Journalist Matt Taibbi on Thursday said former President Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail and in the White House caused public perception of U.S. intelligence services to shift, with more people viewing the intelligence community as “heroes.”
Taibbi, when asked during an appearance on Hill.TV’s “Rising” what caused the public credibility gap for the U.S. intelligence community to narrow, pointed to Trump’s rhetoric, including his use of the phrase “deep state.”
A report from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs published in May found that there was broad support for the intelligence community in 2020.
“It was Trump. I think it was it was a pretty simple thing that happened. Trump, when he started campaigning, and I remember because I was covering him during his campaign, he started talking about a variety of institutions that he felt were failing the American public,” Taibbi said.
“And I think, you know, a lot of this was just that he was sensing in the crowd that there was a lot of cynicism and weariness with institutional America whether it was the press, NATO, he you know, he would start going after at one point, and then he started talking about the intelligence services,” he continued.
Taibbi said that once Trump started using the phrase “deep state,” the perception of the intelligence community being “heroes” emerged.
“The instant it started to be reported that he was using the term deep state, and that people in his administration were doing that, it became a meme in the media that these people were heroes who were kind of taking on Donald Trump,” Taibbi said.
He said after the administration started using that rhetoric “pundits threw all their weight behind the intelligence services.”
Watch a clip of Taibbi’s interview above.
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