The executive editor of the New York Times accused President Trump of putting the lives of the newspaper’s reporters in danger.
Dean Baquet said this week that Trump’s singling out reporters by name particularly puts them at risk.
“I think his personal attacks on reporters, including Maggie [Haberman], are pretty awful and pretty unpresidential,” Baquet told the Guardian. “I think personal attacks on journalists, when he calls them names, I think he puts their lives at risk.”
He continued, “I think that when he actually calls reporters names, says they’re un-American, says they’re enemies of the people … that phrase has a deep history. I think when he says that, it is an appalling attack on the press.”
Last year, New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger said he told Trump privately that his “inflammatory language” toward reporters was “contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence.”
More recently, Trump attacked Haberman for reporting that he was annoyed by the lack of cameras when he visited hospitals in Texas and Ohio after two mass shootings. He also said the newspaper’s longtime White House correspondent Peter Baker should not be allowed to write about him.
Maggie Haberman of the Failing @nytimes reported that I was annoyed by the lack of cameras inside the hospitals in Dayton & El Paso, when in fact I was the one who stated, very strongly, that I didn’t want the Fake News inside & told my people NOT to let them in. Fake reporting!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2019
…..nice call with with the new President of Ukraine, it could not have been better or more honorable, and the Fake News Media and Democrats, working as a team, have fraudulently made it look bad. It wasn’t bad, it was very legal and very good. A continuing Witch Hunt!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 27, 2019
Last month, the White House canceled its subscriptions to the New York Times and the Washington Post, which Trump called “fake” newspapers.
