Trump Whined About His TV Habits During A Terrorist Attack & Twitter Lashed Back

Even when it doesn't cause any casualties, an attempted terrorist attack in New York still counts as an attempted terrorist attack in the nation's biggest city. You'd expect the nation's president to offer a response — but so far, that hasn't happened. Instead, Donald Trump tweeted about his TV habit during the NYC terrorist attack and boy, has Twitter ever had words to say about that.

A little after 9 a.m. EST on Monday, right at around the time when you might have expected Trump to react to the attempted terrorist attack in which four people were injured in New York City, Trump tweeted a response — but it wasn't a response to the attack. Instead, it was a response to an article from The New York Times. Published on Saturday, the article, based on interviews with dozens of Trump and White House aides, detailed Trump's daily habits. According to the article's sources, Trump watches between four and eight hours of TV on a daily basis, and he mostly switches between Fox, CNN, and MSNBC. Among all of the claims in the article, this was the one that Trump apparently felt he had to respond to on Monday morning.

Another false story, this time in the Failing @nytimes, that I watch 4-8 hours of television a day - Wrong! Also, I seldom, if ever, watch CNN or MSNBC, both of which I consider Fake News. I never watch Don Lemon, who I once called the “dumbest man on television!” Bad Reporting.

Trump maligned the "fake news" several times on Twitter over the weekend, closer to the time when this New York Times story was originally published — but he didn't make any mention of it until Monday morning. Perhaps coincidentally, he didn't make any mention of it until just around the time when MSNBC was reporting on it. Twitter did not lose sight of the irony in this.

Trump, it seemed to Twitter, had tweeted "about not watching tv after hearing about how much tv he watches while watching tv." If this seems like something out of the Twilight Zone to you, then you're not alone.

Yes, the sitting president did just repudiate reporting from one of the most trusted names in journalism. Yes, he did just do it in a way that could be taken to confirm that reporting. And yes, he did also do it at a time when the rest of the nation was reading news about an attempted terrorist attack in the biggest city in the country, which also happens to be his hometown.

Some also noted that this was out of character for Trump, as in the past he's met reports of terrorist attacks with immediate attempts to use them to support his desired immigration policies.

Immediately after the Oct. 31 terrorist attack in New York City, Trump rushed to criticize the immigration system without even waiting to hear confirmed reports about the attacker's background, a move many criticized as racist. This time, he hasn't offered as much as a peep about the attack.

One of the authors of theTimes' articles, though, had given perhaps the most fitting response to this latest tweet of President Trump's — a day before he even tweeted it. "Trump watches TV. in part to see himself. Then he reacts to what he sees about himself on TV. The reactive presidency," wrote Maggie Haberman on Twitter.

If Trump hadn't already proven Haberman's reporting to be accurate, then this is surely another point she can add to her tally.