Don Trump Jr. Says Media 'Sadistically Humiliates' People, Then Makes Fun Of Schiff On Twitter

Presidential son Donald Trump Jr. has expressed indignation at mainstream media for "sadistically humiliating private citizens" when it reported mistakenly on an incident in Kentucky. Interestingly, his call to "return accountability to the mainstream media" seems to be aimed only at non-right media. Don Jr. hasn't condemned the right-wing media for its transgressions against the truth.

An opinion piece written by Don Jr. and published Wednesday in the pro-Trump and right-wing website, Newsmax, pounced on a rare instance when mainstream media reporting of an event seemed at odds with the facts on the ground.

Don. Jr., however, later proved how "serious" his concern is for respecting other people when he again made fun of Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), head of the House Intelligence Committee, in a new tweet. His latest blast against Schiff, whom he called "FullOfSchiff" in November, was triggered by an episode of the quiz show "Jeopardy!" where a contestant failed to identify a photo of Schiff.

"Ha this is amazing," tweeted Don Jr. "Maybe they needed to change the wording. This representative commonly referred to as #FullOfSchiff..."

The day before this insulting tweet against Schiff, Don Jr. wrote about Nick Sandmann, a student at the Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky for Newsmax. Sandmann and his fellow students found themselves at the center of an internet controversy on Jan. 18, 2019 later muddied by massive misinformation peddled by right-wing media.

Wearing red Make America Great Again (MAGA) caps, Sandmann and his mates were leaving an anti-abortion rally they had attended when they ran into a group of black nationalists and people attending an indigenous rights rally that were also in the process of leaving. The black nationalists could be heard on video insulting the Covington students.

Nathan Phillips, a Native American activist from the indigenous rights rally, was the other person involved in this incident. A short video misleadingly appeared to show a smirking Sandmann and the other students surrounding Phillips and blocking his path.

This video sparked national anger and was widely covered by mainstream media, including CNN. It resulted in death threats being directed against Sandmann. Many people reacting to the video and images of the encounter between Sandmann and Phillips said it depicted racism from Sandmann and the other MAGA hat-wearing students.

It was later found out from statements made by Sandmann and other videos that Phillips had approached Sandmann, and that Sandmann was backed into a group of other students. This meant he didn’t have much space to move out of the way. Sandmann stated he wasn't smirking but smiling to indicate that he didn’t pose a threat.

Sandmann later sued CNN, NBC and The Washington Post for millions of dollars. The exact amounts haven't been revealed.

On Jan. 7, news broke Sandmann had settled with CNN after suing the station for defamation. Sandmann is said to have demanded $275 million. No one knows the amount of the settlement, however.

Don Jr. said the Covington incident illustrates "far too many journalists in this country are interested not in reporting the news or providing honest commentary, but in creating inflammatory incidents to 'start a national conversation,' or far worse, to sadistically humiliate private citizens they perceive to be their enemies."

He said the story he would rather have the mainstream media report is that Black Hebrew Israelites screamed racist and anti-Catholic slurs at the boys, who had just participated in the March for Life.

"The story they wanted to tell was about white Catholic kids 'harassing' black activists and peace-loving Native Americans. So that's what they did, heedlessly embracing that biased impulse. They put 16 year-old student Nick Sandmann's face front and center of their reporting, claiming his 'smirking face' made him a racist thug."