Media falls for Trump's fake pivot

Trump makes fools of media with renewed attack on Jimmy Kimmel
The post-Correspondents' Dinner goodwill tour was short-lived — and the press corps should've known better

By Sophia Tesfaye
Senior Writer
Published April 29, 2026 9:00AM (EDT)


(Salon) It took less than 48 hours for Donald Trump to revert to form after his much-praised pivot to unity following an apparent assassination attempt during the White House Correspondents’ Dinner on Saturday. The shift served as a reminder to anyone credulous enough to have been taken in by his performance that the leopard does not change its spots. Through attrition and capitulation, the bar has been set so low for Trump by the media that the president not blaming the people who were nearly shot was somehow praiseworthy.

On Saturday night, Trump stood before reporters in the White House’s Brady Briefing Room after an armed 31-year-old man from Torrance, California, was stopped by the Secret Service trying to storm the Washington Hilton in what appears to be an attempted attack on Trump and his gathered Cabinet. The president sounded chastened. “We have to — we have to resolve our differences,” he told the press, a group he has spent the better part of a decade labeling enemies of the people. Some in the press corps, exhausted and rattled after a gunman interrupted their dinner, were grateful for the crumbs.

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CNN’s Brian Stelter, who wrote a book documenting the president’s war on journalism in meticulous detail, praised the president for his restraint. “Trump very easily could have blamed the media last night, but instead, he basically said “we’re all in this together,” Stelter concluded on Sunday.

In taking the post-shooting moment at face value, he essentially vouched for Trump’s gesture. But within hours, the same president whom Stelter had briefly cast as a unifier was back to doing what he has always done: demanding his perceived enemies be punished. ...................(more)

https://www.salon.com/2026/04/29/trump-makes-fools-of-media-with-renewed-attack-on-jimmy-kimmel/