Opinion: President Trump continues tirade against the press

The President’s childish squabbles with the media hit a new low. This time Trump took aim at MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. In two tweets published Thursday morning, the President called Scarborough a “Psycho” and Brzezinski “low I.Q. Crazy Mika”.

Just when you think President Trump can do no more to shock the public, he continues to find new levels of audacity. On one of his recent Twitter rants, Trump personally insulted “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, and stated that their show is so poorly rated that they were apparently begging to join him in Mar-a-Lago around New Years Eve. Trump’s second tweet was particularly harsh toward Brzezinski, saying “She was bleeding badly from a face-lift.”

The second tweet, in particular, has garnered a lot of attention, with many calling it sexist. Trump unfortunately has a long history of insulting women, especially for their looks. As Senator Lindsey Graham put it, the “tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America.”

Trump has faced a backlash from all sides on this one. Even his own party has criticized him for these crude tweets. His rivalry with the media is neither new nor unknown, let’s not forget the Twitter debacle in just a few months ago in which he called the media “the enemy of the American People!” That episode even launched a viral hashtag, #NotMyEnemy. This is just a latest in a tit for tat that we can only hope won’t last for the next three years. But these comments are on a new level of impudence.

Since day one of his presidency, Trump and his administration seem to have conflicts with reporters and news outlets who are just trying to do their job and report the news. A free press is the foundation of any democracy, but Trump seems to have a problem with that. Any news outlet that criticizes or disagrees with the President is lambasted as “fake news.” He is essentially bullying them into self-censorship. Did he expect to receive no criticism as the President of the United States? As one of the former president’s most vocal critics, he should at least be able to take it as well as he gave it.

The president of the biggest democracy in the world cannot just slam the media for doing their job. Trump may see it as the establishment being unfair and trying to undermine him, but in reality the media is doing exactly what it should.

Are there some problems with the mainstream media in this country? Surely. But compared to most countries in the world, the U.S. has a relatively free and robust press made up of thousands and thousands of honest journalists committed to informing the public and reporting the truth.

Trump has a serious problem with taking criticism and unfortunately for him, this is not the job for that kind of person. The President of the United States will inevitably be the most criticized person in the world, but that just comes with the territory. If you can’t stand the heat, stay out of the kitchen; or in this case, the White House.