Not even President Donald Trump comes close to the number of attacks against CNN tweeted by his eldest son, Donald Trump Jr.
Trump Jr.’s Twitter timeline has been flooded with messages and retweets about CNN since early last week. Starting on June 27, Trump Jr. has tweeted about CNN, or re-tweeted other people’s tweets about the news outlet, more than 50 times—far more than his president father—who, despite his storied history of bashing on the network, has only tweeted about CNN seven times during the same time period.
Trump Jr.’s week-and-a-half long Twitter obsession has run the gamut: from calling CNN “#fake news,” making snarky comments about the station’s defense of the hosts of MSNBC’s Morning Joe following his father’s sexist and crude tweets about them, asking his followers to watch the unsubstantiated videos produced by Project Veritas, and re-tweeting conservative thinkers with commentary on CNN.
However, Trump Jr. has been particularly prolific on Twitter in the last several days, dedicating nearly his entire timeline to comments about CNN and the the so-called #CNNBlackmail issue that popped up following a report by the outlet’s KFILE unit about the person who was allegedly responsible for creating a GIF of his father body slamming someone with CNN’s logo on his face that President Trump tweeted from his personal account.
Since July 4th, Trump Jr. has tweeted or retweeted about CNN and the #CNNBlackmail issue nearly 20 times. On average, that is nearly seven tweets per day. Of the 101 tweets on his timeline from June 27, more than 50 percent have been about CNN.
President Trump has not tweeted directly about CNN since his now-infamous GIF tweet, which became the president’s most popular tweet of all time.
Here’s how Trump Jr.’s tweets compare to those posted by his father.
And here are just a few examples of Trump Jr.’s tweets in recent days:
Also CNN: Let’s bully and intimidate citizens online so they never question our #fakenews again! #CNNBlackmail https://t.co/kKvjKTvg7D
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 6, 2017
Amazing. This made my day. Thx #CNNBlackmail #fakenews https://t.co/93lPhdrJMd
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 5, 2017
Journalistic integrity question of the week. Which is worse? #CNNBackmail
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 5, 2017
If only @CNN spent as much time tracking down info on IRS targeting, Fast & Furious, Iran deal etc as they did a meme writer! #CNNBlackmail
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 5, 2017
Seems legit??? https://t.co/nqBxkJRUrU
— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 5, 2017
CNN has been bashed by right-wing personalities for months. But the online combat started in earnest with its retraction of a story regarding a Trump ally being connected to a Russian-run state bank on June 25th. The attacks continued when unsubstantiated videos produced by Project Veritas, a notorious outlet known to edit videos in a selective manner to further their own narrative, released videos of a CNN Health producer saying the Trump-Russia investigation “mostly bullshit.”
Attacks against CNN reached a boiling point earlier this week when CNN’s KFILE investigative unit released a story where they spoke with the alleged creator of a GIF showing Trump body slamming a person with the CNN logo superimposed on their body.
In the article, CNN said they were not announcing the person’s name in the story and that he had apologized and promised not to repeat anti-Semitic and bigoted posts he had written in the past. However, the article also contained a line that many considered “blackmail.”
“CNN reserves the right to publish his identity should any of that change.”
The #CNNBlackmail hashtag exploded, and clearly caught the attention of Trump Jr.—who continues to tweet about it on a daily basis.
At the rate Trump Jr. has been tweeting about CNN, he may one day catch up to his father’s number of attacks on the network.
