Sunday on CNN’s “Reliable Sources,” former CBS’s “Face the Nation” anchor Bob Schieffer argued President Donald Trump’s attacks on the media were “undermining” American democracy.
He said that although he had been attacked and that he did not pay much attention to that “stuff,” attacks on the media’s credibility were what troubled him the most.
Partial transcript as follows:
STELTER: And last question for you, Bob, it’s like what we wrestle with almost every for every week on this program, is how seriously to take President Trump’s tweets? You know, especially as his tweets about so-called fake news. How do you approach it? How much do you do care or read into all the president’s words on Twitter?
SCHIEFFER: Well, I tell you — all these attacks on the media, look, at my age, I’ve been called everything from a nattering nabobs of negativity back —
STELTER: Spiro Agnew, yes.
SCHIEFFER: — in Nixon days — to a female hygiene product these days. I don’t pay much attention to that kind of stuff. You know, I’ve been called all kind of names.
What I do take seriously is when he tries to destroy the credibility of the media, an independent press that can gather information that people can compare to the government’s version of events and that is what we do. It’s as crucial to our democracy as the right to vote, and when people try to undermine that, I think they’re undermining the foundations of our democracy.
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