Crecen las críticas contra crueles tuits de Trump

El presidente de EE.UU., Donald Trump, se burló de la presentadora de MSNBC Mika Brzezinski y de su co-presentador Joe Scarborough en una serie de tweets. Imagen: https://gdb.voanews.com/275EB65A-ADBD-4793-BF49-58BAA19CDCEB_cx0_cy5_cw0_w1023_r1_s.jpg

Los crueles tuits del presidente Donald Trump contra dos conductores de la cadena de televisión por cable MSNBC el jueves por la mañana, han sido fuertemente criticados por partidarios y opositores, aunque fueron defendidos por la Casa Blanca y la oficina de la primera dama Melania Trump.

Trump, se burló del aspecto y temperamento de Mika Brzezinski la presentadora del programa de noticias “Morning Joe” y de su compañero Joe Scarborough, quienes lo han criticado insistentemente, y dijo que ha dejado de verlo.

“Escuché que @Morning Joe con malos ratings habla mal de mí (no lo veo más). Entonces por qué la idiota loca Mika con el psicótico Joe vinieron… a Mar-a-Lago 3 noches seguidas en Año Nuevo e insistieron en estar conmigo. Ella sangraba por un estiramiento facial. ¡Dije que no!”.

Brzezinski respondió en Twitter con una foto de una caja del cereal Cheerios con la frase “hecho para pequeñas manitas”. Fue una burla a Trump, siempre susceptible por el tamaño de sus manos.

Reacciones

En Fox News Channel, un medio generalmente amistoso hacia Trump, el periodista estrella Shepard Smith inició su noticiero de la tarde con los tuits presidenciales, los que dijo: “algunos críticos están llamando ciberacoso sexual”.

Smith entrevistó al anfitrión de “Media Buzz”, Howard Kurtz, quien señaló que Trump ataca frecuentemente a los críticos, pero que “este es un golpe donde realmente se ha herido a sí mismo”.

Kurtz dijo que “está perfectamente claro para las personas que no son pagadas para defenderlo que él cruzó una línea “. Dijo que la Casa Blanca no puede culpar a los medios de comunicación por la dura cobertura ya que trajo el problema sobre sí mismo.

Smith también tomó el paso inusual de leer tres correos electrónicos de los espectadores que le criticaron por su cobertura de la historia. Dijo que un lector escribió en las redes sociales que “Shep es una hemorroide liberal” que estaría mejor trabajando en MSNBC, una cadena liberal al contrario del conservador Fox News Channel.

En la edición del miércoles, Brzezinski y Scarborough se burlaron de Trump por exhibir en varios de sus clubes de golf carátulas falsas de la revista Time con su imagen.

“Eso es patético”, dijo Brzezinski en el programa.

Joe Scarborough y Mika Brzezinskyi, presentadores del programa “Morning Joe” de la cadena de televisión por cable MSNBC. Imagen: https://gdb.voanews.com/3F714DE3-1F56-4300-99B0-D1B0FA6E24B3_w650_r0_s.jpg

En el Capitolio, republicanos y demócratas condenaron los despiadados mensajes presidenciales.

La líder demócrata de la Cámara de Representantes, Nancy Pelosi, comentó a reporteros: “realmente me entristece, porque está tan por debajo de la dignidad del presidente de los Estados Unidos participar en ese comportamiento”. Añadió que son “groseramente sexistas”.

El presidente de la Cámara de Representantes, Paul Ryan dijo que el cruel tuit del Presidente no es un “comentario apropiado”.

En declaraciones a periodistas, el republicano por Wisconsin añadió: “Obviamente no lo veo como un comentario apropiado. Lo que estamos tratando de hacer aquí es mejorar el tono y la civilidad del debate, y esto obviamente no ayuda “.

El congresista republicano de Illinois Adam Kinzinger escribió en Twitter: “Mr. Presidente, nos corresponde a TODOS nosotros acallar esta retórica política divisoria. # RestoreCivility. ”

Su colega de Florida, Carlos Curbelo, publicó una serie de tweets diciendo que los llíderes deberían dar un ejemplo sin ataques personales ni acusaciones denigrantes.”Recordemos las lecciones de los disparos del Congreso hace apenas dos semanas. Debemos tratarnos unos a otros con decencia y respeto “, dijo Curbelo.

El senador por Oklahoma James Lankford insistió en que el presidente Donald Trump y otros líderes “deben modelar la civilidad, el honor y el respeto en su retórica política”. Agregó que los comentarios de Trump “no ayudan a nuestro discurso político o nacional y no proporcionan un modelo positivo para nuestro diálogo nacional”.

Una de las mujeres con más años de servicio en el Congreso, la demócrata Nita Lowey de Nueva York dijo que los tuits del presidente Donald Trump acerca de Mika Brzezinski eran “comentarios atroces y viles acerca de la apariencia y la inteligencia de una mujer prominente”. Agregó que, “el comportamiento del presidente debe ser repudiado en voz alta y clara”.

La senadora republicana por Maine, Susan Collins, dijo en un tuit: “Esto tiene que parar -todos tenemos un trabajo – las 3 ramas del gobierno y la prensa. No tenemos que llevarnos bien, pero debemos mostrar respeto y civilidad”.

La congresista Lynn Jenkins de Kansas dijo en Twitter: “Esto no está bien. Como mujer en la política a menudo me critican por mi apariencia”.

Otros dos senadores republicanos dijeron que los tuits están por debajo de la dignidad de la oficina. El Senador de Nebraska, Ben Sasse, dijo en su cuenta personal: “Por favor, sólo para esto.” No es normal y está debajo de la dignidad de su oficina”.

El senador por Carolina del Sur, Lindsey Graham tuiteó: “Sr. Presidente, su tuit estuvo por debajo de su oficina y representa lo que está mal con la política estadounidense, no la grandeza de América”.

La Primera Dama Melania Trump defendió los ataques de Twitter de su esposo a través de su portavoz Stephanie Grisham, quien recordó que la señora Trump dijo hace mucho tiempo que “cuando su esposo sea atacado, contratacará 10 veces más”.

En diciembre de 2016, Melania Trump dijo que espera utilizar su posición en la Casa Blanca para combatir el acoso cibernético.

Una portavoz de la Casa Blanca defendió los explosivos tuits del presidente, diciendo que combate “fuego con fuego”. Sarah Huckabee Sanders dijo a Fox News que el presidente nunca ha sido alguien “que es atacado y no retrocede”.

Señaló que los conductores de la cadena a quienes criticó han hecho “un número escandaloso de ataques personales”a Trump, y dijo que el mandatario “combate el fuego con fuego y ciertamente no permitirá ser intimidado por los medios liberales y las élites liberales dentro de los medios de comunicación o Hollywood o en cualquier otro lugar”.

Huckabee reiteró el comentario en la conferencia de prensa diaria con los periodistas asignados a la Casa Blanca.

Unos 15 minutos antes del tuit presidencial, el director de redes sociales de la Casa Blanca, Dan Scavino, también atacó a los periodistas.

“#EstúpidaMika y su amante #CelosoJoe están perdidos, confundidos & tristes desde que @POTUS @realDonaldTrump dejó de responder a sus llamadas. Chiflados”.

Trump tiene razón al decir que los presentadores estuvieron en el club del presidente en Florida. Según Scarborough, habían ido a organizar una entrevista con Trump.

Scarborough y Brzezinski están comprometidos y según un artículo de la revista Vanity Fair, durante una comida a la que fueron invitados a la Casa Blanca, el presidente Trump había ofrecido oficiar el matrimonio.

En: voa 

White House offers unapologetic defense of Trump tweets

The White House offered an unapologetic defense Thursday of President Trump’s tweets attacking MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski during a contentious televised press briefing.

Spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders was grilled over whether Trump’s inflammatory tweet was beneath the dignity of the presidency, fueled a hostile political environment and set a bad example of how women should be treated by powerful men.

She responded by defending Trump and berating reporters for ignoring the president’s policy agenda on taxes, healthcare and infrastructure.

“The only person I see a war on is this president and everybody that works for him,” she said. “I don’t think you can expect someone to be personally attacked, day after day, minute by minute, and sit back. The American people elected a fighter.”

Sanders said Trump shows the dignity of his office “every day in the decisions he’s making, the focus and the priorities he’s laid out in his agenda.

“He’s not going to sit back and be attacked by the liberal media, Hollywood elites — and when they hit him, he’s going to hit back,” she said.

Trump’s outburst at Brzezinski escalated his long-running feud with the news media, a fight in which he appeared to gain the upper hand this week after CNN was forced to retract a story about the Russia probe.

But Trump’s decision to take aim at her looks, saying that the “Morning Joe” co-host had been “bleeding badly” from a “face-lift,” sparked bipartisan outrage in Washington.

“Mr. President, your tweet was beneath the office and represents what is wrong with American politics, not the greatness of America,” GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) tweeted.

Critics on both side of the aisle took specific issue with Trump’s attack on a female reporter — Trump faced repeated allegations of sexism and harassment that bubbled up during his presidential campaign.

Kansas Republican Rep. Lynn Jenkins tweeted Thursday that Trump’s comments were “not okay,” adding that “we should be working to empower women.”

But Sanders pushed aside the notion that Trump’s tweets were sexist or a bad example for how to treat women.

“Everybody wants to make this an attack on a woman — what about the constant attacks that he receives or the rest of us?” she said.

“I’m a woman, I’ve been attacked by that show multiple times, but I don’t cry foul because of it.”

When another reporter followed up by asking if Sanders felt that the tweet set a good example for her children, she deflected by saying that God is the “one perfect role model.”

The spokesperson chided reporters for not focusing more on policy questions and the White House’s legislative agenda, saying that reporters are more consumed by investigations related to Russia election interference and possible collusion between Trump campaign aides and Moscow.

“The media’s focus on priorities don’t line up with the rest of America,” she said. “America is winning, and that is what we like to talk about, but you guys constantly ignore that narrative.”

But critics say Trump’s Twitter broadsides against the media and the Russia investigation are distractions from his policy message.

In addition to the healthcare debate on Capitol Hill, Trump’s staff planned out a series of messaging events called “Energy Week,” featuring a presidential speech about energy development later Thursday. Those events have been overshadowed by the president’s attack.

It also undercut his call for unity after this month’s shooting at a congressional baseball practice that left House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) and others injured.

“We may have our differences, but we do well in times like these to remember everyone who serves in our nation’s capital is here because, above all, they love our country,” Trump said at the White House on June 14, the day of the shooting.

In: thehill 

Trump Mocks Mika Brzezinski; Says She Was ‘Bleeding Badly From a Face-Lift’

WASHINGTON — President Trump lashed out Thursday at the appearance and intellect of Mika Brzezinski, a co-host of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” drawing condemnation from his fellow Republicans and reigniting the controversy over his attitudes toward women that nearly derailed his candidacy last year.

Mika Brzezinski in Trump Tower in November. Credit Evan Vucci/Associated Press. Image: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/06/30/business/30trumpmedia1/30trumpmedia1-master768-v2.jpg

Mr. Trump’s invective threatened to further erode his support from Republican women and independents, both among voters and on Capitol Hill, where he needs negotiating leverage for the stalled Senate health care bill.

The president described Ms. Brzezinski as “low I.Q. Crazy Mika” and claimed in a series of Twitter posts that she had been “bleeding badly from a face-lift” during a social gathering at Mr. Trump’s resort in Florida around New Year’s Eve. The White House did not explain what had prompted the outburst, but a spokeswoman said Ms. Brzezinski deserved a rebuke because of her show’s harsh stance on Mr. Trump.

The tweets ended five months of relative silence from the president on the volatile subject of gender, reintroducing a political vulnerability: his history of demeaning women for their age, appearance and mental capacity.

“My first reaction was that this just has to stop, and I was disheartened because I had hoped the personal, ad hominem attacks had been left behind, that we were past that,” Senator Susan Collins, a moderate Republican from Maine who is a crucial holdout on the effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act, said in an interview.

“I don’t think it directly affects the negotiation on the health care bill, but it is undignified — it’s beneath a president of the United States and just so contrary to the way we expect a president to act,” she said. “People may say things during a campaign, but it’s different when you become a public servant. I don’t see it as undermining his ability to negotiate legislation, necessarily, but I see it as embarrassing to our country.”

A slew of Republicans echoed her sentiments. Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, who, like Ms. Collins, holds a pivotal and undecided vote on the health care bill, tweeted: “Stop it! The presidential platform should be used for more than bringing people down.”

Senator Ben Sasse, a Nebraska Republican who opposed Mr. Trump’s nomination during the presidential primaries, also implored him to stop, writing on Twitter that making such comments “isn’t normal and it’s beneath the dignity of your office.”

Senator James Lankford, Republican of Oklahoma, added, “The president’s tweets today don’t help our political or national discourse and do not provide a positive role model for our national dialogue.”

Ms. Brzezinski responded by posting on Twitter a photograph of a box of Cheerios with the words “Made for Little Hands,” a reference to a longstanding insult about the size of the president’s hands. MSNBC said in a statement, “It’s a sad day for America when the president spends his time bullying, lying and spewing petty personal attacks instead of doing his job.”

Mr. Trump’s attack injected even more negativity into a capital marinating in partisanship and reminded weary Republicans of a political fact they would rather forget: Mr. Trump has a problem with the half of the population more likely to vote.

Representative Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and others in the House criticized President Trump’s remarks on Thursday. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times. Image: https://static01.nyt.com/images/2017/06/30/us/30dc-trumpwomen-3/30dc-trumpwomen-3-master675.jpg

Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster who specializes in the views of female voters, said the president’s use of Twitter to target a prominent woman was particularly striking, noting that he had used only one derogatory word — “psycho” — to describe the show’s other co-host, Joe Scarborough, and the remainder of his limited characters to hit upon damaging stereotypes of women.

“He included dumb, crazy, old, unattractive and desperate,” Ms. Matthews said.

“The continued tweeting, the fact that he is so outrageous, so unpresidential, is becoming a huge problem for him,” she added. “And it is particularly unhelpful in terms of building relationships with female Republican members of Congress, whose votes he needs for health care, tax reform and infrastructure.”

But it was unclear whether the vehemence of the president’s latest attack would embolden members of his party to turn disdain into defiance.

Senior Republicans, including Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, cycled through what has become a familiar series of emotions and calculations after the Twitter posts, according to staff members: a flash of anger, reckoning of possible damage and, finally, a determination to push past the controversy to pursue their agenda.

“Obviously, I don’t see that as an appropriate comment,” the House speaker, Paul D. Ryan, said during a Capitol Hill news conference. Then he told reporters he wanted to talk about something else.

Representative Nancy Pelosi, the House Democratic leader, demanded an apology, calling the president’s Twitter posts “sexist, an assault on the freedom of the press and an insult to all women.”

A spokeswoman for the president, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, urged the news media to move on, arguing during the daily White House briefing that Mr. Trump was “fighting fire with fire” by attacking a longtime critic.

Ms. Brzezinski had called the president “a liar” and suggested he was “mentally ill,” added Ms. Sanders, who defended Mr. Trump’s tweets as appropriate for a president.

Melania Trump, the president’s wife — who has said that, as first lady, she will embark on a campaign against cyberbullying — also rejected claims that her husband had done what she is charged with undoing.

“As the first lady has stated publicly in the past, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder,” Mrs. Trump’s spokeswoman wrote in a statement, referring to the first lady’s remarks during the campaign.

Current and former aides say that Mr. Trump was chastened by the furor over the “Access Hollywood” tape that emerged in October, which showed him bragging about forcing himself on women, and that he had exhibited self-restraint during the first few months of his administration. But in the past week, the sense that he had become the victim of a liberal media conspiracy against him loosened those tethers.

Moreover, Mr. Trump’s oldest friends say it is difficult for him to distinguish between large and small slights — or to recognize that his office comes with the expectation that he moderate his behavior.

And his fiercest, most savage responses have almost always been to what he has seen on television.

”Morning Joe,” once a friendly bastion on left-leaning MSNBC, has become a forum for fiery criticism of Mr. Trump. One adviser to the president accused the hosts of trying to “destroy” the administration over several months.

After lashing out at Mr. Scarborough and Ms. Brzezinski at one point last summer, Mr. Trump told an adviser, “It felt good.”

Even before he began his campaign two years ago, Mr. Trump showed a disregard for civility when he made critical remarks on television and on social media, particularly about women.

He took aim at the actress Kim Novak, a star of 1950s cinema, as she presented during the 2014 Academy Awards, taking note of her plastic surgeries. Chagrined, Ms. Novak later said she had gone home to Oregon and not left her house for days. She accused Mr. Trump of bullying her, and he later apologized.

As a candidate, Mr. Trump was insensitive to perceptions that he was making sexist statements, arguing that he had a right to defend himself, an assertion Ms. Sanders echoed on Thursday.

After the first primary debate, hosted by Fox News in August 2015, Mr. Trump trained his focus on the only female moderator, Megyn Kelly, who pressed him on his history of making derogatory comments about women.

He told a CNN host that Ms. Kelly had “blood coming out of her wherever,” leaving Republicans squeamish and many thinking he was suggesting that Ms. Kelly had been menstruating. He refused to apologize and kept up the attacks.

Later, he urged his millions of Twitter followers to watch a nonexistent graphic video of a former Miss Universe contestant, Alicia Machado, whose weight gain he had parlayed into a media spectacle while he was promoting the pageant.

Mr. Trump went on to describe female journalists as “crazy” and “neurotic” on his Twitter feed at various points during the race. He derided reporters covering his campaign, Katy Tur of NBC and Sara Murray of CNN, in terms he rarely used about men.

His tweets on Thursday added strain to the already combative daily briefing, as reporters interrupted Ms. Sanders’s defense of the president to ask how she felt about them as a woman and a mother.

She responded that she had only “one perfect role model”: God.

“None of us are perfect,” she said.

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One of the reporters on this story, Glenn Thrush, has a contract for regular appearances on MSNBC.