President Donald Trump stepped up his feud with the media by tweeting a mock video of himself tackling and repeatedly striking a man with a CNN logo super-imposed in place of the person's head, followed by a logo saying "Fraud News Network."
President Donald Trump stepped up his feud with the media on Sunday by tweeting a mock video of himself tackling and repeatedly striking a man with a CNN logo super-imposed in place of the person's head, followed by a logo saying "Fraud News Network."
The video appeared to be a modified version of a 2007 appearance by Trump at World Wrestling Entertainment's WrestleMania 23 promotion, in which Trump "takes down" WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. In Sunday's video, McMahon's head has been replaced with the CNN logo.
After Trump appears to beat on the CNN effigy, a logo, "FNN Fraud News Network" appears at the bottom of the screen in script similar to that of CNN.
Trump appointed McMahon's wife, Linda McMahon, as the head of the Small Business Administration, a Cabinet-level agency. She was active in the management of WWE for many years.
The he network responded with this statement:
"It is a sad day when the President of the United States encourages violence against reporters. Clearly, Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied when she said the President had never done so. Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, dealing with North Korea and working on his health care bill, he is instead involved in juvenile behavior far below the dignity of his office. We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his."
As a presidential candidate and as commander-in-chief, Trump has repeatedly made known his disdain for the media, calling it "the enemy of the American people" and frequently referring to mainstream news organizations as "failing" or "fake news."
The video takes his criticism to a new level and drew criticism on social media.
"The speed with which we're recapitulating the decline and fall of Rome is impressive. What took Rome centuries we're achieving in months," tweeted Bill Kristol, a conservative commentator and editor-at-large of The Weekly Standard.
Trump, who is spending a long weekend at his property in Bedminster, New Jersey, took to Twitter on Saturday to criticize the media. At an event honoring veterans at the Kennedy Center in Washington on Saturday, he told the crowd that the media had tried to stop him from coming to the White House.
"But I'm president, and they're not," he said.
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