US President Donald Trump, jumping on his enemy media soapbox to denounce coverage of his comments about violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, put ABC TV’s George Stephanopoulos – a former advisor to the Clintons – in his crosshairs, mocking the one-time Democratic operative’s stature, said to be either 5-4 or 5-7.
Continuing his pattern of disparaging personal insults against those he doesn’t like, including people with handicaps, Trump singled out ABC and held his hand parallel to the ground to illustrate Stephanopoulos’ height.
Stephanopoulos’ height has reportedly been a sensitive subject at ABC News, the British newspaper The Daily Mail said.
Last month, it was reported that Good Morning America got a redesigned anchor desk earlier this summer, with two wide panels added to the front side of the set piece so that Stephanopoulos’ legs couldn’t be seen dangling.
“GMA initially thought using an anchor desk with elevated chairs would help the problem. Still awkward, George’s little-boyish mini-legs were seen dangling,” the paper wrote.
Then Trump, who has been singled out by critics for his orange hedgehog like hair, turned up the heat to the delight of a partisan crowd in Arizona which cheered him on as he went after journalists and TV stations and the media in general, citing his usual mantra of “fake news,” as his popularity continues to plummet.
“All the networks, I mean CNN is really bad but ABC this morning- I don’t watch it much but I’m watching in the morning and they have little George Stephanopoulos talking to Nikki Haley,” Trump said, before repeating the nickname “little George” who was interviewing the United States Ambassador to the United Nations – an institution Trump also despises along with many others on his hit list.
Stephanopoulos is chief anchor and the chief political correspondent for ABC News, a co-anchor of Good Morning America, and the host of ABC’s Sunday morning This Week and a regular substitute anchor for ABC World News Tonight.
Prior to his career as a journalist, Stephanopoulos was an advisor to the Democratic Party and was a Communications Director for the 1992 Presidential campaign of Bill Clinton and then became White House Communications Director. He was later senior advisor for policy and strategy, before departing in December 1996.
As someone who was close to President Clinton and his wife, Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic nominee he stunned in an unlikely upset, Stephanopoulos was a target for Trump.
The President was apparently upset Stephanopoulos spoke to Haley about his speech on the war in Afghanistan before turning her attention back to Charlottesville, without mentioning that he has flip-flopped after previously saying he would dial down American involvement but that he now wants to ratchet it up.
TOUGH QUESTION
Stephanopoulos asked Haley about the President’s remark that “there were very fine people on both sides,” at the Charlottesville demonstration in which white supremacists protested and a man authorities said was a Hitler idolator used his car to run over counter-protesters, killing one and injuring 20.
“I picked up the phone, and I had a private conversation with the president about Charlottesville, and it was taken very well,” Haley told ABC News.
Haley told the anchor that Trump had clarified his response “so that no one can question that he’s opposed to bigotry and hate in this country,” which the President tried to do again even after being praised by Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.
Trump opened his political rally in Phoenix with calls for unity and an assertion that “our movement is about love.” Then he erupted in anger, not love.
He blamed the media for the widespread condemnation of his response to violence the Virginia rally organized by white supremacists and shouted that he had “openly called for healing, unity and love” after the tragedy but claimed he was misrepresented without giving a motive.
After that event he had also railed against the “failing New York Times”, “pathetic” CNN, and the The Washington Post, which he called a “lobbying tool for Amazon”.
He also accused the media of giving hate groups a platform and called journalists “dishonest”, adding, “They’re bad people. And I really think they don’t like our country. I really believe that,” discounting veterans among them and without stating why he thinks they’re opposed to the US.
In Arizona, he reread his initial statement on Charlottesville from a paper he pulled out from his suit jacket.
Claiming the criticism over his responses was unfair, Trump said he condemned the bigotry, hatred and violence in the “strongest possible terms” in his first statement although he had blamed both sides for the trouble in Virginia.
Trump did not read his statement from Aug. 12 in full and left out his addendum that the hatred, bigotry and violence came from “many sides,” the phrase that set off a social media storm against him for implicitly blaming the protesters who were run over.
Of his media criticism, the president told the crowd of thousands shoehorned into the Phoenix convention center: “You know where my heart is. I’m only doing this to show you how damned dishonest these people are.”
Well after his appearance had ended, Trump sent a tweet on his Twitter account saying: “Not only does the media give a platform to hate groups, but the media turns a blind eye to the gang violence on our streets.”
(Material from the Associated Press was used in this report)
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