London mayor was target of right-wing media long before Trump’s critical tweets

President Donald Trump attacked London’s Mayor Sadiq Khan on Twitter, taking his words out of context to falsely accuse him of saying there is “no reason to be alarmed” about the June 4 terror attack on the London Bridge. Khan’s full quote referred to the “increased police presence” in the area following the attack, not to the attack itself, and Trump’s tweet follows a year’s worth of right-wing media criticism of London’s first Muslim mayor.

On June 4, Trump tweeted that Khan said that “there is ‘no reason to be alarmed,’” adding the following daythat Khan “had to think fast” to come up with his “pathetic excuse” for the statement. He also accused the media of “working hard to sell it!” As explained by CNBC, Khan’s full quote was, “Londoners will see an increased police presence today and over the course of the next few days. There’s no reason to be alarmed.” In addition, a spokesperson for Khan said he “has more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump's ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks urging Londoners not to be alarmed when they saw more police — including armed officers — on the streets.”

Trump’s latest attacks on Khan did not occur in a vacuum. Right-wing media figures have attacked the London mayor since his election in 2016, and Trump made a series of disparaging comments about Khan during the 2016 U.S. election, including challenging him to an “I.Q. test,” after Khan criticized Trump’s rhetoric on Islam as “ignorant.” Khan also declined Trump’s proffered exemption from his proposed ban on Muslims entering the U.S.

Source : Media Matters For America

Donald Trump Doesn't Mind If Vladimir Putin Murders His Media Critics

Dictator Donnie The Mango Mussolini believes that Russian President Vladimir Putin is a strong leader for having journalists killed for having the audacity to question his authority.   Dictator Donnie made the comments during an interview with Fox News' Bill O'Reilly which will air Sunday in America.    

The Washington Post‘s Abby Phillip reported Saturday night that a preview of the O’Reilly interview, which will air before Sunday’s Superbowl game.

When asked about his relationship with Putin, Trump told O’Reilly, “I do respect him. Well, I respect a lot of people, but that doesn’t mean I’ll get along with them.”

“Putin is a killer,” O’Reilly responded.

“There are a lot of killers. We have a lot of killers,” Trump said. “Well, you think our country is so innocent?”

Putin’s regime is one of the most dangerous in the world to journalists, who put their lives on the line by criticizing Putin and the Federal Security Bureau (FSB) — the shadowy security agency that replaced the KGB after glasnost. Other Putin critics have been poisoned or repeatedly jailed on spurious charges.

Given these comments. Journalists in America should have concern for a leader that would willingly condone the murder of journalists, dissidents and the jailing of the government's critics.  Is the future Americans have to look forward too? One certainly would hope not. That said, given Donald Trump's complete inability to deal with criticism does this indicate he'll follow in Vladimir Putin's footsteps?

CNN: "Is Cable News Shaping Trump's U.S. Policy?" (video)

BROOKE BALDWIN (HOST): Question. Is cable news, cable news shaping U.S. policy? It’s a good question considering what we’ve seen during President Trump’s first week. Listen to the trend here. Over on Fox News Bill O’Reilly did a story on Chicago, laying out the crime statistics, calls for federal aid. Shortly after that show, this tweet from the President of the United States: “If Chicago doesn’t fix the horrible ‘carnage’ going on, 228 in 2017 with 42 killings, I will send in the feds.” And then the next night on ABC, watch what happened.

[Video Begin]

DONALD TRUMP: That speech was a home run. That speech -- if you look at Fox, OK I'll mention your network -- read, see what Fox said, "they said it was one of the great speeches." You and other networks covered it very inaccurately. I hate to say this to you and you probably won’t put it on, but turn on Fox and see how it was covered. You and a couple of other networks tried to downplay that speech and it was very very unfortunate that you did.

[Video End]

BALDWIN: Exhibit B. The following morning Fox aired a segment about Chelsea Manning’s critique of former President Obama. The graphic on the screen described Manning as a quote and "ungrateful traitor," fifteen minutes later, this tweet from the president. “Ungrateful traitor Chelsea Manning, who should never have been released from prison is now calling President Obama a weak leader. Terrible!” We got to talk about this. Bill Carter is with me, CNN media analyst and Kristen Soltis Anderson, columnist with the Washington Examiner and Republican strategist and pollster. So great to have both of you on. Bill, to my points, I don’t think the timing is a coinkydinky, obviously he watches a lot of TV, obviously he watches a lot of Fox, thus, is U.S. policy being shaped by cable news?

BILL CARTER: Well, it may not be shaped but there is clearly some influence going on because he’s clearly reacting to it. It’s not unusual, I mean, Mr. Trump has always been sort of brought into what he feels is people talking about him. In New York, we always knew, when we covered things about Donald Trump, you were likely to hear from him because he paid close attention to people talking about him.

BALDWIN: He’s always been like that.

CARTER: I used to write pieces and he have handwritten notes sent back to me on the actual clip. So he pays very close attention. And Fox is very friendly territory for him. So he’s going to be on there watching a lot and when they make a point that he thinks is a valid point he tweets it out, then people read the tweet, and then people sort of follow that up in some fashion. It will be interesting to see if he then takes action. It’s one thing to say "I’ll send in the feds" --

BALDWIN: To tweet about it.

CARTER: But will he actually to send in the feds?

BALDWIN: But then to follow through. Kristen, same question. What do you think?

KRISTEN SOLTIS ANDERSON: I mean I think when it comes to Fox or any media outlet there are lots of different voices within any particular media outlet. Within say Fox, you’ve got people like Sean Hannity, who’s extremely friendly to President Trump, I think was informally advising him at one point during the campaign, extremely friendly turf. But there are other folks within that network who I think shoot pretty straight and I think are doing hard news journalism and trying to cover the real story. So I always hesitate to cast any particular network itself as pro or anti, because I think there are individuals within. But it certain does put a lot more pressure, if you are someone who is a guest on a program, if you are just an average pundit who that now, because the president’s news consumption diet is so cable news heavy and the fact that he’s kind of learning on the fly what it is that he thinks about different issues and sort of, very impulsive, willing to act very quickly, it sort of puts a lot of pressure on anyone who’s on TV to know that the president could be watching you on Air Force One and making policy as a result.