It’s only a matter of time before President Trump blasts Fox News anchor Chris Wallace attacking him during a speech in Washington. The vocal critic of the president has rankled Fox News viewers with his persistent Trump bashing on the air and now he took his verbal assault to the podium, telling attendees at an event honoring the First Amendment at the Newseum that President Trump is engaged in a “sustained assault” on the press.
“I believe President Trump is engaged in the most direct, sustained assault on freedom of the press in our history,” Wallace said Wednesday, as the Guardian reported.
“He has done everything he can to undercut the media, to try and delegitimize us, and I think his purpose is clear: to raise doubts when we report critically about him and his administration that we can be trusted,” he added, saying that “the president’s attacks have done some damage.”
“A Freedom Forum Institute poll this year found 29 percent of Americans think the First Amendment goes ‘too far.’ And 77 percent say ‘fake news’ is a serious threat to our democracy,” Wallace said.
Wallace did, however, offer a small criticism of his colleagues for making the “mistake” of engaging in the same tactics as the president.
“I think many of our colleagues see the president’s attacks, his constant bashing of the media as a rationale, as an excuse to cross the line themselves, to push back, and that is a big mistake, he said, adding that sometimes “the animus of the reporter and the editor as plain to see as the headline” in a story.
President Trump has repeatedly criticized Fox News recently and has directly hit back at Wallace, calling him out in October for his coverage of the Ukraine controversy, tweeting that he would never be like his father and comparing Wallace unfavorably to his father, the late, legendary 60 Minutes correspondent Mike Wallace who died in 2012.
Wallace has used his on-air time on Fox News many times to criticize President Trump and will now reportedly be interviewing two of Trump’s fiercest critics, former FBI Director James Comey and House Intelligence Chairman Adam Schiff. Hopes weren’t high that Wallace’s interview would be revealing.
“Ours is a great profession — maybe the best way to make a living anyone ever came up with. Think of it. We are paid to tell the truth—to cut through all the spin—all the distractions — and tell the American people what is really going on,” Wallace said Wednesday at the event.
“The bottom line is we’ve seen Presidents come and go,” Wallace said. “We will endure. So will Freedom of the Press. And I am confident — so will the Newseum,” he said of the news museum which will be closing it’s doors at the current location at the end of the year.
People on social media weren’t that happy with Wallace, and they didn’t wait long to blast him.
