In an emotional segment on Friday MSNBC host Katy Tur shared with viewers some of the details of the violent and hate-filled comments she has received that she believes have been instigated by President Donald Trump’s inflammatory anti-media rhetoric. “Either the president doesn’t get the problem, or he doesn’t care,” Tur said.
Then she added:
“Sadly, the harassment and threats are not stopping. Journalists get them every day. We’ve been getting them since the campaign when then-candidate Trump urged the crowd to yell and scream at us. But what you saw and still see on TV, those boos and those taunts, are only part of it. What you do not see are the nasty letters, or packages, or emails.â€
“You do not see the threats of physical violence. ‘I hope you get raped and killed,’ one person wrote to me just this week. ‘Raped and killed.’ Not just me, but a couple of my female colleagues as well.”
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
“And in case you want to argue that this has nothing to do with the president, the most recent note I got ended with ‘MAGA.’ So if anyone in the administration cares about the safety and security of journalists, the health of a free and unintimidated press, and by extension, our democracy as a whole, please say something to your boss, to your dad, to your commander-in-chief, before it is too late. Obviously, I’m not talking to you, Sarah Huckabee Sanders. You made it clear where you stand yesterday.â€
On Thursday, White House press secretary Sanders was asked if she also believes the media is the “enemy of the people,” as Trump has said, and she refused to contradict the president on this very important point.
Tur then played a video showing first daughter Ivanka Trump saying she did not view the press as “the enemy of the people.â€
“I’m glad someone in the administration said this out loud with a camera recording,†Tur said about Ivanka’s comments. “I hope she implores him to tone it down.â€
Tur also discussed Trump’s unhinged campaign rally in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on Thursday.
“Yeah, we get it, you don’t like us. Fine. But do you have to put our lives in danger?†Tur asked.
“The president continues to call the press the enemy of the people, even after four journalists and one sales assistant were shot dead in a Maryland newsroom by a man who was angry with what they factually reported about him,†she added.
Tur then noted that the publisher of The New York Times told Trump that his angry and hateful words were putting journalists in mortal danger.
In her comments Tur pleaded that someone get to the president and influence him to stop his attacks on a free press. She said this needs to happen, “before it is too late.â€
Sadly we have a mentally imbalanced president who loves to whip his unhinged followers into a frenzy during his rallies that are designed only to stroke his own ego. He doesn’t care about journalists. He doesn’t even care about the country. He only cares about himself.
As long as Donald Trump has lunatics willing to attend his rallies and cheer him on then he will continue to attack the free press and put journalists’ lives in danger. And by doing this he is also continuing to threaten our core values of freedom of speech and democracy.
I am a lifelong Democrat with a passion for social justice and progressive issues. I have degrees in writing, economics and law from the University of Iowa.
