As the presidential race heats up, along with President Donald Trump’s impeachment trial, so does the media bashing – and, like the rest of American politics these days, polls show the public to be more divided than ever about whom to bash.
A leading example is the goofy feud between Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and NPR that most recently involved the removal of an NPR reporter from the press pool traveling with the secretary to Europe and Central Asia.
The secretary of state’s feud with NPR began last Friday when Mary Louise Kelly, a highly respected host on the radio network, said Pompeo had castigated her in a foul-mouthed tirade after an on-air interview in which she had questioned him about Ukraine.
After the recorded interview, Kelly was led to Pompeo’s private living room, where in a tense discussion that included his shouting and cursing, he asked rhetorically, “You think Americans care about Ukraine?” He also challenged her to find Ukraine on a map, which the veteran reporter of foreign policy and national security easily did.
This matter erupted into more than the usual dust-up from the administration of a president who repeatedly has described media as “the enemy of the people.”