Donald Trump's relationship with the press has been less than ideal. While referring to major news networks — like CNN among others — Trump has collectively referred to them as peddlers of "fake news" in the past. In a similar case of even more tension with news media, Trump's reelection campaign called journalists his "enemies."
The short video was only 30 seconds long but the message was detailed and pointedly against the people who supposedly do not allow Trump to "do his job." At the very end of the video, Trump can be heard declaring, "I am Donald Trump, and I approved this message." The promotional video was released over the weekend that involved white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
The campaign video was titled "Let President Trump Do His Job" and began with lambasting Democrats for "obstructing" Trump from performing as the leader of the United States. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York was the first figure in the video to be seen.
Followed by Schumer was a montage of prominent cable and network anchors such as Don Lemon, Chris Hayes, Rachel Maddow, Joe Scarborough, Mika Brzezinski, Jake Tapper, Brian Williams, and others. The unknown narrator in the video is heard claiming media was "attacking the president" while "career politicians" were "standing in the way of success."
The reelection campaign video also touted that Trump has added "one million" jobs to the American economy while also praising the president for bringing the unemployment rate to its "lowest since 2001." But economic analysts have noted in places like The Washington Post that there is actually no Trump bump to the national economy.
Observers have criticized the video, especially the time of its releasing as it took place over the very weekend that shocked Americans with unrest caused by a far-right white supremacist rally in Charlottesville.
The march took a fatal turn when authorities reported that three people were killed, including a young woman who was killed after a man plowed his car into a group of anti-racist protesters. Two state officers were also killed in a helicopter crash near the area.
In Bedminster, New Jersey, Trump issued a public statement on the unrest in Charlottesville, and said that there was violence "on many sides." But he was resoundingly criticized by both Republicans and Democrats for failing to explicitly denounce the main instigating force of tension at Saturday's rally: Nazis and white nationalists. It wouldn't be too far off to say that this reelection campaign video which calls journalists — not Nazis chanting "blood and soil" openly in public — his "enemies" is only bound to elicit more understandable backlash.
