With more and more politicians from both sides of the aisle beginning to broach the subject of President Donald Trump’s mental fitness and capacity to carry out his duties as president, CNN senior media correspondent Brian Stelter began today’s broadcast of Reliable Sources touching on this subject. Pointing out that Trump’s Charlottesville reaction has provoked questions across the country on Trump’s stability, Stelter noted that reporters are now wrestling with how to handle this issue.
“Questions that feel out of bounds, off limits, too hot for TV,” Stelter pondered. “Questions like these: Is the President of the United States a racist? Is he suffering from some kind of illness? Is he fit for office? And if he’s unfit, then what?”
Stelter went on the note that these are upsetting and polarizing questions and that journalists “can’t pretend” that readers and viewers aren’t asking them.
“Since President Trump’s inauguration, there’s been a lot of tiptoeing going on,” he continued. “His actions have been described as unpresidential, unhinged and sometimes even crazy. That word crazy can be interpreted several different ways. It gets said more in private than on TV.”
Stelter brought up how Senators Jack Reed and Susan Collins were caught on a hot mic weeks ago joking about whether or not Trump was crazy and Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN) questioning the president’s mental stability. He also pointed out how late-night comics and newspaper editorial boards are starting to openly call for the president to resign or be removed from office.
The Reliable Sources host ended his opening mononlogue with this:
“This brings me back to the questions that are tough to ask out loud on national television. Is the President of the United States suffering from some sort of illness? Is he racist? Is he fit to be commander in chief? And one more, is it time for objective journalists, I don’t mean opinion folks I mean down the middle journalists to address these questions head on and how do they do it?”
Watch the clip above, via CNN.
[image via screengrab]
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