CNN's Brian Stelter opened up his show by telling his audience that Americans, as well as journalists, are questioning Trump's fitness to hold office.
The Reliable Sources host admitted that Trump's actions in Charlottesville on Tuesday are provoking "uncomfortable conversations," within the media as well and he says these questions are happening off-the-air.
Americans around the country have been asking the same question as you and I long before Tuesday's impromptu presser. What is wrong with Donald Trump? Is he suffering from some sort of dementia? Is it rampant ignorance or mental illness?
Is it just the fact that he wants to control the media narrative so much he doesn't care if it's good or bad? Is it his ego-driven narcissism that we've seen throughout his career as a public figure?
Or, is it something much worse? Defending and normalizing anti-Semites and white supremacists in such a way that Trump did goes well beyond the norms of normalcy and decency and even mental stability.
Stelter continued, “Since President Trump’s inauguration, there’s been a lot of tiptoeing going on. His actions have been described as unpresidential, as unhinged and sometimes even crazy. That word 'crazy' can be interpreted several different ways. It gets said more in private than on TV.”
Stelter played the hot mic conversations between senators Susan Collins and Jack Reed, where they acknowledge Trump is not all there. In private, journalists have done the same thing, even though they worry that voicing it publicly will lead to accusations of bias, rather than informing.
Stelter wrapped up his opening monologue by saying, "All this brings me back to the questions that are tough to ask out loud on national television. Is the President of the United States suffering from some sort of illness? Is he racist? Is he fit to be Commander-in-Chief?"
"And one more. Is it time for objective journalists, and I don’t mean opinion folks, I mean down-the-middle journalists to address these questions head on and if so, how in the world should do they do it?”
Stelter, it is long past time for them to do it. They should have done it BEFORE the election. Think how much better off the country would be right now if they had voiced their private concerns then.
