https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Khrtwxm-Mo&feature=youtu.be
Donald Trump’s vendetta against the media continued on Wednesday as he called out NBC’s Katy Tur in front of a crowd of more than 4,000 people in Miami. This situation comes after the Secret Service began protecting her due to Trump calling her out at a December rally. Trump has not hidden his distaste for the media. He castigates them whenever he can, and that narrative continued in Miami:
“Never before have so many media organizations, old and new, abandoned all pretense of fairness to take sides to try to pick a president. It’s unbelievable. For instance, we’ll have a great story. We’ll give it out to the media [and] they’ll make it look as bad as possible.”
His supporters agreed, and chants of “CNN sucks!” overwhelmed the crowd. But Trump’s complaints didn’t stop there, and he criticized President Obama for not working hard enough and bullied Tur about her reporting. He was not subtle about this and called her out by her first name:
“He ought to be working on jobs, on the border, on building up our military instead of campaigning for crooked Hillary Clinton. It’s what he ought to be doing. They’re not reporting it. Katy, you’re not reporting it, Katy. But there’s something happening, Katy. There’s something happening, Katy.”
This is not the first time Trump has called out Tur in front of a crowd, as he did it this past December. And even members of his campaign are not above using intimidation tactics with other reporters. Like any good reporter, Tur brushed off the name calling, but as she wrote in Marie Claire in April, the Secret Service was taking it seriously:
“It’s unlikely, however, that any of Trump’s future attacks will be as scary as what happened in Mount Pleasant, where the crowd, feeding off Trump, seemed to turn on me like a large animal, angry and unchained. It wasn’t until hours later, when Secret Service took the extraordinary step of walking me to my car, that the incident sank in.”
The situation surrounding Tur is unfortunately not a new one, as a frenzied Trump crowd can go to extreme lengths to preserve their fearless leader’s name, but some are concerned things could escalate quickly:
https://twitter.com/hollybdc/status/793858044450988032
Trump knows he's inflaming his followers against the press. When and how will this end? When someone is seriously injured or worse? Crazy. https://t.co/dMkngXBZx5
— Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) November 2, 2016
Trump isn’t afraid to rile up his crowds through inflammatory remarks, and he may keep it up. But Tur is not alone, as social media has gathered around her with the #ImWithTur hashtag campaign:
This is clever. https://t.co/Ls2sFetYg6
— Imani Gandy (Orca’s Version) ⚓️ (@AngryBlackLady) November 2, 2016
https://twitter.com/Honey17011/status/793881386805501952
Me when Trump calls out @KatyTurNBC and her fantastic reporting. Tell tiny hands to lay off the road warriors, they rock. #imwithtur pic.twitter.com/f4EMOHIpAP
— Jimbo 💪🦬💪 (@politicaljimbo) November 2, 2016
https://twitter.com/aerithlives/status/793865577735610368
#ImWithTur Someone will get injured and/or killed. Stop coverage. He's a sick man who will stop at nothing as will some supporters.
— MaggieCorbinMrphy EdD (@maggiecmurphy) November 2, 2016
for the record, @KatyTurNBC is a bad-ass reporter
— John Harwood (@JohnJHarwood) November 2, 2016
(Via Media Matters for America, Talking Points Memo, Raw Story & Marie Claire)
