Mattis distances himself from the president's war on the media

Donald Trump's defence secretary has distanced himself from the president's war on media, calling journalists a constituency of the democratic process.

کد خبر: ۶۶۹۳۳۸

تاریخ: ۰۲ اسفند ۱۳۹۵ - ۱۰:۰۱

Telegraph - Donald Trump's defence secretary has distanced himself from the president's war on media, calling journalists a constituency of the democratic process.

James Mattis' comments came after his commander-in-chief declared the fifth estate the "enemy of the American people" and vowed to "expose them for what they are".

"The press, as far as I'm concerned, are a constituency that we deal with," Mr Mattis said. "And I don't have any issues with the press, myself."

Mr Trump often mocked the "dishonest" media in his presidential campaign.  But since taking office, this denigration has morphed from crowd pleasing rhetoric into a strategy seemingly intended to discredit journalists reporting unflattering revelations of dysfunction and divisions in his White House.

Reince Priebus, the White House chief of staff warned yesterday that the his comments, which often come in the form of missives fired on Twitter, should be taken "seriously". He described political reporting on Mr Trump's first month -  the most drama-riven of perhaps any presidency - as a "feeding frenzy" of "bogus" stories.

Mr Priebus attacked as "total garbage" the media coverage of allegations that the Trump campaign may have colluded with Moscow's alleged interference in the US election, despite this also being the subject in of a senate intelligence committee investigation.

He said journalists should report that Mr Trump "has accomplished more in the first 30 days in this presidency than people can remember in a long time", a claim that, when  these first weeks are compared to those of Barack Obama's, his predecessor, does not stand up to scrutiny.

On CBS' 'Face the Nation' Mr Preibus dogged focus on the dishonesty of the press, prompted anchor John Dickerson to say: "So in every answer, you've turned it back to the media. So I guess the question is: Is the strategy now to answer any question by just turning it back on the media and using a fight with the media as a way to try to control the storyline?"

The president has taken  to collectively dismissing major US television networks and newspapers as the "fake news media", describing them as "lying", "corrupt" and "failing", the "enemy" and the "opposition".

These attacks have drawn scathing criticism from US politicians, even within Republican ranks.

Lindsey Graham, a prominent conservative senator from South Carolina said on CBS that a free press "are worth fighting and dying for".

He said he believed US media had become too "hysterical" in its reporting of Mr Trump, but that: "The enemies of the democracy at the end of the day are not the press. It's Russia. It's Iran and radical Islam."

His comments came a day after John McCain, the veteran Republican senator from Arizona, echoed the warnings being made by Democrats in congress that Mr Trump's is taking a strong man approach to the Oval office.

"If you want to preserve democracy as we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press," he said. "And without it, I am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. That's how dictators get started."

Marco Rubio, the Florida senator who ran against Mr Trump for the Republican nomination in the election, but who has since been careful not to criticise the president answered a question about whether Mr Trump was damaging America's image abroad by saying "a country's more than one person".

Separately, reports emerged that Mr Trump plans to issue an executive order enacting a new version of his controversial immigration and travel ban on Tuesday. A draft seen by the Wall Street Journal, shows that the administration would try to keep the temporary travel ban from seven Muslim-majority countries. Green-card will be exempted.

A state department officials suggested that the controversial policy would be dropped, but two White House officials denied the claims.