Page 27 - Bob Herbert News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

Democracy. democracy cannot flourish without a really healthy free press. >> so hugh, let me ask you then what bob just said. if this is delegitimizing the press, delegitimizing an important pillar of american democracy, is that something you agree with? >> i agree with bob that the press are not enemies of the united states, they are overwhelmingly democrats, but not enemies of the united states. i've never met a journalist in a serious news organization who wasn't a patriot. but the press is pretty strong as well, and i don't think criticism from the president even misguided i've criticized ...

Analyst and host of the hugh hewitt show and bob herbert, thanks for joining us. bob, i'll start with you, and i'll basically ask you that question, journalists, we're taking exception to what donald trump had to say, but if he's only using words and there's no formal action to suppress the press or revoke licenses or anything like that, are journalists being too thin skinned? >> i think this is very serious. it's probably not being taken seriously enough. trump is not just attacking an individual story or reporter or even an individual publication. he's attacking the press as a whole and decl...

He's undermining other cornerstones of our democracy as well. the media -- i agree with hugh, the press in general can take care of itself, but if he's also made an attempt to undermine the courts, he's made an attempt to undermine the intelligence community. he's got an odd kind of foreign policy approach that has tended to undermine the state department, so there are many aspects of our democracy and the norms that we've become used to that trump is just sort of running rough shot over and i personally think that that's very dangerous. and i'm not the only person that thinks that. >> all rig...

You know, if you look at mainstream media, i think of nbc news, i think of cnn, the "new york times," washington post, wall street journal, that sort of thing, i don't think that it's excessively partisan, but even partisanship is not the worst thing in the world. what trump is essentially saying is that you can't believe what the press is saying. in other words, the suggestion is that we are deliberately putting out false stories and untruths or lies. that's the part that's really dangerous. if you want to criticize the press for being too liberal, i mean, i think that's excessive, but if you...

Themselv themselves by being obviously indifferent to the truthly very left leaning. and so, part of the problem is, excess on the part of the president, a lot of the problem has been historic bias on the part of the media. >> i'm curious about that too bob herbert. we raised the press climate that the founders were trying to protect. and it's so interesting when you look back at that time, we have this idea right now of journalism, you know, you've got two or three sources and, you know, the journalism and the time of our founders was now two or three sources close to james mattis said this, ...