Comedian and frequent Trump critic Jon Stewart told CNN’s Christiane Amanpour Tuesday that President Trump will continue to win his fight with the media by appealing to their own narcissism.
Stewart noted that Trump era was making money for the media.
“Maybe it still is an issue for the people who are the bean counters,” Amanpour replied, “but we the journalists we, I think, believe that our job is to navigate the truth and to do the fact-checking and all the rest of it.”
"But I think the journalists have taken it personally," Stewart replied. "They are personally wounded and offended by this man. He baits them and they dive in.”
Stewart emphasized that what Trump has done well with the media is “appeal to their own narcissism, to their own ego.”
President Trump has been able to appeal to journalists’ “own narcissism” by attacking them, says Jon Stewart. “They take it personally, and now he’s changed the conversation to, not that his policies are silly or not working … it’s all about the fight.” pic.twitter.com/2N3V5NqZ6Q
— Christiane Amanpour (@camanpour) October 30, 2018
“The journalists stand up and say ‘we are noble, we are honorable, how dare you sir.’ They take it personally and now he has changed the conversation to not that his policies are silly or not working or any of those other things, it's all about the fight,” he argued. “He is able to tune out everything else and just get people focused on the fight. And he's going to win that fight.”
Amanpour acknowledged that it was an “interesting” point and cited Bob Woodward’s disputed and controversial book on the Trump White House.
“You know even Bob Woodward said that, in his book on the Trump White House, that a lot of journalists are too emotional about this,” she said.
However, she went on to defend journalists’ anger by claiming that they are the victims of violent threats from the White House.
“It’s hard for us to be dispassionate when words from the White House are aggressive against us,” she complained, “and you know raise the specter of violence it seems.”
"You're not used to it," Stewart replied. He then encouraged Amanpour to think of "communities of color" and Muslims and the "lives that they’ve been leading under this."