Did the media forget Qassem Soleimani was a terrorist?
Media outlets dub him 'revered' and 'inspirational'; reaction from Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce and ACU chair Matt Schlapp.
Fox News contributor Tammy Bruce took issue Friday with the mainstream media's reaction to Thursday's U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani and their criticism of President Trump for ordering the move.
"This is a knee-jerk reaction now," Bruce said of many in the media during an appearance on Fox News' "The Ingraham Angle." "They've been trained. It's automatic, it's instinct, because this is a good thing that President Trump did. They cannot accept that something that would actually ingest the basic facts of reality, cast a good light on the president.
"So their instinct, like with al-Baghdadi, is to try to cast these individuals as these were like nice guys or maybe didn't deserve this." (Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was the ISIS leader killed in October in a U.S. operation in Syria.)
"Their instinct, like with al-Baghdadi, is to try to cast these individuals as these were like nice guys or maybe didn't deserve this."
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Bruce basically blamed "Trump derangement syndrome" for the media's reactions -- such as The Washington Post reference to Soleimani as “Iran's most revered military leader," and The New Yorker magazine describing him as "a flamboyant former construction worker and bodybuilder with snowy white hair, a dapper beard, and arching salt-and-pepper eyebrows."
"They are so engaged in this delusion," Bruce told guest host Raymond Arroyo, "that it's affecting their ability even to relate basic figures and facts when it comes to reality."
The conservative commentator also said she believes the American people "can make up their own minds" regarding the president -- and see through the media's agenda.
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"The American people understand what's happening," she said. "They can make up their minds about who's dangerous. It's their family that are in the military. This was these were specialized strikes. No civilians were injured. We are going to manage this. And you'll remember [Trump] was attacked for removing our troops from the border of Syria because that was abandoning our allies. There is nothing this man can do that will be approved of. And the American people see this, I believe, for what it is."
Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.
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