Donald Trump's Tweet About Ivanka's Recent Comment On The Media Is All Too Familiar
On Aug. 2, Ivanka Trump said at an Axios event that she doesn't believe the media is an "enemy of the people," which was a huge moment of relief for many onlookers, considering her father's increasingly combative relationship with the press. However, the president himself rejected his eldest daughter's assertion just hours later, claiming in a tweet that "a large percentage of the media ... is the enemy of the people." Sadly, Donald Trump's tweet about Ivanka's recent comment on the media is way too familiar.
In his tweet about Ivanka's comments on Thursday, Aug. 2, President Trump downplayed Ivanka's refusal to name the media an "enemy" of the U.S. public. Instead, Trump insisted that the "FAKE NEWS" is the "enemy of the people, writing:
They asked my daughter Ivanka whether or not the media is the enemy of the people. She correctly said no. It is the FAKE NEWS, which is a large percentage of the media, that is the enemy of the people!
Although he didn't clarify which outlets he considers "fake news," Trump reportedly claimed that a host of prominent media outlets — including The New York Times, NBC, ABC and CNN — were “the enemy of the American People!” after he took office back in January 2017, per Politico.
However, Ivanka broke with her father's rhetoric and policy toward the media just hours before Trump's tweet in an interview with Axios on Thursday, Aug. 2. While the first daughter admitted that she's experienced reporting that she doesn't believe was accurate, she said she did "not feel like the media is an enemy of the people."
The back-and-forth highlights escalating tensions between Trump and his administration, and American journalists in recent days, as the president has ratcheted up his attacks on the media with increasingly troubling anti-press rhetoric. He, specifically, drew ire from the media just days ago, on Sunday, July 29, when he took to Twitter to share a message about his apparent meeting with A.G. Sulzberger, the publisher of The New York Times. Although Trump claimed the meeting was "very good and interesting," the world raised a collective eyebrow at the end of his tweet, where Trump wrote on Sunday:
...Spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, 'Enemy of the People.' Sad!
Sulzberger later released a statement confirming the meeting with Trump, saying its main purpose was to "raise concerns about the president's deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric." He further claimed that he told the president that he was "...concerned about his labeling journalists 'the enemy of the people.'" Elite Daily previously reached out to the White House for a comment on Sulzberger's statement but has not heard back at this time.
Ten days earlier, Trump also caught backlash for slamming the media following his summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin. In a message shared to Twitter, Trump said the summit with Russia — the country his U.S. intelligence community found had meddled in the 2016 election to help him win — was a "great success," while claiming the "Fake News Media" was the real enemy of the people. The tweet read:
The Summit with Russia was a great success, except with the real enemy of the people, the Fake News Media. I look forward to our second meeting so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed, including stopping terrorism, security for Israel, nuclear........
Safe to say that his relationship with the media is only worsening at this point, and it doesn't look like anyone or anything can change that — not even his trusted and right-hand daughter, Ivanka.
