{"id":8036,"date":"2018-06-30T11:42:09","date_gmt":"2018-06-30T18:42:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=8036"},"modified":"2018-06-30T11:43:28","modified_gmt":"2018-06-30T18:43:28","slug":"president-trump-journalists-should-be-free-from-fear-of-violent-attacks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=8036","title":{"rendered":"President Trump: Journalists should be free from fear of violent attacks"},"content":{"rendered":"
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President Trump<\/a><\/span>\u00a0on Friday\u00a0lamented the \u201chorrific\u201d\u00a0shooting at The Capital Gazette<\/a>\u00a0newspaper in Annapolis, Md., saying journalists in the United States should not have to face grave danger.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u201cThis attack shocked the conscience of our nation and filled our hearts with grief,\u201d Trump said at a White House event celebrating his tax-cut law. \u201cJournalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their job.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Trump vowed his administration \u201cwill not rest until we have done everything in our power to reduce violent crime and to protect innocent life.\u201d<\/p>\n

He also extended condolences to the families of the victims, offering \u201cour warmest, best wishes and regrets.\u201d<\/p>\n

The comments were Trump\u2019s first in-person response to\u00a0Thursday\u2019s\u00a0deadly shooting, which left five\u00a0employees\u00a0dead at the paper\u2019s Annapolis newsroom.<\/p>\n

He ignored reporters\u2019 questions about the shooting\u00a0on Thursday\u00a0afternoon while returning to the White House, but shortly after the attack tweeted that his \u201cthoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Prior to departing Wisconsin, I was briefed on the shooting at Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland. My thoughts and prayers are with the victims and their families. Thank you to all of the First Responders who are currently on the scene.<\/p>\n

\u2014 Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)\u00a0June 28, 2018<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Later on Friday,\u00a0the president added, \u201cI have a lot of respect for the press. Some of the greatest people I know are reporters.\u201d<\/p>\n

Critics have accused the president of fanning hostility toward the news media in a dangerous way.<\/p>\n

Trump has frequently called journalists the \u201cenemy of the people\u201d and has attacked individual reporters at raucous campaign rallies and on his Twitter account as \u201cfake news.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the conclusion of\u00a0Friday\u2019s\u00a0event, CNN\u2019s Jim Acosta, a frequent Trump target, asked the president whether he would stop using the \u201cenemy of the people\u201d moniker against the press. But Trump did not appear to hear the shouted question over cheers and applause from the crowd.<\/p>\n

One man in the back row next to the media area turned around and tried to shush Acosta by gesturing with his finger over his mouth.<\/p>\n

White House spokesperson Lindsay Walters\u00a0on Thursday\u00a0dismissed the notion that Trump\u2019s rhetoric is in any way linked to the shooting.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no room for violence, and we stick by that,\u201d she told reporters. \u201cViolence is never tolerated in any form, no matter whom it is against. There is no room for violence in our country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Police say the suspected shooter, Jarrod Ramos, had a long-running dispute with the Capital Gazette over a column about a criminal harassment case against him. Ramos, 38, brought a defamation suit in 2012 against the paper, but it was thrown out by a judge.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

President Trump\u00a0on Friday\u00a0lamented the \u201chorrific\u201d\u00a0shooting at...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":8038,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8036","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-a"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8036","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8036"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8036\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8037,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8036\/revisions\/8037"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/8038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8036"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8036"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8036"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}