Note to Donald Trump: Don’t get into a war of words with writers.
Many of the most recognizable journalists in the media world hit back at President Trump’s tweet on Friday calling the news media “the enemy of the American people.”
“Someone is cranky that Gallup has him at 38% and Pew has him at 39%,” MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough tweeted. “So now he’s resorting to FAKE TWEETS. SAD!”
The New York Times’ Sopan Deb wrote: “As a journalist, I’m not the enemy of the American people, other than the ones who think Season 2 of the Wire isn’t any good.”
Trump ruffled plenty of journalistic feathers when he railed against the media earlier in the day, tweeting to his more than 34 million followers: “The FAKE NEWS media (failing @Nytimes, @CNN, @NBCNews and many more) is not my enemy, it is the enemy of the American people. SICK!.”
The tweet was then quickly deleted… but only so that Trump could add ABC and CBS to the mix.
NBC’s “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd called on “leaders” to “dial it back.”
Kurt Eichenwald went right for the jugular: “So I’m an enemy of America. Yet I never illegally tried 2 do business w/ USAs real enemies like some ppl named Trump.”
And CNN’s Chief National Security Correspondent Jim Sciutto wrote: “I’ve covered foreign countries where free media declared the enemy: China, Russia, Zimbabwe, Myanmar & more. Not language I’ve heard at home.”
Trump has been steadily building up his anti-media campaign since the election. As TheWrap previously reported, Trump’s team sent out a bizarre email survey on Thursday asking people how they feel about the media.
Among the questions were: “On which issues does the mainstream media do the worst job of representing Republicans?” and “Do you believe that the mainstream media does not do their due diligence fact-checking before publishing stories on the Trump administration?”
While not specifically called out by President Trump, journalists from other news outlets such as The Guardian, Verge, Wired and GQ also responded.
Read more reaction from America’s most wanted below:
Period. End of story. https://t.co/A3aqkzZBBx
— Jim Axelrod (@JimAxelrod) February 18, 2017
I've covered foreign countries where free media declared the enemy: China, Russia, Zimbabwe, Myanmar & more. Not language I've heard at home https://t.co/7uaDXLoHDL
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) February 17, 2017
https://twitter.com/SopanDeb/status/832707870990798848
Someone is cranky that Gallup has him at 38% and Pew has him at 39%. So now he's resorting to FAKE TWEETS. SAD! https://t.co/ZFZvlTf8Az
— Joe Scarborough (@JoeNBC) February 17, 2017
On December 1972 tape, Nixon told Kissinger, “The press is the enemy, the establishment is the enemy, the professors are the enemy."
— Michael Beschloss (@BeschlossDC) February 17, 2017
https://twitter.com/tcarmody/status/832709783815729152
https://twitter.com/JamilesLartey/status/832720140365991936
I've covered foreign countries where free media declared the enemy: China, Russia, Zimbabwe, Myanmar & more. Not language I've heard at home https://t.co/7uaDXLoHDL
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) February 17, 2017
The "enemy of the people" here – the enemy of democracy – the evil-doer, the terrorist…is @realDonaldTrump. He. Will. Be. Removed. https://t.co/hQt9qGZGKH
— Keith Olbermann (@KeithOlbermann) February 17, 2017
I was on the fence about this, but how can journalists go to WHCA dinner and toast somebody who has branded them an "enemy" of the state?
— Ryan Lizza (@RyanLizza) February 17, 2017