10 Unhinged Media Meltdowns in Trump’s First 100 Days

Saturday afternoon President Donald Trump hammered the “mainstream (FAKE) media” for the mostly negative coverage given to his job performance at the 100-day mark.

“Mainstream (FAKE) media refuses to state our long list of achievements, including 28 legislative signings, strong borders & great optimism!” Trump tweeted.

“This is really bad. Just for the record, we are all really nervous. So if people out there feel nervous, we do, too. We don’t think this is funny.”

The latest salvo, launched on the actual day of the 100-day benchmark, was the prequel to an evening that highlights the incredible degree of hostility between Trump and an adversarial press corps.

Trump will become the first president since Ronald Reagan in 1981 to snub the Annual White House Correspondents Association Dinner Saturday. Reagan missed the dinner while recovering from an assassination attempt.

But a quick glance at the treatment Trump has weathered from the media in his first 100 days leaves little wonder why this president wasn’t eager to spend an evening toasting the press corps.

From comparisons to brutal dictators to acrobatic feats of spin to turn straight news into anti-Trump fodder, the press has often been more hostile to Trump in his first 100 days in office than to any other president in modern times.

Here are some of the most outrageous media meltdowns of Trump’s first 100 days:

Rachel Maddow’s Trump Tax Unveil
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow tantalized liberals and set the internet aflame when she announced she had a huge, exclusive scoop on Trump’s taxes back in mid-March. The MSNBC host roped in an eager audience of 4 million to view the huge unveil on the March 14 installment of “The Rachel Maddow Show.” Maddow toyed with viewers for about 20 agonizing minutes before the big reveal: two pages of Trump’s 2005 tax return showing he had made $150 million that year and paid $38 million in federal income taxes.

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“So we have obtained Donald Trump’s tax returns tonight, his 1040 from the year 2005. The first time his federal tax returns have been made public, have been obtained by any news organization since he was a presidential candidate, let alone since he was president,” Maddow said before attempting a justification for her hype. “These tax returns raise very interesting questions about how much the president’s own proposed tax policies would improve his own personal bottom line. But they raise even more questions about what we haven’t yet seen.”

Maddow’s massive flop, showing Trump actually paid tax at a fairly high rate in 2005, led to a barrage of far-reaching criticism and mockery — including from many liberal pundits.

Trump Makes Mika Brzezinski ‘Nervous’
MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski launched into a teary-eyed tirade against the president on March 6 when she said his administration’s “really bad” behavior was making her “really nervous.” At the time, Brzezinski was discussing the president’s tweets claiming former President Barack Obama had “wiretapped” him prior to his inauguration.

“This is really bad. Just for the record, we are all really nervous. So if people out there feel nervous, we do, too. We don’t think this is funny,” Brzenzinski said.

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The “Morning Joe” co-host also took issue with the Trump administration’s overall political agenda, saying, “they are pushing a very dangerous agenda” that is an extremely “dangerous one.”

“We are at a low point in American history and I don’t know how anybody can defend this president, even if it’s their job. Like you’ve got to have a job after this. You’ve got to look in the mirror after this … You have to look in the mirror and think about this country after this is over. You need to think of the end game here, because there isn’t one at the rate we are going,” Brzezinski opined further.

Joe Scarborough Floats Impeachment Over Conway Comment
MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough made a huge fuss on February 10 after the relatively minor controversy generated by White House adviser Kellyanne Conway plugging the apparel of Trump’s daughter, Ivanka. During an interview with “Fox & Friends,” Conway urged the audience to “go buy Ivanka’s stuff” when asked about Nordstrom’s decision to drop her line. Although Conway did admit the comments breached ethics protocols, Scarborough took the incident to a hyperbolic level by suggesting the flap could somehow lead to Trump’s impeachment.

“One of President Bill Clinton’s articles of impeachment by a Republican Congress was for abusing his office,” Scarborough said, adding, “you hear about high crimes and misdemeanors, one of his articles of impeachment was for abusing his office.”

“You watch. If there’s an ethics violation that goes to the White House and they ignore it, then people who want to take him out of office eventually will put that right there,” Scarborough added.

Co-host Brzezinski mocked that Conway should look for a different job.

“Kellyanne Conway needs to stop being a runaway beer truck,” Brzezinski said. “I told her to go get a job.”

John Dickerson Implies Trump Fuels Anti-Media Violence
CBS News’ “Face the Nation” host John Dickerson was very uncomfortable with a February 17 tweet from the president in which he lambasted the “fake news media” and called them the “enemy of the American people.” While interviewing White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus on February 19, Dickerson asked whether Priebus believed the president was inciting potential violence against members of the “fake news” media.

“In the past, when the president was a candidate and he targeted people, say, protesters at a rally, some people found that an opportunity to take license and target those people,” Dickerson noted. “As a spokesman for the White House here with us today, what would you say to anybody who might take license with the idea that when the president says the press is the enemy, and act on that declaration by the president?”

Priebus seemed a bit taken aback by Dickerson’s question, responding, “Well, I don’t know what you mean by ‘act on it.’ I mean, certainly we would never condone violence. But I do think that we condone critical thought … the press in many cases has not been doing their job in reporting the truth.”

Brian Stelter Also Fears Trump-Inspired Violence Against Media
CNN host Brian Stelter voiced similar concerns during a February 24 segment of CNN’s “At this Hour With Kate Bolduan” following Trump’s speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). During the speech, Trump again reiterated his displeasure with the “fake news” media and promised to “do something” about it.

“The demagoguery continues. This was all about us versus them. I think we heard it in almost every sentence. Us versus them,” Stelter claimed.

“And finally, one sentence I think we’re going to need to probe in more detail, he said the media doesn’t represent the people,” Stelter continued. “A lot of journalists got a chill up their spine hearing that sentence. Is that just normal bluster from the President? It could be just normal bluster. He’s just complaining. But to say ‘we’re going to do something about it.’ It’s curious, because so far all he’s really done is complained about the coverage. He hasn’t taken actions against news organizations. So, that sentence stood out to me from this speech.”

Brian Stelter Fears Trump’s Fear-Inducing Prowess
The CNN host once again expressed fear that Trump was a bully during a segment on his show, “Reliable Sources,” on March 26.

“From the collapse of the Republican plan to repeal and replace Obamacare, something that Trump said he would do on day one, to the explosive FBI announcement that there’s an ongoing investigation into possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign, the common thread here is a White House with a credibility problem,” Stelter opined.

“Trump’s words do have power. Power to inspire and influence. Also power to intimidate and incite fear,” Stelter added.

Van Jones Bemoans Trump’s ‘America First’ Focus
CNN commentator Van Jones did not approve on Trump’s inaugural address on January 20 and his repeated promises to “make America great again” and prioritize American interests above global interests.

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“To the world, he actually now says the United States is now a radically ordinary country,” Van Jones bemoaned later that day on CNN. “We will be petty. We will be small. We will be focused on our own interests. And we’re abandoning now that inspirational city-on-the-hill position that [Ronald] Reagan talked about. So this is a very patriotic speech. But it’s a patriotism unrecognizable, I think, to the world, to the Left, to the Right.”

Van Jones added, “I don’t know where it leads us, but I think the world now is adrift,” he said. “I don’t know who leads the world now.”

Van Jones Fears Becoming Trump
Van Jones once again bashed Trump, this time warning of the danger “that we normalize Trump emotionally” during a March 8 segment on CNN’s “The Messy Truth.”

“There’s a danger that we all start to become Trump — that we normalize Trump emotionally. There’s a danger that we all become fear-based and fear-driven and that we give in 100 percent to this us-against-them hysteria,” Jones warned. “For millions of people, people I love and I work with, and I know and I care about, Trump is the scariest villain. You’ve got people living in fear.”

Van Jones, at the time, was attempting to walk back his unusual praise of Trump following his first address to a joint session of Congress February 28. Van Jones incurred the ire of fellow liberals when he dared to call the president “presidential” following the address.

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Chris Matthews Likens Trump Family to Hussein Sons
MSNBC’s “Hardball” host Chris Matthews compared the expanded influence of Trump’s son-in-law, senior Adviser Jared Kushner, and his wife, Ivanka, to Uday and Qusay Hussein, the sons of the late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein on April 5.

“I know a couple [that powerful],” Matthews said. “Uday and Qusay in the old days of Saddam Hussein.”

“I don’t see anybody who survives because it looks to me like the only ones surviving are family members,” Matthews said of the alleged civil war occurring in White House. “That’s all they got. Uday and Qusay here. That’s all they’ve got.”

Chris Matthews Also Dislikes Trump’s ‘Hitlerian’ Inaugural Address
Van Jones was not alone in bashing the president’s “America First” tone on January 20. In fact, Matthews went so far as to compare Trump to Germany’s Adolf Hitler.

“When [Trump] said today, ‘America first,’ it was not just the racial, I mean I shouldn’t say racial, the Hitlerian background to it, but it was the message I kept thinking,” Matthews said on MSNBC.

He also expressed his concern that the president’s “America First” message would alienate other leaders across the globe.

“What does [U.K. Prime Minister] Theresa May think of this when she picks up the papers? What did he just say? He said ‘America First.’ What happened to special relationship?” Matthews added.