In conversations with those close to him, the president casually aired a complaint and a prediction—that “the fake news” would “unfair[ly]” try to blame him and his demagoguing of the adversarial news coverage for the mass shooting, according to two advisers who spoke to him about the matter.
In Trump’s view, his critics in the media and Democrats would use the story of murdered journalists against him, to highlight his years-long push to delegitimize and bash those he perceived as the “enemy of the American people” at major news outlets. Furthermore, the president has repeatedly insisted that the culture and rhetoric coming from the American left is the real problem and far more likely to inspire violence than anything coming from the right, anyway—and that voters understand that.
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