“I think what CNN did was unfortunate for them, as you know now, they have some very serious problems. They’ve been fake news for a long time, they’ve been covering me in a very dishonest way,” he said. “But CNN and others, NBC equally is bad, despite the fact that I made them a fortune with ‘The Apprentice,’ but they forgot that. But CNN has really taken (the video) too seriously and I think they’ve hurt themselves very badly, very very badly.”

There has been a very concerted effort to further attack CNN by claiming the network has been the real bully in relation to the original creator of the video, a Reddit user who goes by the name “HanAssholeSolo.” Critics have argued that CNN has used blackmail to extort an apology out of him. That’s been the position of Fox Contributor Tammy Bruce.

“They realized they can’t quash Trump like a bug, so they went after this private citizen who has nothing to do with Trump,” Bruce said Wednesday morning on “Fox and Friends.” “(He) made this meme that the president picked up, and they decided that they could get their pound of flesh from this individual.”

Ted Cruz accused CNN of “extortion.”

“If CNN constructively obtained the gif-maker’s [intellectual property], it’s a [Georgia] crime if they threatened to ‘disseminate any information tending to subject any person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule,'” Cruz wrote.

When CNN reported that many of this Reddit users other posts were highly racist, anti-Semitic and sexist, indicating that he was either a neo-Nazi or willing troll of the alt-right, Donald Jr. argued that this claim coming forward was “only a matter of time.”

x It was only a matter of time folks... CNN: Trump's Wrestling Meme May Be Racist, Antisemitic https://t.co/DdCFgavmKK via @BreitbartNews Ã¢ÂÂ Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 3, 2017

And of course he continues to whine about “the left” obstructing and “resisting” his dear ol’ dad.

x It's sad that the left today would rather see America suffer and fail than to see it succeed with @realDonaldTrump at the helm. #maga Ã¢ÂÂ Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 12, 2017

That’s a sentiment shared by his brother Eric on Fox and Friends.

“If you look at the amount of coverage that has been directed to that story and all that nonsense and garbage versus the amount of coverage directed to the fact that the Dow is at an all-time high, that the S&P 500 is at a all-time high, that the Russell 2,000 is at an all time high,” he said. ”I mean, we’re thriving as a nation. Everybody wants to get focused on nonsense. On garbage. On distractions.”

So we’ve established that according to the Trumps, CNN is the bad guy here. They don’t spend hours and hours talking about how great everything is under Donald Trump. Instead, they seem to want to talk about “garbage” like subpoenas, grand juries, ethics inquiries, three congressional committee investigations, and the actions of Special Counsel Robert Mueller while noting that GOP operative Paul W. Smith admitted to the Wall Street Journal that he was actively seeking stolen copies of Hillary Clinton emails from Russian Hackers in order to provide them to Michael Flynn, and that this story has been confirmed by a UK cyberanalyst he recruited to help him authenticate those emails.

That’s called “collusion,” ladies and gents.

Yeah, but never mind all that—they’ve been crybabies about the bodyslam video and been a bully to the racist, neo-Nazi, alt-right asshole who made it by saying they won’t reveal his personal ID largely because he apologized and he’s a private citizen.

What has apparently set them all off is that CNN didn’t promise to never reveal his identity if he went back on his promise to not to get all racist again, as this lengthy editorial from the Washington Examiner claims.

Somehow CNN managed to turn what was a negative story about Trump against itself. Shortly after the story came out, #CNNBlackmail became the top trendingTwitter topic — ahead of #july4th2017. Conservative pundit and lawyer Ben Shapiro, despite being a critic of Trump and victim of anti-Semitism, called CNN's actions "thug journalism" and "essentially blackmail." Even journalists from left-leaning outlets, such as Vox's German Lopez, agreed the cable news network's conduct was "Extremely unethical." … It's also quite ironic that CNN overreacted to what many considered to be just a humorous, if somewhat juvenile, meme after Trump retweeted it. This is not to condone Trump's tweet, which started this brouhaha. But, let's face it, no one expects mature behavior from him anyway. ... A news organization's mission is to report the news, not to thought-police the internet and threaten to make people famous if they make fun of it. CNN, especially, should understand the importance of protecting anonymous speech, given all the anonymous sources it uses.

Nobody expects mature behavior from the president of the United States? CNN should understand how important anonymity is because they use so many anonymous sources?

Let’s be blunt: that is fucking bullshit.

Nobody is promised anonymity on the internet. Not one single person. CNN did not “extort” an apology out of this guy and frankly, if he doesn’t have the guts to openly admit who he is when posting vicious racist bullshit on the web, he’s a coward by definition. He’s also not a 15-year-old, as many of these people have claimed. [Even the Washington Examiner admits that the sentence where CNN says they “reserve the right to reveal” his ID — something they actually agree CNN always had the right to do and argue they’d be in less trouble if they’d already done it — was added to the story after it was completed by an executive, not by the author Kaczinski. This means that the apology was not “forced” because it had already been provided and published on Reddit before hand.] The fact that Fox News, the Trumps, Ben Shapiro, the Washington Examiner, and pretty much the entire right wing thinks the privacy rights of one racist troll supersede the safety concerns of the employees at CNN is simply astounding.

Oh, don’t worry—nobody would actually try to go out and harm someone at CNN, right? Nobody might consider ramping up the actions shown in that video just a notch, eh?

But that’s not the story we heard when Kathy Griffin held her mock decapitated “blood coming out of his wherever” Trump head. Nope, that’s not how Don Jr. thought about it.

Donald Jr. took to his Twitter account Friday evening to decry Griffin’s recent attempt to invoke the “victim card” by claiming Trump has “broke” her. After all, Griffin was the one who — in an alleged joking manner — held up a fake severed head of President Trump. She’s also the person who referred to then-President-elect Trump as “President piece of sh*t.” “The only thing #KathyGriffin is a victim of is her own ignorance. 24 hours from fake apology to victim status is impressive by any standard!” Trump Jr. tweeted.

And when Shakespeare in the Park did a modernized version of Julius Caesar with a Trump-like character, just as they previously had done with an Obama-like character, there wasn’t much “joking” from the Trumpies.

Donald Trump Jr. on Wednesday appeared to link the shooting at a congressional baseball practice that injured at least five to the controversial production of "Julius Caesar" in which the slain Roman dictator was outfitted in a way that resembled President Trump. Following the shooting Wednesday morning, President Trump's son retweeted a comment from CNN and Fox News contributor Harlan Hill, who drew a straight line from "events like today" to "glorifying the assassination" of the president in a theatrical production.

Poor Donald is apparently so delicate he can’t handle a 600 418-year-old play, but CNN just has to suck it up?

That apparently applies even when someone with White House access has already done to them and their staff what they specifically didn’t do to the Reddit guy: released all their personal contact, phone, and home address information to the world.

Jack Posobiec, a controversial pro-Trump activist who has attended White House briefings, hyped information on Wednesday that he claimed were the personal details of multiple CNN employees and talent. ... The information in his tweet included phone numbers and/or addresses for Wolf Blitzer, Daniel Patrick Merica, David Chalian, Don Lemon, Brian Stelter and Erick Erickson. With the exception of Blitzer, all of the phone numbers went to voicemail or had been disconnected. However, records showed that the CNN employees had a connection to many of the listed street addresses. Additional alleged personal details for Fareed Zakaria and Andrew Kaczynski of CNN’s KFile were available on the 8chan site. Details for family members of the employees were also posted by 8chan trolls.

So people on 8chan are passing around the phone and address information for the family members of prominent CNN anchors. And has this lead to death threats against CNN reporters and their family, particularly Andrew Kaczynski who wrote the report on our favorite Reddit user?

Why, yes, Yes. It. Has.

According to The Daily Beast, Kaczynski, who heads up the network’s “K-File” investigative program, his wife and his parents have all received threats from an amalgamation of far-right trolls intent on “doxxing” him due to what appears to be a threat to do the same to Reddit user HanAssholeSolo, the creator of the GIF. According to the Beast, Kaczynski’s family are the recipients of at least 50 threatening or harassing phone calls, and other members of the K-File team also received harassing messages after the information began cropping up on 4chan’s politics board (the initial site of the calls to dox K-File). “The only thing I worry about is somebody getting hurt,” an anonymous source told the Beast. “These far-right trolls are really threatening people and coming after people. Somebody’s gonna do something stupid at some point.”

And another reporter who first found the Reddit user, even before CNN did, has been receiving gory death threats too.

Jared Yates Sexton, a journalist who teaches writing and linguistics at Georgia Southern University, reported Sunday that the president had shared an internet meme created by a Reddit user called “HanAssholeSolo.” That person made frequent racist and threatening posts on Reddit, including one earlier this month identifying Jewish employees of CNN. Sexton tweeted Monday that he had gotten numerouts threats — often accompanied by antisemitic and Nazi themes — since revealing the meme’s creator.

And yet: where are the right-wing outrage monkeys now? What exactly do they have to say to the families of CNN anchors and reporters or to Jared Yates Sexton about their right to “privacy?”

Yes, we had all called for more civility in our rhetoric after the shooting of Majority Whip Steve Scalise just a few weeks ago by a former Bernie Sanders/Jill Stein supporter—even though neither of them has ever advocated any type of violence or had criticized or targeted Scalise. But that didn’t come up when a faked video which was promoted and endorsed by several GOP presidential candidates was wrongfully produced by right-wing anti-abortionists and directly inspired an attack on Planned Parenthood that injured cops and killed three people. Where the frack was their call for “civility” then? Where was their scream that the “baby parts” video was “fake news?”

Nowhere, that’s where.

And speaking of crimes, the story that MSNBC host Joe Scarborough told about how he and co-host Mika Brzezinski were threatened by the White House to either apologize to Trump or else there would be a negative National Enquirer story about them? That wasn’t exactly legal.

The White House threats, which Scarborough said were communicated via text messages he has saved, were presumably sent from Washington, D.C. to New York City, where Scarborough lives and works. If so, New York, D.C., and federal law could be implicated. New York Penal Law § 135.60 (Coercion) Under New York law: A person is guilty of coercion in the second degree when he or she compels or induces a person to engage in conduct which the latter has a legal right to abstain from engaging in, or to abstain from engaging in conduct in which he or she has a legal right to engage, or compels or induces a person to join a group, organization or criminal enterprise which such latter person has a right to abstain from joining, by means of instilling in him or her a fear that, if the demand is not complied with, the actor or another will: Former White House counsel Norm Eisen said he believes White House aides violated that statute. Trump, if he was involved in the scheme, could also be implicated. D.C. Criminal Law § 22–3252 (Blackmail) D.C. law is similar to New York law. Under the D.C. code: (a) A person commits the offense of blackmail, if, with intent to obtain property of another or to cause another to do or refrain from doing any act, that person threatens (2) To expose a secret or publicize an asserted fact, whether true or false, tending to subject any person to hatred, contempt, or ridicule; or (3) To impair the reputation of any person, including a deceased person. lawyer familiar with D.C. law, who asked for anonymity due to the political nature of the topic, says White House aides (and potentially Trump) may have violated this provision. It is, the lawyer noted, seldom prosecuted in D.C. U.S. Code § 872 (Extortion by officers or employees of the United States) Under federal law: Whoever, being an officer, or employee of the United States or any department or agency thereof, or representing himself to be or assuming to act as such, under color or pretense of office or employment commits or attempts an act of extortion, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than three years, or both; but if the amount so extorted or demanded does not exceed $1,000, he shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

So when we go on about putting people at personal risk and invading their privacy, or how they may have committed “blackmail,” “extortion,” and “coercion,” the fingers don’t necessarily point toward anything CNN did. Instead they point directly at Trump and his sycophants.

And it’s not like the strategic release of personal information about private citizens isn’t something that people on the right like Michelle Malkin haven’t done before. They have.

Whatever your beliefs are regarding military recruiting at colleges, Michelle Malkin crosses the line of decency by printing the telephone numbers of the students that formed the protest. They have been receiving death threats non-stop.

But then again, there are those among us who will never, ever, see it that way. Not even after anti-Clinton people have shown up armed and fired off rounds at an innocent pizza parlor that right-wing media told them was part of a child sex ring. Not even after pro-Trump vandals have painted ‘false flag” graffiti at an elementary school.

Responding officers found “Kill Trump,” “Left is the best,” “Bernie Sanders 2020” and “Death to Trump” written on a sign in the playground. The investigation took an unexpected turn after police released surveillance video of a balding white male with a Red Sox t-shirt.

These people will whine and cry that CNN doesn’t report how high the Dow is (even though they do report that) and they’ll whine about Kathy Griffin, Julius Caesar, or Mika Brzezinski being “mean to Trump” and about CNN not actually revealing someones identity. But they’ll never, ever, condemn or take any responsibility for fostering a culture (actually a cult) of people who actually have threatened reporters and their families, who actually have killed people as the Planned Parenthood shooter did after hearing and seeing right-wing lies about “selling baby parts,” or who would do something like write “Kill Trump” on an elementary school wall just to make liberals look evil and violent.

Nope, that will never happen. And that’s a problem.

And now: more Rachel Maddow, just because she’s right on point. Trump just doesn’t care—and neither do his family or fans.

Oh look Uday just upped the ante.

x One of the best I've seen. Ã°ÂÂÂÃ°ÂÂÂºÃ°ÂÂÂ¸Ã°ÂÂÂÃ°ÂÂÂºÃ°ÂÂÂ¸ https://t.co/rqCplijJ57 Ã¢ÂÂ Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) July 8, 2017

Which was a retweet from this guy which features (badly) edited footage from Top Gun with Trump’s face overlayed on a pilot shooting down “CNN” marked planes.

x Hey @CNN we heard you like memes

Ã°ÂÂÂÃ°ÂÂÂÃ°ÂÂÂ»Ã°ÂÂÂÃ°ÂÂÂ¶Ã°ÂÂÂ¥ s p i c y b o i pic.twitter.com/324hKyg4yW Ã¢ÂÂ Old Row (@OldRowOfficial) July 8, 2017

At least they haven’t seen this yet.