TV news grapples with whether to call President Trump's tweets "racist"

The Washington Post

CNN wasn't hesitant at all to label Trump's tweets telling U.S. Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Ayanna Pressley and Rashilda Talib to "go back" from where they came from as "racist." "Its hosts and on-screen graphics, known as chyrons, used the term as casually as if calling the summer weather 'hot,'" said Paul Farhi. "One on Monday afternoon put it bluntly: 'Trump defends his racist attacks on U.S. congresswomen.' Another said, 'GOP lawmakers mostly silent on Trump’s racist attack.'" ABC News evolved from anchor Tom Llamas saying "tweets critics are calling racist" on Sunday's World News Tonight to George Stephanopoulos being more explicit in referring to “a series of racist tweeting” by the president on Monday's Good Morning America. On Sunday's CBS Weekend News, reporter Errol Barnett sidestepped the issue, saying that Trump “stepped up his attacks on Democratic women.” CBS This Morning referred to them as “racially charged” tweets on Monday morning. Yet Norah O'Donnell used "racist tweets" without any qualifiers in her inaugural CBS Evening News broadcast on Monday.