Quote:I understand that liberals hate Trump.  I understand why they don't think he is a good representative of the US.  Trump is a terrible speaker.  He is scatterbrained. He changes thoughts mid sentence.  He doesn't care about "facts."  In this, I mean his general point is more important to him than the actual details of the point.  His worst speaking trait, by far, is that he always assumes that his audience thinks what he is thinking.  He leaves out crucial information that is necessary for the audience to follow his train of thought.  Personally, it drives me nuts, but it's not as big a deal to his supporters, as they assume he knows what he's talking about.  

 

That said, I can not fathom why his opponents can't or won't genuinely attempt to understand his message, especially since his character traits listed above have been present from day one.  Either they want to justify their unabashed bias, ascribing the worst possible intention to everything he says, or they are playing good ole' fashioned politics, and want to use every gaff to undermine his authority.  Either way, there is no excuse for journalists to engage in either of those tactics.  There should be the highest standard for truth and transparency in our media.

 

This is what Trump said:

 

We've got to keep our country safe. You look at what's happening. We've got to keep our country safe. You look at what's happening in Germany, you look at what's happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this. Sweden. They took in large numbers. They're having problems like they never thought possible. 

 

He specifically mentions the fact that they took in huge numbers of immigrants, which has lead to problems.  In typical Trump fashion, he intermingles places where there were terror attacks with places that are having immigration issues.  He drops a random "Look what's happening last night in Sweden," which was entirely disconnected from the rest of what he was saying, and he speaks in sweeping generalizations because the details aren't as important to him as the fact that Europe is having problems.

 

Good journalists need to get to the bottom of that kind of rambling, because it is easy to see how there might be an implication that something bad happened in Sweden "last night."  However, they need to be truthful and transparent.  I have no problems with articles that questioned what Trump was talking about.  Where I take issue, is that there were an absurd number of articles with the accusation that Trump was spreading "fake news" about an attack that didn't happen in Sweden.  Where did he say there was an attack?  Using that as a headline is just bad journalism.  It annoys me.  It reeks of partisanship and bias. 

 

Turns out, Trump was referring to a segment he watched on Fox, which falls perfectly in line with his penchant for assuming people know what he's talking about.  A few good journalists got this pretty quickly, but a whole bunch of others ran with a click bait story.  That's great for ratings, but ultimately that kind of shoddy journalism undermines the legitimacy of the mainstream press to anyone that is not a die-hard progressive.  This is a non-story, but it generated 3 days of discussion for the news outlets. 

 

I agree with most of what you say.  The only thing I'd like to point out is the fact that you mention "journalists" reacting to Trump's comment about Sweden.   You failed to mention that this captured the attention of the Government of Sweden who also quickly responded.  Just imagine if another world leader made statements that our Christian population has experienced 2x the crime rate over the past 5 years .... then only clarified it by noting they meant the city of Chicago and not really our entire nation.  Key facts are critical.

 

Anyway, a single mistake is understandable ..... unfortunately, it's become a pattern lately.

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