New Low: Media Use D-Day Anniversary to Slime Trump

June 6th, 2017 12:00 PM

While others took time to reverently recall the feats of the men at Normandy on the 73rd anniversary of D-Day MSNBC’s Morning Joe chose to use it to bash President Donald Trump. Speaking of the men who led the invasion, John Meacham declared, “They created a world order that is now...under the gravest assault it's been in half a century.” The insults offered a sharp contrast to the treatment of President Obama on the same day in 2009 where Newsweek’s Evan Thomas declared, "I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God."

Joe Scarborough began by lamenting Trump’s trip to Europe and labeled him ‘a thug, pushing people around and trying to rip people’s arms off.’ Meacham then proceeded to take the attack even further stating, “He doesn't take the conventions of his office seriously, he doesn't take the world order for which those men going across in those landing craft today in 1944 were fighting... they created a world order that is now...under the gravest assault it's been in half a century.”

The full exchange between Scarborough and Meacham went as follows:

JOE SCARBOROUGH: He embarrassed the United States of America in Europe. He humiliated us in front of our NATO partners. He acted like a thug, pushing people around and trying to rip people's arms off while he was shaking their hands. At the last second, Jon Meacham, he even took out language on Article 5 where we guaranteed that we would protect our NATO allies. General Mattis thought it was in there. H.R. McMaster thought it was in there. Secretary Tillerson thought it was in there. Then here you have, again, the Bannon wing ripping it out at the last second and exposing it all.

Again, I want to go to what -- a phrase that was used by Mark Halperin. He's doing things that are, quote, adverse to his own interest. Let's just let that hang out there for a second. We have a 71-year-old -- almost 71-year-old in the White House who has been acting erratically and he's now behaving every day in ways that are, quote, adverse to his own interest. It's in the "Wall Street Journal" today, the lead editorial of a paper that's been most favorable to him, concluding that Donald Trump's worst enemy is Donald Trump himself. Jon, have we ever been at this place before in this country's history?

JOHN MEACHAM: The only plausible analogy is toward the end of 1974, really, with President Nixon, where you did have a situation where Nixon became a Shakespearean king, a Shakespearean mad king, I think was Maureen Dowd's phrase about President Trump this weekend. I think that part of this is he has no -- I don't know about his long-term memory, but I know he has no short-term memory. So I think what you said a moment ago is exactly right. Whether he remembers that he signed off on this new order or not, he's assuming, and this is a very dangerous thing in a democracy.

He's assuming that the rest of us or at least a significant number of the rest of us are either too slow or too perverse to remember it as well. And because he doesn't take, it seems to me, the process seriously. He doesn't take the conventions of his office seriously, he doesn't take the world order for which those men going across in those landing craft today in 1944 were fighting. They were fighting against totalitarianism, they were fighting against cults of personality, they were fighting against authoritarianism and they created a world order that is now embodied in article 5 that is now under the gravest assault it's been in half a century and I think it's because he basically thinks in reality show week-to-week terms, that people will just tune in to the next episode. But this isn't a reality show. This is actually reality.

Interestingly enough, President Obama received markedly different treatment on his first D-Day anniversary. After lauding his many positive attributes and comparing him to President Ronald Reagan, the following conversation between MSNBC’s Chris Matthews and Evan Thomas took place:

CHRIS THOMAS: Evan, you remember '84. It wasn't 100 years ago. Reagan and World War II and the sense of us as the good guys in the world, how are we doing?

EVAN THOMAS: Well, we were the good guys in 1984, it felt that way. It hasn't felt that way in recent years. So Obama’s had, really, a different task We're seen too often as the bad guys. And he – he has a very different job from – Reagan was all about America, and you talked about it. Obama is ‘we are above that now.’ We're not just parochial, we're not just chauvinistic, we're not just provincial. We stand for something – I mean in a way Obama’s standing above the country, above – above the world, he’s sort of God. He’s-

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

THOMAS: He's going to bring all different sides together.

What a coincidence! Who would’ve ever guessed that within their first years in office Obama would be labeled a deity and Trump a thug by the mainstream media?