Trump Says Media is Covering Up Terrorist Attacks

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by: Colorado Pols

President Donald Trump

President Donald Trump keeps on dialing up the extreme rhetoric when it comes to his true paramour: The news media. If it wasn’t weird enough for you already, wait ’til you hear this one. As the Washington Post reports:

Speaking to the U.S. Central Command on Monday, President Trump went off his prepared remarks to make a truly stunning claim: The media was intentionally covering up reports of terrorist attacks. [Pols emphasis]

“You’ve seen what happened in Paris, and Nice. All over Europe, it’s happening,” he said to the assembled military leaders. “It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported. And in many cases the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that.”

The comment immediately harked back to comments from senior adviser Kellyanne Conway on MSNBC last week.

“I bet it’s brand-new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized and were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre,” she said. “Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered.”

It was brand-new information to people because there was no “Bowling Green massacre.” Conway had referred to the supposed terrorist attack previously, including in response to a question posed by TMZ. But the two Iraqis arrested in Bowling Green, Ky., in 2011 never committed an attack in the United States. She later admitted that she’d misspoken.

As Chris Cillizza notes in a separate story for “The Fix,” Trump didn’t offer any further explanation to back up his claims that the news media is “intentionally covering up reports of terrorist attacks.” Says Cillizza:

The job of a leader isn’t to give people what they want — especially if you know (or suspect) it’s not entirely accurate. If Trump has evidence that the media has covered up a terrorist attack — or downplayed it in any way — he should come forward with it. Otherwise, it’s simply a baseless allegation. And baseless allegations from the president of the United States are very dangerous things.

What in the hell is going on here? Is Trump really convinced by advisors such as Kellyanne Conway that there are terrorist attacks taking place that no media outlet is bothering to cover? (today it was reported that Conway has talked up something she calls “the Bowling Green Massacre” on at least three separate occasions).

This is obviously completely absurd. The idea that the news media, or any other group of loosely-affiliated professionals, could “cover up” something as significant as a terrorist attack is stupid. Period.

That the President of the United States could make these outlandish claims is absolutely terrifying. Period.

14 thoughts on “Trump Says Media is Covering Up Terrorist Attacks”

JeffcoBlue says:

February 6, 2017 at 4:20 pm

Insane.

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flatiron says:

February 6, 2017 at 5:20 pm

The mental breakdown is happening faster than expected.

The men in white suits are getting the straightjacket ready

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mamajama55 says:

February 6, 2017 at 5:33 pm

Not insane – it's a very deliberate propaganda technique, used to confuse and bewilder the public, and take away our ability to discriminate between truth and lies.

Hannah Arendt said in "Origins of Totalitarianism":

In an ever-changing, incomprehensible world the masses had reached the point where they would, at the same time, believe everything and nothing, think that everything was possible and nothing was true… The totalitarian mass leaders based their propaganda on the correct psychological assumption that, under such conditions, one could make people believe the most fantastic statements one day, and trust that if the next day they were given irrefutable proof of their falsehood, they would take refuge in cynicism; instead of deserting the leaders who had lied to them, they would protest that they had known all along that the statement was a lie and would admire the leaders for their superior tactical cleverness.

Arendt's words would also explain Trump's use of his spokespeople, such as Spicer and Conway, to repeat obvious falsehoods:

Arendt and others recognized, writes Levy, that “being made to repeat an obvious lie makes it clear that you’re powerless.” She also recognized the function of an avalanche of lies to render a populace powerless to resist, the phenomenon we now refer to as “gaslighting”:

The result of a consistent and total substitution of lies for factual truth is not that the lie will now be accepted as truth and truth be defamed as a lie, but that the sense by which we take our bearings in the real world—and the category of truth versus falsehood is among the mental means to this end—is being destroyed.

Masha Gessen, who wrote the definitive Putin biography, The Man Without a Face, and who has recently written Autocracy: Rules for Survival, predicts that:

The power of the investigative press—whose adherence to fact has already been severely challenged by the conspiracy-minded, lie-spinning Trump campaign—will grow weaker. The world will grow murkier. Even in the unlikely event that some mainstream media outlets decide to declare themselves in opposition to the current government, or even simply to report its abuses and failings, the president will get to frame many issues.

Indeed, this is terrifying. So, in the modern Trump era, I think that our comedians – our Steven Colbert, Noah Trevor, Samantha Bee, Saturday Night Live – our satirists and cartoonists, have a critical role to play in helping us keep our sense of what's true and what is not, what is ridiculous and what is sane. Without them, our democracy will not survive this dark time.

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1. Curmudgeon says:
  
  February 6, 2017 at 5:59 pm
  
  Exactly! He knows what he's doing. He's playing to that same audience that was screaming, "Lock Her Up!" and cheering when protesters were assaulted. They believe him. They believe whatever he tells them, and for a raging narcissist like Trump, that's got to be addictive.
  
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2. Republican 36 says:
  
  February 6, 2017 at 8:35 pm
  
  MJ55 you're right on target.
  
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3. ParkHill says:
  
  February 6, 2017 at 8:56 pm
  
  Have you ever sat through a hard-sell condo presentation. Music very loud, they keep changing the subject, distractions, bait and switch.
  
  It isn't propaganda, it's brainwashing.
  
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Gilpin Guy says:

February 7, 2017 at 6:12 am

The problem for Trump is when you attack the messenger, it makes it harder for them to carry the message. Even Fox News is in his crosshairs. It will be interesting to see if the media is eager to be a mouthpiece for Trump with such excessive vitriol against them especially if they can make more money being his foil.

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1. Davie says:
  
  February 7, 2017 at 12:47 pm
  
  Well, even the Denver Post has had enough and is calling Trump a liar:
  
  With latest bashing, Lying Trump gets sinister indeed
  
  So, once again, Lying Trump takes the stage. When he can’t make the grade, he blames others. Doing so is a common enough human reaction to personal weakness, but to falsely suggest — based on the known evidence — that members of the judiciary and the press are somehow on the side of enemies of the state points to either a cracked mind, or something more sinister.
  
  Americans shouldn’t buy what our president is selling. The truth is Trump botched what could have been a reasonable attempt to make the country safer. His mistakes gave our enemies a huge morale and recruiting boost. And his bashing of others is as unseemly as it is dishonest.
  
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Voyageur says:

February 7, 2017 at 9:43 am

Bury my heart at Bowling Green.

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1. MichaelBowman says:
  
  February 7, 2017 at 10:32 am
  
  #NeverRemember
  
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2. MichaelBowman says:
  
  February 7, 2017 at 2:38 pm
  
  V – be sure to read the book before you see the movie…
  
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  1. MichaelBowman says:
    
    February 7, 2017 at 3:29 pm
    
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    1. Voyageur says:
      
      February 7, 2017 at 3:39 pm
      
      Smellyanne's greatest hit.
      
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The realist says:

February 7, 2017 at 10:40 am

He's not only the emperor with no clothes, he doesn't have two sane brain cells to rub together.

Never minimize the danger #TrumpsterFire presents.

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