CNN New Day host Chris Cuomo is beginning to worry that President Trump's comment about the press being “the enemy of the people” will result in someone in the media getting hurt.
On Monday's show, CNN media reporter Brian Stelter began the panel discussion by fretting that Trump's vilification of the press will only get worse as time goes on, and that such language is infecting the political discourse.
Cuomo jumped in to say that Trump has tapped into his base's "anger against institutions" such as the media. CNN analyst Bill Carter added that Trump's base loves the President's animosity toward the press but he isn't worried about it.
Stelter, on the other hand, is: “I am worried,” he admitted. “I’m worried because somebody who’s deranged is going to hear this king of language and take action against a journalist, either at a rally or in some more private setting."
“I said this during the campaign, it’s going to happen,” agreed Cuomo. “I don’t want it to happen. Somebody is going to get hurt. It’s just a question of time, because... if you take someone with a legitimate reason to be upset in the first place, and you pump them up and it starts to become a call to action, somebody’s going to get hurt. What’s he going to say when somebody, God forbid, comes up to you when you’re walking up with your kids and they get loud, and on that day that reporter doesn’t want to hear it. Maybe it’s a little push. Maybe it’s a fistfight. Maybe something worse. Is he going to own it?”
“It’s just a matter of time,” Cuomo continued later. “That’s how this stuff works. It works with little kids in a sandbox. It works with adults when they’re at a bar drinking. And it works right now with our president who is intoxicated by the idea of beating up the media.”
The rest of the panel tried to reassure themselves that it's not the whole country that's against the media, only Trump's conspiracy-minded base. They sound desperate.