Even Fox hosts want Trump to stop calling press 'enemy of the people'

Trump has continued to attack the press as the “enemy of the people” even after pipe bombs were sent to CNN headquarters in New York and Atlanta, and now even the hosts of his favorite Fox News program think he should stop.

On Tuesday morning’s edition of “Fox & Friends,” co-host Steve Doocy noted that Trump’s use of the term “bothers a lot of people.”

One of those people turned out to be co-host Brian Kilmeade, who said, “I really wish he would lose that term,” and added that “too many other people get shrapnel with that statement.”

Kilmeade went on to say that “the press isn’t the enemy of the people,” and that Trump’s “broad statement does a lot of damage.”

“He doesn’t like them,” Doocy said. “But are they enemy of the people? I don’t think so either.”

Trump defended his use of the phrase in an interview with Laura Ingraham Monday night by insisting that he’s only talking about “the fake news media,” but Trump has repeatedly attacked every non-Fox network by name, and declared, “They’re all fake news.”

CNN has been a particular target for Trump, who regularly encourages chants of “CNN sucks” at his rallies, and has attacked the network’s reporters relentlessly. Last week’s attempted bombings have done nothing to slow Trump’s attacks on the media, and in fact has ramped them up.

Trump attacked the press at a rally just hours after the string of bombings, and has continued to do so. And on Monday, he warned that there would be no “peace and harmony” until the press began covering him more favorably, implicitly excusing the terrorist violence of the past week.

The wave of unprecedented political violence has done nothing to stop Trump from attacking the press, so a scolding from his fans at Fox News is unlikely to cause a change of heart either. But it is an indication of just how far over the line Trump has gone, and it amplifies the silence of elected Republicans who refuse to speak out against him.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.