Former news anchor Dan Rather on Friday criticized journalists who hailed Donald Trump’s attack on Syria as “presidential.”
“The number of members of the press who have lauded the actions last night as ‘presidential’ is concerning,” Rather wrote in a Facebook post. “War must never be considered a public relations operation. It is not a way for an Administration to gain a narrative. It is a step into a dangerous unknown and its full impact is impossible to predict, especially in the immediate wake of the first strike.”
American ships late last week fired more than 50 cruise missiles at the Sharyat Airbase in Syria, a barrage in response to a chemical attack in the Syrian village of Khan Sheikhou which left more than 85 people dead and hundreds more injured. Many blamed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad for the chemical attack, and Trump vowed to do something about it.
MSNBC’s Brian Williams called missiles launched at Syria “beautiful.”
“We see these beautiful pictures, at night, from the decks of these two U.S. Navy vessels in the eastern Mediterranean,” Williams said during a Thursday night broadcast.
On CNN, Fareed Zakaria said, “Donald Trump became president of the United States” when the strikes started, and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius said on MSNBC that Trump had “put more umph, more credibility back into” American power.
