Here are some real (and unreal) problems Trump has somehow blamed on the ‘Fake News Media’

By Joe Berkowitz

One of the many hallmarks of President Trump’s leadership style is that the buck always stops anywhere but here.

To hear the president describe it, nothing negative has ever been his fault. In fact, there isn’t even a problem at all, you’ve got it all wrong: everything is fine. Are economists speculating about an impending recession? “Consumers are in the best shape ever, plenty of cash.” Are children worried about being killed in school following a string of recent mass shootings? “My message to young children going back to school is go and really study hard . . .  They have nothing to fear, they have nothing to worry about.”

If a problem is so undeniably obvious that the League of Extraordinary Brain Geniuses on Fox News even has to acknowledge it, though, that’s when Team Trump scrambles into action to foist the blame elsewhere. The California wildfires that make his climate change denialism appear catastrophically dangerous are actually due to forest mismanagement. The many cabinet members who have had to resign over misuse of funds have nothing to do with his poor hiring decisions or a culture of clear corruption, but rather the individuals themselves, and only them.

Of all the targets Trump tends to point his famously stubby finger at, though, his number one has to be the media. For anyone living under a rock for the past few years, in which case please DM me immediately about subletting your rock, Trump considers any media that doesn’t constantly Smithers him “the enemy of the people.” It’s a way not only to deflect much-merited criticism but to create an informational environment in which supporters can only trust the source himself and the pro-Trump clippings he surfaces at all times. Furthermore, his castigation of unfavorable news as nothing but lies provides a convenient scapegoat for anything at all that goes wrong.

Since few things seem to be going right at the moment, here is an incomplete list of some of the things Trump has lately blamed on Fake News Media.

An economy apparently on the verge of a recession

James Woods being suspended from Twitter

The El Paso and Dayton shootings

Escalation of U.S. feud with Iran

Trump’s poor polling

Anger over Trump telling George Stephanopoulos he’d consider accepting dirt on a political opponent from a foreign government

Trump’s poor polling (again)

Trump’s polling even when it’s not poor

So there you have it. Just some straight talk from the president who tells it like it is and who has never messed anything up even once. Dear lord, let’s all hope his no-mistake streak stays alive because judging from the past two and a half years, I don’t think we could survive it if Donald Trump began to biff it from time to time.

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