President Donald Trump has never been shy about trying to influence media. He often attacks whenever any journalist or news outlet reports on his misdeeds and dishonest statements. Even when the outlet is his traditional favorite outlet, Fox News.
At the same time, Trump rails against what he calls “cancel culture.” According to Dictionary.com, “Cancel culture refers to the popular practice of withdrawing support for (canceling) public figures and companies after they have done or said something considered objectionable or offensive. [It’s] generally discussed as being performed on social media in the form of group shaming.”
A report in The Atlantic last week claimed that Trump had disrespected the US Military on several occasions. The slights occurred in the form as calling servicemen and women “losers” and “suckers” along with a puzzled Trump asking General John Kelly “what was in it for him?” while standing at the gravesite of the General’s son.
Several well-respected news outlets have been able to confirm at least key parts of the report, including Fox News’ Jennifer Griffin, who said two senior officials who were with the president went he went to France confirmed to her some “key details” of the Atlantic’s reporting.
Griffin has stood by her report and on Saturday the president tweeted, “Jennifer Griffin should be fired for this kind of reporting.”
Yes, the POTUS is engaging in exactly the kind of “cancel culture” tactics he criticizes others for doing.
So, in a rare move of journalistic integrity, Fox’s Brett Baier stood up for his colleague and confronted Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin about Trump’s hypocritical ways.
Baier asked Mnuchin, “The president also says he is against cancel culture. But do you think it’s right for him to call for the firing of a reporter who has unnamed sources who confirm parts of that story?”
Mnuchin was caught like a deer in headlights and offered basically a “non-response” pretending he knew nothing about it.
Mnuchin just said, “I really don’t know anything about that, so it’s just not something I can comment on.”
The problem with Mnuchin’s answer is it contradicts his seemingly vast knowledge of the scandal before he was asked that question that pointed out his boss’s hypocrisy.
When he was asked if he believed Trump had spoken poorly of military personnel, Mnuchin was a wealth of insight. He gleefully commented about how he knew Trump was the opposite of the report and loved the military. One might find it hard to believe that Mnuchin knows about the report in The Atlantic, as well as having intimate knowledge of his conduct, but knows nothing of Fox and many other major outlets confirming the story or his boss’s tweets demanding Griffin be fired by Fox.
How convenient.
Check out the video below:
