Deputy Assistant to President Trump, Sebastian Gorka, said that the White House is going to continue calling the media fake news until the press stops being critical of Trump.
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According to CNN, Gorka said, “There is a monumental desire on behalf of the majority of the media, not just the pollsters, the majority of the media to attack a duly elected President in the second week of his term. That’s how unhealthy the situation is and until the media understands how wrong that attitude is, and how it hurts their credibility, we are going to continue to say, ‘fake news.’ I’m sorry, Michael. That’s the reality.”
Any story that criticizes Trump, or that the President does not like is going to be labeled “fake news” by the White House. It seems that the only real news that the White House will accept is stories that praise Trump.
The real point of the Trump White House’s adoption of the fake news term as a weapon is the delegitimation of the free press. The White House is attempting to delegitimize facts and information that they don’t like by labeling them as not real. If President Trump and his team are able to successfully confuse the American people, it will be more difficult to hold them accountable for their actions.
The fake news punishment is more than a way to pressure the press to give Trump positive coverage. The White House is trying to discredit the flow of factual information to the public.
Gorka’s comments demonstrate that the nation’s real fake news problem is currently residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.