Trump, Aping Fox News, Calls Chelsea Manning ‘Ungrateful Traitor’

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President Donald Trump on Thursday echoed a Fox News anchor who called Chelsea Manning a “traitor” after the jailed former Army intelligence officer wrote that President Obama had been too quick to compromise with Republicans.

In discussing Manning’s column in The Guardian, Fox News host Abby Huntsman said “the former army private is slamming Obama as a weak leader with few permanent accomplishments.” An on-screen chyron read: “UNGRATEFUL TRAITOR: Chelsea Manning Slams Fmr Pres Obama”

Minutes later, Trump, an avid consumer of the network, echoed that language on his Twitter account:

CNN’s Brian Stelter pointed out the timeline:

Manning is a former army intelligence officer who was sentenced to 35 years in prison for stealing and leaking hundreds of thousands of sensitive documents to WikiLeaks. Former President Obama commuted Manning’s sentence in his last week in office.

In her column Thursday, Manning never used the word “weak,” although she concluded that Obama’s presidency was hobbled by his attempts to compromise with the GOP.

“The one simple lesson to draw from President Obama’s legacy: do not start off with a compromise,” she wrote. “They won’t meet you in the middle. Instead, what we need is an unapologetic progressive leader.”

Trump has shown a pattern of writing tweets based on Fox News commentary. On Tuesday, he threatened that he would “send in the Feds” to Chicago if it did not address its crime rate. He cited homicide numbers that did not match statistics kept by the Chicago police, but that did appear to match the statistics offered on a segment on Bill O’Reilly’s show.

Notable Replies

  1. Would somebody please just bitch-slap this little kid?

  2. Avatar for j.dave j.dave says:

    He only likes grateful traitors.

    He should know.

  3. Trump: This is to CNN, MSNBC, BBC, etc; If you portray me in a positive light(all day long), I will follow you and LIVE tweet how good your network is. I am open to you becoming next FOX.

  4. Wonderful, the most powerful person in the world is getting his talking points from FUX News…

  5. If you think this is aping, just wait until that man gets together with Bill Orally and they start picking lice out of each others back hair.

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