President Donald Trump took to Twitter on Thursday night to attack the media at the same time a bomb threat was called in to New York City's Time Warner Center—home to the CNN offices, which were evacuated.
"FAKE NEWS - THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE!" Trump tweeted at 10:08 p.m. ET, repeating an anti-media message he has pushed—and been criticized for—several times previously.
The New York Police Department said in a statement that at around 10:07 p.m., a bomb threat was made against the Time Warner Center.
Police thoroughly searched the evacuated building and found nothing to substantiate the threat, and later gave the all clear.
CNN was forced to switch to prerecorded material during the bomb scare, and host Don Lemon had to evacuate the studio in the middle of his show.
President Trump has repeatedly attacked the media he brands as "fake news" because he feels its coverage of him is unfair, biased and often failing to highlight any positives about his administration.
But his opponents argue that his criticism of the media is going too far, and that his accusation that journalists are the "enemy of the people," which echoes the language used by dictators and demagogues, risks inciting violence against them.
Trump supporter Cesar Sayoc was the suspect in a mail-bomb plot to send explosives to senior Democrats and progressives, including the Clintons and billionaire philanthropist George Soros.
One of those mail bombs was sent to the CNN office in New York. None of the bombs exploded, and nobody was hurt.
In August, New York Times reporter Kenneth Vogel received a voice message from an individual who referred to him as an "enemy of the people," the same language used by Trump, and threatened the journalist with an AK-47.
That same month, police took into custody a California man after he allegedly made threats against Boston Globe journalists in which he also referred to them as the "enemy of the people" and said he would "kill every fucking one of you."
Trump addressed the criticism of his anti-media rhetoric—and refused to temper it.
"The Fake News hates me saying that they are the Enemy of the People only because they know it's TRUE," he tweeted in August.
"I am providing a great service by explaining this to the American People. They purposely cause great division & distrust. They can also cause War! They are very dangerous & sick!"
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
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Shane Croucher is a Senior Editor based in London, UK. He oversees the My Turn team. He has previously overseen ... Read more
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