The president’s problematic relationship with the media has returned to the spotlight after the White House decided to bar CNN’s Jim Acosta after his persistent questioning at Wednesday’s press conference..
Hidden behind allegations that Trump is endangering the constitutional protection of freedom of the press are his interactions with two journalists with accents. —a producer for the Nippon News Network of Japan and a reporter for Al Arabiya of the Middle East.— reports The Atlantic.
Nadia Bilbassy-Charters, a senior correspondent for Al Arabiya TV, asked Trump about the first two Muslim women elected to Congress—Democrats Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Ilhan Omar of Minnesota— and if their election was a rebuke of the President’s previous controversial messaging of hate and division toward campaigns involving people of ethnic backgrounds.
According to The Huffington Post, Trump said to Bilbassy-Charters, “I do not understand what you are saying.” The response was also cross-checked with the White House’s official transcript.
While Bilbassy-Charters may have an accent, she is an established journalist who has a long career of interviewing and speaking with D.C. officials. From the International Women Media Foundation’s website, her bio says that Bilbassy-Charters has covered the White House since 2003 and interviewed prominent figures like President George W. Bush, General Colin Powell, and Secretary Condoleeza Rice.
Later in the news conference, Trump exhibited an uncomfortably similar response when interacting with a Japanese reporter, afterward identified by The Japan Times as a NNN producer. The producer attempted to ask the president about trade relations before he was interrupted by the President.
Trump asked him, “Where are you from?”
The producer had not identified himself before asking his question, but after saying that he was from Japan, Trump cut him off and told him to say “hello to Shinzo” Abe, Japan’s prime minister, for him.
In a final attempt to ask his question, the reporter said,“How do you focus on the trade and economic issues with Japan? Will you ask Japan to do more?”
Like the interaction with Bilbassy-Charters, Trump replied by saying, “I don’t really understand you.”
The Japan Times reports that the exchange between Trump and the journalists produced “mixed emotions” from the public. One Twitter user @phosphor 112 wrote: “The way he just handled this Japanese reporter (was) abhorrent.”
He really is tactless. Trump isn’t fit to be president, just based on these conferences alone. The way he just handled this Japanese reporter as abhorrent.
This is my take as if this were in a vacuum in itself.
— Ali (@phosphor112) November 7, 2018
It could be that the president simply does not understand accents, but many people feel as though this behavior is not a coincidence, reports The Huffington Post. HuffPost’s Marina Fang tweeted about her frustration with Trump who exemplifies the people who dismiss and vilify those who may speak English with an accent.
She writes, “This pisses me off to no end, in particular bc my whole life, I’ve watched people demean, belittle, and dismiss my mother for speaking accented English. So many immigrants and children of immigrants have had this experience, and it sticks with you forever.”
This pisses me off to no end, in particular bc my whole life, I’ve watched people demean, belittle, and dismiss my mother for speaking accented English. So many immigrants and children of immigrants have had this experience, and it sticks with you forever.
— Marina Fang (@marinafang) November 7, 2018
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