Donald Trump’s term in office is only four-weeks old but he’s got the liberal media and Hollywood elites losing their collective minds. It’s hard to keep track of all the nasty accusations they’ve made.
On Trump’s temporary travel limits, they’ve charged he’s echoed “Nazi” language in his effort to “turn off that lamp on the Statue of Liberty,” that has resulted in a reaction that, as Huffington Post’s Howard Fineman concluded, “Osama Bin Laden, himself, would have prayed for.”
Chuck Todd and Dan Rather have claimed he’s currently mired in a scandal on the levels of Iran-Contra and Watergate.
The media have also questioned Trump’s mental stability. FNC’s Shephard Smith ranted “It’s crazy what we’re watching every day,” MSNBC contributor Christopher Dickey warned his viewers “people in European governments think that Trump has lost his mind,” former MSNBC host Keith Olbermann charged “I don’t believe him sane, flatly,” and The View co-host Joy Behar asked Dr. Phil “Do you think that’s a mental illness, narcissism, and if so is he fit to be president?”
The outrage over Trump has gotten so-out-of hand, some in the press are even fearing for their very lives as MSNBC correspondent Katy Tur worried: “Since 2000, been a couple dozen suspicious deaths of journalists in Russia who came out against the government there. Donald Trump has made no secret about going after journalists and his distaste for any news that doesn’t agree with him here. Do you find that this is a dangerous path he is heading down?”
Hollywood filmmakers and actors also freaked out. Veep star Julia-Louis Dreyfus used an awards show acceptance speech to spew: “This immigrant ban is a blemish and it’s un-American.” And Avengers director Joss Whedon tweeted “We have a dictator,” while Rob Reiner feared: “We have somebody who is mentally unstable....who’s running our country.”
The following is a collection of the 26 worst outbursts by liberal journalists and celebrities made against Trump’s presidency from his first four weeks in office:
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Is Trump Crazy?
“It’s crazy what we’re watching every day. It’s absolutely crazy. He keeps repeating ridiculous throw away lines that are not true at all?”
— Host Shephard Smith discussing Trump press conference on FNC’s Shephard Smith Reporting, February 16.
“Therapists, a lot of respected psychologists out there, really big time really big names, are saying that Donald Trump is showing signs of narcissism. Which by the way, one of the symptoms is preoccupied with the fantasies of unlimited power, success and brilliance and they’re questioning that he has narcissistic disorder. Number one, do you think that’s a mental illness, narcissism, and if so is he fit to be president?”
— Co-host Joy Behar to Dr. Phil on ABC’s The View, February 2.
“To me, when you have presidents take office, many of them are empowered and get bigger. I think you have a president in that press conference that looked smaller and actually more insecure in his position, as opposed to secure in his position....It was reminiscent of Captain Queeg in a Caine Mutiny and somebody saying, ‘I’m going to search for their strawberries.’”
— Political analyst Matthew Dowd during live coverage of Donald Trump press conference, February 16.
Filmmaker Judd Apatow: “Keith, what are you most concerned about?”
GQ special correspondent Keith Olbermann: “I don’t believe him sane, flatly. And we can, again, analyze what that means but I don’t know that we can, we can expect rational decisions to the 100 crises a day that go through the government.”
— PBS’s Charlie Rose show, February 13.
“I think people here generally and especially people in European governments think that Trump has lost his mind, and that the United States government is rapidly moving out of any kind of control, any kind of stability that’s been known in the past. I think people are really genuinely worried....And remember, Joy, in Europe, they have historical memories. They remember what fascism was like. In the United States, we’ve been spared that, at least up until now.”
— Daily Beast editor and MSNBC contributor Christopher Dickey on MSNBC’s AM Joy, January 29.
Is Trump Going to Start Killing Reporters?
“As we know, there’s, since 2000, been a couple dozen suspicious deaths of journalists in Russia who came out against the government there. Donald Trump has made no secret about going after journalists and his distaste for any news that doesn’t agree with him here. Do you find that this is a dangerous path he is heading down?
— Correspondent Katy Tur to Democratic Senator Deb Fischer on MSNBC Live, February 6.
Trump Made Bin Laden’s Prayers Come True
MSNBC political analyst Howard Fineman: “Osama bin Laden’s whole theory of a war of the west on Islam now gains great credence thanks to what Donald Trump just did.”
Host Chris Matthews: “We’re all crusaders now.”
Fineman: “We are the crusaders officially in the eyes of Islam. At least that’s what that’s what Osama said, that’s what Donald Trump has done. It is the reaction that Osama Bin Laden, himself, would have prayed for.”
Matthews: “And he died for. This is what he wanted to happen.”
Fineman: “He prayed for and died for. This is 9/11, fifteen years later.”
— Discussing Trump’s temporary pause on immigration from terrorist nations on MSNBC’s Hardball, January 30.
Trump Snuffed Out Statue of Liberty’s Flame
“From the birther campaign to the talk of Mexican rapists, Trump has always trafficked in fear-mongering. This time, to stoke those fears and present himself as the country’s protector, he chose to punish ordinary men, women and children who are fleeing terrorism and violence, who are willing to brave the odds, bear the hardships and separate from family and home, all to try to come to America. These people are the road kill of Trump’s posturing. But something else is being destroyed along with it: The image, reputation and good will of the United States as the beacon of the world. As someone noted over the past few days, Donald Trump seems to want to turn off that lamp on the Statue of Liberty.”
— Host Fareed Zakaria on CNN’s Fareed Zakaria GPS, January 29.
“Citing the terrorist attacks on 9/11, including the attack on the World Trade Center, President Trump drew an X today through the welcoming words of the nearby Statue of Liberty. He signed an executive order he says will keep out Islamic terrorists.”
— Anchor Scott Pelley on CBS Evening News, January 27.
Trump Transforming Democracy Into Something Evil
“We can imagine a future of jackboots crashing through our doors at 2 a.m., trucks in the streets to take people to the internment camps, bright lights and barking dogs — and worse. Does this make me sound hysterical? Maybe. But this is my last chance to be. In its first week, the Trump administration demonstrated its contempt for Mexicans, for Muslims and for Jews. I imagine the true list is longer. Much longer. Should we keep quiet as we watch this? Is this why America was created?...Our long national nightmare may have just begun.”
— Former White House correspondent for U.S. News & World Report Roger Simon in his February 1 farewell Politico column announcing his retirement.
Cokie Agrees, Trump is Really Saying “White America First”
Panelist Jamal Simmons: “It’s starting to make it seem a little bit, also, like ‘America first’ is really ‘white America first,’ because if you look at what he’s doing, he’s going after immigrants....This president doesn’t even have any African Americans, Latinos, in unusual jobs in his cabinet.”...
ABC political analyst Cokie Roberts: “I think there’s a lot of truth to that....”
— ABC’s This Week, February 12.
Trump Using “Exactly the Same” Language the Nazis Used
“Hitler and the Nazis regarded the Jews as an existential threat to Germany. They used hyperbolic and exaggerated language about Jews. If the Jews were not killed, the Nazis said, they would destroy Germany completely, whereas other groups that the Nazis stigmatized, discriminated against, and indeed murdered, like the handicapped, were only to be gotten out of the way. If you look at the language the Trump team has been using about Islamic extremist jihadis, it is exactly the same: They are an existential threat to America. They will defeat, dominate, and destroy America. That is a very extreme kind of language and a very disturbing echo.”
— Historian Richard Evans in February 10 Slate.com interview headlined “Too Close for Comfort, How Much Do The Early Days of the Trump Administration Look Like the Third Reich?”
Trump is the Toddler-in-Chief
“Remember, Frankenstein is the name of the doctor, not the monster, so what produced this heinous manifestation we see, of President Bannon – I mean, President Trump is the fact that there is a culture of intolerance for the other....Donald Trump is the manifestation the very face of kind of refusal to grow up. This is the first toddler presidency, the inability to acknowledge the legitimacy of America as a great nation.”
— New York Times contributor and Georgetown professor Michael Eric Dyson on ABC’s The View, February 1.
Trump Administration Like “Totalitarian Regimes”
“He’s [White House Senior Advisor Stephen Bannon] playing a strategy which involves creating straw men and women, creating an enemy out of the press, and then, you know, dividing, diverting, obfuscating while other things are going on. That’s the only thing I can imagine. Obviously, there are many other — I want to say — totalitarian regimes in the past which used this same kind of strategy.”
— Correspondent Christiane Amanpour on CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, January 26.
Pouting Over Press Conference
“This not a laughing matter. I’m sorry, delegitimizing the press is un-American.”...
— NBC Meet the Press host Chuck Todd in a February 16 tweet after Trump press conference.
“Con Artist” Conway Polluting CNN’s Airwaves
“CNN, expressing ‘serious questions about her credibility,’ was right on Sunday to refuse her [White House Senior Advisor Kellyanne Conway] a forum — something press critic Jay Rosen has been urging for some time, arguing that the networks must stop booking someone who so obviously refuses to deal honestly with viewers. There were even hints the network was considering a permanent ban, the surest way to prevent a professional con artist from using you to pollute the airwaves with one flagrant lie after another. CNN’s change of heart Tuesday was a blow to its own credibility, and a disappointment to many hoping for greater courage among the media.”
— Former PBS host Bill Moyers in February 10 Salon.com article.
Worse than Watergate and Iran Contra
“Welcome to day one of what is arguably the biggest presidential scandal involving a foreign government since Iran-Contra. Take a breath, hyperbole aside, folks, hunker down cause this is a class five political hurricane that’s hitting Washington.”
— Host Chuck Todd discussing Michael Flynn’s resignation on MSNBC’s MTP Daily, February 14.
“Watergate is the biggest political scandal of my lifetime, until maybe now. It was the closest we came to a debilitating Constitutional crisis, until maybe now. On a 10 scale of armageddon for our form of government, I would put Watergate at a 9. This Russia scandal is currently somewhere around a 5 or 6, in my opinion, but it is cascading in intensity seemingly by the hour. And we may look back and see, in the end, that it is at least as big as Watergate. It may become the measure by which all future scandals are judged. It has all the necessary ingredients, and that is chilling.”
— Disgraced former CBS Evening News anchor Dan Rather in a February 15 Facebook post.
It’s a Hate Crime to Be Friends with Donald Trump
“Tom Brady no longer gets a pass on his friendship with Donald Trump. Not after this weekend, when the country boiled over in rage and indignation at Trump’s decision to turn America’s back on refugees. Not after this season, when Colin Kaepernick was pilloried from coast to coast for trying to draw attention to the shortcomings of our country. And not when he’s about to command the NFL’s biggest stage....In refusing to publicly disavow Trump’s actions, Brady is giving tacit endorsement to both Trump and the chaos he has created.”
— USA Today columnist Nancy Armour in January 30 article “Tom Brady has some explaining to do on Donald Trump.”
GOP Brutally Silenced Women and Blacks in One Senatorial Move
“They’re really scared of her [Sen. Elizabeth Warren]. So they had to silence her. I mean, we’re right now at the beginning of February, which is Black History Month. So between that and March being Women’s History Month, they can kind of kill two birds with one stone by silencing one of the most iconic, important civil rights leaders, because Coretta [Scott King] was there with Martin doing stuff and putting the kibosh on Elizabeth. It was just bad. It looked bad. It looked like, ‘little girl, sit down.’ And it was pretty disgusting.”
— CBS News Sunday Morning contributor Nancy Giles discussing Democratic Senator Elizabeth Warren’s speech against Trump Attorney General Jeff Sessions on MSNBC’s The Last Word, February 8.
“We’ll show you the ballots on the Senate floor after the brutal silencing last night of a Senator, Elizabeth Warren....You’re a different generation than me, but the boys do all the talking. They may not get the grades the girl do, but they do all the talking. The girls are much more reserved about this. Does that strike — is it that primordial? I think it is — telling a woman to shut up?”
— Host Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball, February 8.
“Mentally Unstable” Trump is Threat to Our Democracy
“He’s a pathological liar. I mean, what’s interesting here is that we really have a test, and we’re being tested as to whether or not our democracy is going to survive. We have somebody who is mentally unstable, who is a pathological liar — there’s no getting around that — who’s running our country....And so we’re looking at a cancerous presidency that we cannot allow to spread.”
— Filmmaker Rob Reiner on MSNBC’s AM Joy, February 12.
“Horrified” By “Dictator” Trump’s “Tyranny”
“I want you all to know that I’m the daughter of an immigrant. My father fled religious persecution in Nazi-occupied France. And I’m an American patriot and I love this country. And because I love this country I am horrified its blemishes. And this immigrant ban is a blemish and it’s un-American.”
— Actress Julia Louis-Dreyfus at the 23rd Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards show as aired on TNT, January 29.
“We’re all feeling, really, I think, inspired to do the right thing. And the Women’s March was a great example of coming together and standing up against the, sort of, tyranny that — that we’re experiencing right now.”
— Actor Kal Penn on CNN’s New Day, January 30.
“We have a dictator. Wow. We’re THAT country now.”
— Avengers director Joss Whedon in a January 25 tweet.
Lena Lectures Her Sisters for Voting for Trump
“It is an incredible problem that 53 percent of women in this country — 53 percent of white women in this country voted for Donald Trump which means that they’re not only voting against the interests of their sisters, of women who may not look like them, who they may not understand but whose rights are just as important, but also remember that they are in that case voting against their own best interest.”
— Actress Lena Dunham on ABC’s The View, February 10.
Keeping It Classy
“Now, if you didn’t know about this, Donald Trump’s ‘daughter/wife’ Ivanka, she had a clothing line which was dropped by department stores, including Nordstrom. Of course Trump went ape-shit on Twitter about this. You know what, of all the people, Mr. Businessman, he should understand, they dropped it because the merchandise just wasn’t moving. The only one interested in getting into Ivanka’s pants is him.”
— Host Bill Maher on HBO’s Real Time, February 10.
