US President Donald Trump has stepped up his attack on the news media by posting a mock video of himself body slamming and repeatedly striking a figure whose head has been replaced with the CNN logo, followed by a logo saying: “FNN Fraud News Network.”
The video appears to be from Trump’s 2007 April’s Fools Day appearance on World Wrestling Entertainment’s Wrestlemania 23 in Detroit, Michigan, USA, in which Trump “takes down” WWE Chairman Vince McMahon. In the video, McMahon’s head has been replaced with the CNN logo.
The tweet Trump sent on Sunday apparently came directly from a pro-Trump Reddit group. The official presidential Twitter account also retweeted the extreme video, which has been shared more than 250K times and liked more than 400K times at time of writing.
Trump’s latest assault comes one day after Trump said that he was thinking about changing the name “Fake News CNN” to “Fraud News CNN.” Sunday’s video reiterated that message.
Three days prior, White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Sanders claimed that the President “in no way form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence.” But some are accusing Trump of doing just that after posting the extreme video.
The video has sparked fierce debate on presidential conduct. In a statement, CNN called it a “sad day when the President of the United States encourages violence against reporters.”
But Trump’s shocking tweet might just be an attempt to boost his ratings. In his book Great Again, Trump admitted that he uses the media to attract attention, and called his relationship with the media “mutually profitable.”