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.
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.”
8 Times Hypocrite Donald Trump Used the Kind of Anonymous Sources He Now Condemns (Photos)
On Sunday, Donald Trump derided the use of anonymous sourcing in news stories. He also said in February that news outlets "shouldn't be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody's name." It's strange he thinks that, because he's used a lot of anonymous sources himself. Here are some examples.
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Two years after President Obama released his birth certificate, Trump said it was not believable to some people. "You know, some people say that was not his birth certificate," he told ABC in August 2013. "I'm saying I don't know. Nobody knows and you don't know either."
Trump took care to describe this source as "extremely credible."
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Trump so often sources information to "many people" (without naming any of them) that there's a well-worn #manypeoplearesaying hashtag on Twitter. The Washington Post wrote an article about it, which includes the examples on the next three slides.
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At a rally in September, a man in Trump's audience said President Obama was a Muslim and “not even an American,” then asked Trump to get rid of Muslim “training camps.”
“You know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there,” Trump responded.
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In early January, Trump said he had heard from many Republicans worried that his rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, was born in Canada.
“I’d hate to see something like that get in his way, but a lot of people are talking about it, and I know that even some states are looking at it very strongly, the fact that he was born in Canada and he has had a double passport,” Trump told the Post.
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In May 2016, Trump told the Post what some "people" believe about the death of Vince Foster. “I don’t bring [Foster’s death] up because I don’t know enough to really discuss it,” Trump said. “I will say there are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder. I don’t do that because I don’t think it’s fair.”
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Soon after Trump called for an end to anonymous sourcing, The Associated Press noted, "Members of Trump's White House team regularly demand anonymity when talking to reporters."
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Surprise: Trump berates the news media for doing something he’s done himself
On Sunday, Donald Trump derided the use of anonymous sourcing in news stories. He also said in February that news outlets "shouldn't be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody's name." It's strange he thinks that, because he's used a lot of anonymous sources himself. Here are some examples.