Ahmad al-Farraj

By : Ahmad al-Farraj

President Trump suffered greatly from the biased US media. It is the same media that significantly contributed to his rise as a star because the media outlets were not expecting to be helping him on the political level and when they realized that they are promoting an undesirable political star, they turned against him. But it was too late.

The media, especially the left-aligned ones, started to attack Trump from his first day as an elected-president. They dug up his archives at times, and chased leaked news at other times.

Trump and his close aides did not know how to properly deal with the media. A senior strategist and mastermind at the Trump administration, Steve Bannon, said that according to Trump’s administration, the media has become an opposition party.

However, when things escalated, Trump made a very smart move, which was unusual for him. How did he do that?

President Trump decided to give a speech before Congress. We have tackled his speech in the previous piece, stating that it was a successful step because it was a conciliatory speech, not giving his opponents the opportunity to criticize him.

However, the biased media did not let Trump enjoy the outcome of his speech with positive reactions. One day after the speech, while Trump was proudly moving forward hoping to close some files with which the media was haunting him, everyone was surprised by the report in the Washington Post newspaper that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has had contacts with the Russians. Sessions is one of the biggest Trump advocate, having declared his support for him from the very first day.

So, who is Sessions and why is his contact with the Russians a big problem that the Trump administration might not be able to overcome easily?

Sessions is a lawyer and former judge from Alabama in the south of the US, where racism has always been widespread. This state has a long history in working against the liberation of Black people for more than a century and a half; it also has a longer history in resisting the Civil Rights Act, which made white and black people equal in the Sixties.

Sessions had served as the minister of justice in the state of Alabama and Black people claim that during his term there were racist tendencies. This accusation had deprived him of being appointed as a federal judge in the mid-eighties when the Senate voted against his appointment.

Why did the Washington Post newspaper chose to publish the news about Sessions’ scandal the day following Trump’s conciliatory speech? Why did the New York Times publish another scandalous report against Trump on the same day?

Ahmad al-Farraj

Sessions then ran for the Senate and won. He served until he was nominated by Trump as Attorney General in the new administration. After a long hearings, the Senate voted on his appointment. He took office three weeks ago and then the scandal of his communication with the Russians surfaced.

There is no doubt that Sessions’ contact with the Russians is a scandal. He denied it when he was being questioned in the Senate under oath, and this is a crime that is punishable by law.

However, for the sake of objectivity, we should also link the harsh attack on Sessions with the media and left-wing’s war on Trump.

Why did the Washington Post newspaper chose to publish the news about Sessions’ scandal the day following Trump’s conciliatory speech? Why did the New York Times publish another scandalous report against Trump on the same day?

It is difficult to believe that it is a pure coincidence that the Washington Post got its information about Sessions’ scandal directly after Trump’s speech. The only logical explanation is that the newspaper and those who stand behind it, do not want Trump’s presidency to witness one positive day, and therefore we should expect a significant escalation in Trump’s war with the media.

We will be following up on this feud for sure!

Dr Ahmad al-Farraj is a Saudi writer with al-Jazirah daily. He holds a Masters degree in literature from the University of Indiana and a PhD in Linguistics from the University of Michigan. He was the Dean of the Arabic Language Institute in King Saud University and a member of the university’s council.

Disclaimer: Views expressed by writers in the Column section are their own and do not reflect RiyadhVision’s point-of-view.

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