This week, Donald Trump declared that journalists are purposefully covering up huge numbers of terrorist attacks, preventing people from finding out that the attacks have taken place. Speaking about terrorism to a gathering of American soldiers, Trump said, “You’ve seen what happened in Paris and Nice. All over Europe it’s happening. It’s gotten to a point where it’s not even being reported, and in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn’t want to report it.”
When Trump said this, he was lying. Trump could not name a single actual terrorist attack that journalists have not given reported on.
When Trump White House spokesman Sean Spicer was asked about this lie, he tried to reframe it by claiming that what Donald Trump meant to say was that there are many terrorist attacks that have not received as much coverage as they should have. Spicer was unable to name any such attack, but promised that the White House would soon release a list of “a lot of instances that have occurred where I don’t think that they’ve gotten the coverage it’s deserved”.
So, a few hours later, Donald Trump did release a list of 78 terrorist attacks. However, although Trump claimed that the attacks had not received very much press coverage, a quick review shows that, in fact, the terrorist attacks were all extensively covered by journalists. Once again, Trump lied.
For an example, let’s consider the first case on the White House list, that of an attack made by Abdul Numan Haider, who was shot dead in a suburb of Sydney, Australia, after he stabbed two police officers. Haider didn’t manage to kill anyone, but the terrorist attack was widely reported around the world anyway, by CNN, by the Washington Post, by the New York Times, by Reuters, by the BBC, by the Guardian, by the Economist, by Time, by NBC News, by the Telegraph, by Mic, by Vice, by Aljazeera America… You get the idea. Not only was there coverage of the crime itself, but journalists from around the world followed through with additional stories about the investigation into the attack.
It’s a huge distortion to say that the Haider attack didn’t receive the attention it deserved, but other items on the list are even more ridiculous. For example, we all remember the non-stop journalistic coverage of an attack on a nightclub in Orlando, Florida, for example, but the Trump Administration includes that incident on its list of terrorist attacks that didn’t receive enough media coverage.
Why would Donald Trump tell two such obvious lies about a subject which can be quickly fact checked? It appears that Trump is trying to create a cover story to obscure the plain fact that, while Trump is pushing extreme measures to stop terrorists from attacking the United States, there isn’t any reporting describing terrorists attacking the United States.
A quick check of facts confirms that, in truth, there have been no terrorist attacks in the United States this year.
Most Americans understand that there has been no reporting on terrorist attacks in the United States this year because there have been no terrorist attacks in the United States this year.
Hard core supporters of Donald Trump now have a conspiracy theory, hand crafted by Trump himself, claiming that terrorists attacks in the United States are actually happening all the time, but we don’t hear about them because journalists are covering it all up.
Donald Trump is purposefully creating an alternative reality that uses blatant lies to justify extreme violations of constitutional rights. This fascist tactic is a much larger threat to the security of the United States than terrorists have ever been.