The disturbing consequences of President Trump’s ever-escalating war against our free press were made very clear on Sunday when CNN reporter Brian Stelter aired clips of a C-SPAN caller threatening to shoot him and fellow anchor Don Lemon.
The mysterious caller, “Don,” accused the anchors of smearing them as “racists” and swore to shoot them on sight.
“They don’t even know these Americans out here and they are calling us racists because we voted for Trump? Come on. Give me a break. They started the war. I see them, I’m going to shoot them.”
While death threats against anyone that threatens the right-wing agenda, be they highschool kids who protest gun violence, women who spoke out about the President’s sexual assaults, or reporters who cover the president’s interminable scandals, are now a disturbingly common occurence, Stelter noted that the frequency of threats had increased dramatically in recent days.
Threats against reporters on the rise. We decided to broadcast one of those threats on today's @ReliableSources, so everyone can hear it for themselves. pic.twitter.com/kJxGWKOrWI
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) August 5, 2018
On top of that, he shared a clip of MSNBC’s Katy Tur sharing some of the emails that she and her female colleagues recieve from angry right-wingers: “I hope you get raped and killed.”
“And in case you want to argue that this has nothing to do with the president, the most recent note I got ended with ‘MAGA” said a grim Tur.
Stelter’s message to the world came just hours after Trump attacked the media again in a disturbing early morning tweet, accusing them of “causing war” and of being “dangerous and sick.”
The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it’s TRUE. I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 5, 2018
With the president repeatedly firing out this kind of rhetoric, it’s only a matter of time before violence against the media occurs — and Trump will bear responsibility for it.