Trump's War on CNN Escalates With WWE GIF Tweet

The whole world knows that President Trump is on a mission to "Make America Great Again." And while some would argue there are a plenty of far more hard-pressed agendas than bickering with news outlets on Twitter, he seems to be going all-in on waging a long and ugly war on the news media, and at times, singling out one journalist after another for rebuke.

On Sunday, in his latest, and arguably the most rambunctious, bid to purge "fake news" media and set a new "modern day" standard for American presidency, President Trump tweeted a photoshopped GIF of him body slamming and battering a person to the ground with a logo of CNN superimposed over the face, complete with the hashtags #FraudNewsCNN and #FNN. A moment later, the same GIF was shared on his official @POTUS account as well.

The clip in question, which had been circulating on Reddit's pro-Trump forum /r/The_Donald since last Wednesday, is based on an actual footage of Trump ambushing the chairman of World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and longtime associate Vince McMahon during his appearance as a guest star in the Battle of the Billionaires at the 23rd annual WrestleMania event in April 2007.

Coming off the heels of last week's retweet of an anti-CNN parody of the network's logo and disparaging remarks about a MSNBC morning talk show host, President Trump's most recent jab at the media inevitably provoked strong reactions from journalists and politicians, with some condemning his behavior as unpresidential and others criticizing his message as encouraging resort to violence.

Later that same day, CNN issued an official statement in response to President Trump's not-so-subtle jab on its website, while replying directly to Trump's tweet with an official White House statement on Trump's stance on violence by his deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders from earlier last week.

"The President in no way form or fashion has ever promoted or encouraged violence. If anything, quite the contrary." – @SHSanders45 6/29/17

— CNN Communications (@CNNPR) July 2, 2017

“It is a sad day when the president of the United States encourages violence against reporters. Instead of preparing for his overseas trip, his first meeting with Vladimir Putin, dealing with North Korea and working on his health care bill, he is involved in juvenile behavior far below the dignity of his office. We will keep doing our jobs. He should start doing his.”

Nevertheless, Trump's unorthodox and oft-petulant approach to press relations resonated exceptionally well with his meme-savvy supporters on the social media, and none more than on Reddit's /r/The_Donald, where thousands of community members congratulated the creator of the GIF, /u/HanAssholeSolo, for getting a nod from the most powerful figure in the free world. The most upvoted (and stickied) comment in the original thread reads:

Congratulations /u/HanAssholeSolo , your dankery has been tweeted by the President of the United States.

Meanwhile, neither President Trump or the White House officials have yet respond to any request for comment surrounding the tweet. Yes, what a timeline to live.