After watching Donald Trump’s campaign rally in Phoenix, it became clear that we in the media owe the president a sincere apology.
Trump used Tuesday night’s rally to denounce the “fake news” media for being mean, dishonest, bad, America-hating and an all-around pain in his keister.
Referring to controversial comments he made in the wake of a deadly white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va., Trump said: “The words were perfect.”
He even quoted his own perfect words, cleverly omitting the part where he blamed the Charlottesville tragedy on “many sides” rather than just on the Nazi side, which created the controversy in the first place.
After spending 15 or so minutes complaining about the media, he said of the media: “For the most part, all they do is complain. … These are really, really dishonest people and they’re bad people and I really think they don’t like our country. I really believe that.”
Well, I, for one, feel just terrible. It was never my intention, as a journalist, to make the president of the United States feel like he’s under some form of scrutiny or that he should be held accountable for the words that fall out of his mouth.
I wasn’t able to reach all my fake news brothers and sisters after the rally but I feel confident most would concur with this formal apology.
President Trump:
As a fake news media member in good standing, I would like to sincerely apologize for forcing you to hold a campaign rally eight months into your first term as president.
I’m sorry that in the course of that rally I forced you to misquote yourself and to devote one reference to Heather Heyer, the woman killed during the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, versus an inordinate number of references to the journalists who cover you and your administration.
No mention of sailors
I definitely should not have made you fail to mention the 10 American sailors who died or are missing from the Navy destroyer USS John S. McCain after it collided with an oil tanker Monday.
That was callous of me, and I am deeply sorry.
I also showed poor judgment in making you seem almost annoyed that you had to properly denounce the various hate groups that marched in Charlottesville chanting, “Jews will not replace us!”
And I definitely shouldn’t have had you say this during the rally: “I hit ’em with neo-Nazi. I hit them with everything. I got the white supremacists, the neo-Nazis. I got them all in there, let’s see. KKK, we have KKK.”
That almost made it sound like condemning hate groups made you the victim. Please accept my apology for that bit. It was callous and wholly inappropriate.
On two occasions, I lied to you via telepathy and convinced you that the cameras broadcasting your rally had been shut down because the media were too frightened to share your criticism of CNN and other outlets. That was transparently false, particularly because I watched the rally in its entirety on CNN. I’m sorry I made you lie about that. Twice.
Convincing you to say that you will, if necessary, shut down the government in order to build your preposterous border wall was folly of near-biblical proportions, framing you as either: stubborn and narcissistic to the point of jeopardizing the country’s fiscal well-being and doing real harm to Americans who rely on government services just to save face, or a liar.
I will never live that one down.
I have clearly failed you and, along with all media members, am responsible for your divisive rhetoric and mind-boggling unwillingness to step outside yourself for even one fraction of a moment and notice that you sound like an infantile madman.
I promise, from here on, to pamper you, to coddle your ego, to deflect all blame on others and to never accurately report on you, because that causes you to call me fake news.
Please accept this apology. I am not at all proud of the things I’ve made you do.
And America shouldn’t be either.
Rex Huppke is a columnist for the Chicago Tribune. Email: rhuppke@tribune.com
