In an interview with Fox News, pointing up to the Lincoln monument, President Donald Trump claimed that he has been treated worse than Abraham Lincoln.
At the Lincoln Memorial, Trump says he's being treated worse than Lincoln. https://t.co/psZwWRE6WD— Oliver Darcy (@Oliver Darcy) 1588551274.0
Trump — whose claim goes as far as bad media coverage and disgraceful questioning in press conferences — is making an important statement about journalism and the state of press and news within a Trump administration. He has often attacked journalists and news organizations during his presidency. Some have also called out Fox News for being a propaganda machine working directly for Trump's interests.
In this interview, those two streams come together.
It's a dangerous sentiment for any president to be airing on national television to an audience of 3.53 million primetime viewers. It insinuates that the media has been unfair and biased in their coverage of him and conflates that interpretation to being worse than how Lincoln was treated.
Before Lincoln even came into office, several states seceded from the Union based on what they heard about his belief towards slavery. And Lincoln was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth with the motive tied directly to his work at abolishing slavery and giving African Americans the right to vote.
Trump's opinion that questioning has been unfair, biased, and even disgraceful is simply his opinion. And it is not worse treatment than being assassinated.
However, the point Trump is making is clear — it's not about comparing himself to Lincoln but of vilifying news organizations and the national media that do not paint him in a positive light. And those sentiments are creating a space where those journalists and news organizations who question his authority are worse than the circumstances and man that led to the assassination of a president.
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