Breitbart a propaganda site which traffics regularly in fake news and fake stories, it’s run by Trump’s incoming White House Chief Strategist.
And so Trump’s vision for the media consists of destroying the reputations of real news outlets, while propping up the fake news sites whose content he can personally control. Welcome to the authoritarian dictatorship. Watch the horrifying video of Trump attacking a CNN reporter below:
