CNN’s Jeffrey Toobin doesn’t really care if people are bothered by the way President Donald Trump is covered in the media.
In a segment with Brooke Baldwin and Michael Smerconish, Toobin said that Trump has been appealing to his base for the entirety of his presidency, and that covering him honestly should not be cause for censure.
Smerconish said that people around the country have called into his radio show to say things like: “the way in which he’s been treated in the media or by the celebrities pushes me to a point where I’m almost sympathetic with him.”
“To go to his level has blowback,” he added.
“We don’t go to the president’s level in responding in the news media,” Toobin replied. “We cover the news and that is entirely appropriate.”
“Some has-been celebrity sends a tweet, and we treat it as if it’s news,” he continued, referencing Peter Fonda‘s tweets going after the Trump family. “But we cover the Trump Administration like journalists, and that’s entirely appropriate.”
“If some people aren’t happy about that, well, that’s too bad. I don’t really think we should worry that they feel sympathy for the president because we’re doing our jobs as journalists,” he added.
“There’s a perception in the country that it has gone too far,” Smerconish responded. “I’m not defending it, Jeffrey, I’m telling you that it’s real and it’s out there, and I hear it from telephone callers on my radio program, on a day to day business. They don’t defend what he does. But they don’t like the way in which it’s been interpreted and covered.”
Watch above, via CNN.
[image via screengrab]
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