President Donald Trump took to Twitter at about past 3 a.m. on Friday to criticize CNN, another recipient of a suspicious package, for coverage that he said compared this week’s news to 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing.
“Funny how lowly rated CNN, and others, can criticize me at will, even blaming me for the current spate of Bombs and ridiculously comparing this to September 11th and the Oklahoma City bombing,” the president tweeted at 3:14 a.m., “yet when I criticize them they go wild and scream, ‘it’s just not Presidential!’ ”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1055719340832686080
Some argue Trump’s rhetoric is partially to blame for attempted attacks – involving at least 10 bomb-like devices discovered in Washington, New York, Delaware, Florida and California – since many of the intended recipients of the suspicious packages are favorite targets of Trump.
The White House has pushed back on the claim that Trump’s rhetoric has caused violence, with Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders saying Trump “certainly isn’t responsible” for the threats.
The 3:14 a.m. tweet, which was posted after an incomplete version of the tweet was published about 30 minutes prior and then deleted, comes in the same week that the president both condemned the pipe bombs and again targeted the media for the coverage of his administration.
CNN reporter Jim Acosta On Thursday evening, tweeted to Trump’s son, Donald Trump Jr., that “because of your father’s rhetoric (calling us the enemy of the people), we are all very worried that somebody is going to get
Don please understand everybody at CNN was terrified for members of your family when they were attacked. Please also understand that because of your father’s rhetoric (calling us the enemy of the people), we are all very worried that somebody is going to get hurt. https://t.co/vckpMoH2Wg
Advertisement— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 25, 2018
And also on Thursday night, CNN’s Chris Cuomo mocked Sanders’ defense of Trump with a quote from The Princess Bride.
“Presidential?” Cuomo said. “Sarah, you keep using that word. As Inigo Montoya said, ’You keep on using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.”
President Trump on Wednesday initially pledged to “get to the root” of the suspicious packages. He also said that “in these times, we have to unify.”
“We have to come together and send one very clear, strong, unmistakable message that acts or threats of political violence of any kind have no place in the United States of America,” Trump said.
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