Trump, who is on vacation at his Bedminster golf resort, posted on Twitter an old video clip of him performing in a WWE professional wrestling match, but with a CNN logo superimposed on the head of his opponent. In the clip, Trump is shown slamming the CNN avatar to the ground and pounding him with simulated punches and elbows to the head. Trump added the hashtags #FraudNewsCNN and #FNN, for fraud news network.
The video clip apparently had been posted days earlier on Reddit, a popular social media message board. The president's tweet was the latest escalation in his beef with CNN over its coverage of him and his administration.
On ABCs This Week, homeland security adviser Tom Bossert dismissed the idea that the tweet might be a threat, while he praised the president for genuine communication.
No one would perceive that as a threat; I hope they dont, Bossert said, referring to the tweet.