Former President George W. Bush doesn’t agree with Donald Trump’s view of the media, saying, “I consider the media to be indispensable to democracy.”
Bush gave a rare interview to NBC’s “Today” show co-host Matt Lauer on Monday morning.
“We need an independent media to hold people like me to account. Power can be very addictive and it can be corrosive, and it’s important for the media to call to account people who abuse their power,” Bush said.
Also Read: Bill Maher Urges Media to Fight Back Against President Trump (Video)
On Friday, Trump bashed the media during his speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference. Following his address, the White House blocked a variety of major news organizations from attending a briefing with Press Secretary Sean Spicer. The Trump administration regularly refers to the media as the “opposition party” and has singled out CNN as “fake news” and the New York Times as “failing.”
Bush did call the presidency a “tough job” and pointed out that Trump has only been on then job for a month. He added that there are a lot more media organizations now than he had to deal with in the Oval Office.
“It’s hard to unify the country with the news media being so split up. When I was president, you mattered a lot more,” Bush said, referring to NBC News. “Because there was like three of you, and now there is all kinds of information being bombarded out.”
He continued: “It’s just a different world.”
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