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The New Yorker: Why Wont Donald Trump Denounce Sandy Hook Deniers?
Why Won’t Donald Trump Denounce Sandy Hook Deniers?The New Yorker, William Finnegan, 11/22/16
In a letter to Donald Trump last week, Erica Lafferty, whose mother was killed in the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, asked the President-elect to cut ties with the conspiracy theorist Alex Jones.
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How hard can it be for the incoming President of the United States to disavow this ugliness? Reince Priebus, who will soon be President Trump’s chief of staff, told CNN last week, “It’s really important that all Americans understand that he is a President for everyone.” Does Priebus understand where his new boss has positioned himself among the grieving, doubly victimized families of Newtown? Erica Lafferty has received no reply to her letter. (The Trump transition team did not return a request for comment.) The problem is—and Priebus probably does understand this—the outsized stature of Infowars and Jones in the bizarre information universe where Trump resides. Last December, as a guest on Jones’s radio show, Trump told his host, “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.” Trump has tweeted links to Infowars to back up his own outlandish claims, including the one about “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey publicly celebrating the 9/11 attacks. Only three days after the election, Jones announced that Trump had called him. “I just talked to the kings and queens of the world, world leaders, you name it,” Trump said, according to Jones. “It doesn’t matter. I wanted to talk to you to thank your audience.” Jones also said that Trump had promised to appear on his radio show “in the next few weeks.” This call evidently took place before Trump’s transition team got around to calling the State Department or the Pentagon.
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How hard can it be for the incoming President of the United States to disavow this ugliness? Reince Priebus, who will soon be President Trump’s chief of staff, told CNN last week, “It’s really important that all Americans understand that he is a President for everyone.” Does Priebus understand where his new boss has positioned himself among the grieving, doubly victimized families of Newtown? Erica Lafferty has received no reply to her letter. (The Trump transition team did not return a request for comment.) The problem is—and Priebus probably does understand this—the outsized stature of Infowars and Jones in the bizarre information universe where Trump resides. Last December, as a guest on Jones’s radio show, Trump told his host, “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.” Trump has tweeted links to Infowars to back up his own outlandish claims, including the one about “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in New Jersey publicly celebrating the 9/11 attacks. Only three days after the election, Jones announced that Trump had called him. “I just talked to the kings and queens of the world, world leaders, you name it,” Trump said, according to Jones. “It doesn’t matter. I wanted to talk to you to thank your audience.” Jones also said that Trump had promised to appear on his radio show “in the next few weeks.” This call evidently took place before Trump’s transition team got around to calling the State Department or the Pentagon.
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