BROOKE BALDWIN (HOST): President Trump has almost 33 million Twitter followers. That is an enviable platform for any politician promoting an agenda. Thus far, as failure looms for the Senate's efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare, one of the president's biggest priorities is, of course, that. So why is the president instead tweeting about us, the media? In the last 24 hours, the president has launched this tweetstorm tirade against CNN, The Washington Post, The New York Times, ABC, NBC, CBS. So with that, let me bring in CNN's senior media correspondent, host of Reliable Sources, Brian Stelter, and David Zurawik, the media critic for The Baltimore Sun. So gentlemen, good to see both of you. And Brian Stelter, just what do you think the president -- why do you think the president thinks this is a good idea to rage against the media?
BRIAN STELTER: It's definitely been one of the defining characteristics, first of his campaign and now his presidency, to essentially say you can't believe anything you're hearing about how his administration's doing. Really what he means is you can't believe anything that's not positive. So, scrutiny about the health care bill, for example, is not positive enough for him. Thus, I think he's railing against the press. He is picking on real errors and perceived errors and today, he's picking on The Washington Post and The New York Times for stories that they published about him that he didn't like. It seems pretty transparent and certainly as we've learned from polling, it appeals to his most loyal fans, but probably not to most other Americans.
BALDWIN: Same question to you, David. Where do you think he's hoping to go with this?
DAVID ZURAWIK: Well, I think part of it is, as Brian said, it's been a long-time political strategy, to find enemies and beat up on them, and the press has been a really convenient enemy and it's been going on for a while, but it's to convince people that the press is not the surrogate of the people, it's the enemy of the people. That's really his strategy, and it has been a political tool for him to galvanize opinion, especially with his base. That's part of it. The other part, Brooke, I think, is that he tries to -- and not -- and he may be successful in inoculating himself against valid criticism by saying it's all lies.
