Donald Trump Slams CNN, Flag-Burning in Early Morning Tweets
President-elect Donald Trump went on the offensive against CNN early Tuesday, asserting that the cabler’s coverage of his nascent administration has grown “worse” since the election.
Trump also raised serious First Amendment concerns with a tweet suggesting that those caught burning the American flag should be punished by a year in jail or loss of citizenship. That message spurred a tidal wave of responses demonstrating the Supreme Court’s protection of flag burning as a free speech issue, including comments from conservative justices such as the late Antonin Scalia.
Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag – if they do, there must be consequences – perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2016
On Monday night, Trump reacted to CNN’s coverage of the growing effort to initiate recounts of the presidential vote in key swing states such as Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. He retweeted several missives from Twitter users critical of CNN and its senior Washington correspondent Jeff Zeleny and sent his own tweet slamming CNN for its “total (100%) support of Hillary Clinton.”
Early Tuesday morning, Trump reiterated his opinion that CNN has “failed so badly” in its journalistic mission.
I thought that @CNN would get better after they failed so badly in their support of Hillary Clinton however, since election, they are worse!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 29, 2016
Trump’s habit of sending out unvarnished opinions via Twitter at all hours of the day is one of the ways his presidency promises to be a break with decades of political tradition. The president-elect has been strongly criticized for waging what many see as petty personal battles while failing to use his platform to address the rising incidents of racist invective expressed by those who claim to be Trump supporters and hate crimes against people of color.
CNN did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Trump’s tweets.
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