In a Monday morning post by Chelsea Bailey, NBCNews.com and the NBC News Politics Twitter account sneered that President Donald Trump “will celebrate a milestone” and “small victory” in that he won’t “have the shortest term” as President following a tumultuous first month.
How NBC News thought that Trump would be removed from office or worse was not surprising, but it only gives credence to those like the President arguing the media is the enemy of the American people.
Bailey began by touting the “thousands prepar[ing] to swarm the streets for ‘Not My President's Day’ rallies” as well as the fact that Trump won’t suffer the fate of William Henry Harrison, who died 32 days after taking the Oath of Office in 1841.
“[T]he president will celebrate a milestone — he's reached his 32nd day in office. That small victory means that, despite the demands of his detractors, President Trump will not have the shortest term in the Oval Office,” Bailey added.
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She continued with the comparisons between Trump and the pneumonia-stricken Harrison:
That unfortunate honor rests with William Henry Harrison, the ninth president of the United States, who died from pneumonia just 32 days into his presidency, on April 4, 1841 — making him also the first president to die in office.
At the time the 65-year-old Harrison was our country's oldest president. Trump, elected at 70, now holds that title.
Throughout his campaign for the White House, the Democratic Party attempted to portray Harrison, a decorated military officer and longtime politician, as elderly and out of touch with the Americans, according to White House historians.
But their mocking wasn't enough to deny Harrison the Oval Office. Despite winning by a narrow majority of 150,000 votes, Harrison dominated in the Electoral College winning 234 electoral votes to 60.
If the Trump-Harrison links weren’t already seen as tasteless and a double standard applied to only Republican presidents, Bailey concluded by hinting that Trump will next look to outlast the second-shortest presidency that ended because of assassination.
As she explained, that man was “James Garfield, who was assassinated after only 7 months in office” after being shot at a Washington D.C. railroad station by a man passed over for positions in the Garfield administration.
It’s safe to say the media probably weren’t out there making these proclamations whenever Barack Obama or Bill Clinton passed Harrison, Garfield, or even other brief tenures like Zachary Taylor or John F. Kennedy.
