CNN’s Jake Tapper went on a blistering tweetstorm on Saturday morning, slamming Donald Trump for using his social media platform to attack his enemies instead of advance policy goals or discuss real issues.
Tapper said the president’s tweeting “does nothing” to solve the problems he promised to address during the campaign.
The epic series of tweets:
More than 10% of tweets fr @realDonaldTrump as president have been attacking journalists. Far fewer discussing troops, opioid crisis, Syria
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 1, 2017
2/ …North Korea, Assad, punishment of Russia for election interference, how to deal with debt/deficit, famine in Africa, education, …
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 1, 2017
3/ plans to rebuild US crumbling infrastructure, tweets specifically using the word “jobs,” what to do in Ukraine, crisis in Venezuela,…
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 1, 2017
4/ attacking media does nothing for the troop in harm’s way, the hungry child in Appalachia or inner city, the unemployed factory worker.
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) July 1, 2017
The advice from Tapper comes as Trump has spent much of the week not doing his job and, instead, making vulgar and false attacks on media figures who criticize him, most recently going after Morning Joe co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.
Tweet from Saturday morning:
Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people, but their low rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses. Too bad!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2017
Trump also added Tapper’s network, CNN, to his social media hit list on Saturday, calling the news organization “fake news and garbage journalism.”
Tweet:
I am extremely pleased to see that @CNN has finally been exposed as #FakeNews and garbage journalism. It’s about time!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 1, 2017
As Tapper noted in his own posts, all of this focus from Trump on attacking his critics does nothing for the people he claimed he would help during the campaign.
But it’s also a demonstration of the president’s disinterest in talking about issues or putting forward substantive policy ideas – because he knows nothing about policy. In fact, some of the only opportunities he takes to discuss issues are when he’s complaining about how “complicated” everything is.
At the end of the day, Tapper is right that the president’s tweets are counterproductive, but attacking his enemies is all Trump knows how to do. Trump has spent a lifetime showing that engaging in public feuds is one of the only things he is good at, and the American people should not have expected that to change after he was elected.
This is what happens when you elect a reality TV star to run the free world.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
