“[CNN] is viewed and respected worldwide, including by foreign leaders,” said CNN’s Michael Smerconish on his eponymous Saturday morning program.
President Donald Trump’s criticisms of CNN will damage the president’s credibility as a function of CNN’s broadly positive global reputation, alleged Smerconish.
Trump’s comedic tweet of a meme beating Vince McMahon with a superimposed CNN logo over the WWE Chairman’s head furthered an “ugly American” stereotype, said Smerconish:
“Last week in London, all my efforts [to dispel a false ‘ugly American’ stereotype] seemed an exercise in futility. No amount of person-to-person encounters this summer travel season can offset the recent actions of our president.”
Smerconish attempted to connect Trump to misogyny and anti-Semitism:
“Prior to my departure, the president sent a vulgar tweet commenting on a female cable news host’s plastic surgery. By the time I had landed overseas, he’d tweeted an internet meme which showed him bodyslamming CNN. His impulsivity apparently wasn’t slowed by the fact that the meme originated on Reddit via someone whose online identityy is HanA**holeSolo. Nor was the president deterred by this individual’s prior listing of CNN personalities next to Stars of David; an anti-Semitic suggestion of overrepresentation in the media.”
View Smerconish’s comments below.
Smerconish hosts a daily radio show on Sirius XM’s POTUS channel, in which he presents himself as a politically balanced and objective news media figure without partisan biases. CNN similarly markets itself as “The Most Trusted Name In News.”
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