Media analyst Becket Adams wonders if the press reporting on ‘animals’ was the “worst journalism failure” of Trump’s presidency so far.
The president responded, “We have people coming into the country or trying to come in, we’re stopping a lot of them, but we’re taking people out of the country. You wouldn’t believe how bad these people are. These aren’t people. These are animals.” (Emphasis added.)
It seems pretty obvious what sort of people (or animals) Trump is referring to — MS-13 gang members. But if you can believe it, the national press convinced themselves this week that Trump is the bad guy in this story.
This particular narrative begins with a dishonest framing of the president’s remarks, the typical result of incautious social media sharing. C-SPAN first posted a video to social media showing only Trump’s response to Sims. That video, which omits all context about MS-13, has been viewed by more than 3 million people.