Many Japanese viewers saw footage of Donald Trump striking CNN on the news, yet few learned the context. Drawing on a dialogue featured in WiLL, this piece explains how the Russia-gate narrative collapsed after undercover reporting by Project Veritas revealed internal admissions, marking a decisive reversal between Trump and the media.

2017-07-26

I believe many Japanese people saw footage on the news of President Trump taking down CNN with a lariat.
I believe I saw it on NHK’s Watch 9.
As usual, none of the commentators on any of the networks explained what that footage actually was; they merely offered comments as pseudo-moralists.

The monthly magazines WiLL and HANADA, released today, are filled with essays that are especially essential reading for the Japanese people.
If the magazines I am referring to had the same circulation as the Asahi Shimbun, the Sendai mayoral election would have produced the opposite result.
The results of the Tokyo metropolitan assembly election and recent opinion polls would also have shown completely different numbers.

Among Asahi Shimbun subscribers, all those with discerning eyes must have been appalled by the abnormality of the paper’s recent pages.
Everyone must have felt that the Asahi Shimbun had gone mad.

What follows is from a dialogue feature titled “Asahi Is Itself Violence Against Speech,” published in this month’s issue of WiLL, a thirteen-page, three-column discussion between 高山正之 and 藤井厳喜.
It is essential reading for the editors of Watch 9, for Kuwako and Arima, and for the news departments and anchors of all networks.

I would like to say that you should be able to understand how abnormal it is that you and most of the media are currently attacking the government in step with the Asahi Shimbun, but with your distorted minds—one might even say deranged—you probably do not even notice it.
You did not thoroughly criticize Asahi, and now you are burning with a sense of revenge…!?

[Earlier text omitted.]

Fujii:

When you look at the Russia-gate issue, it is completely fake.
In my view, by late June the offensive and defensive positions between Trump’s side and the media had completely reversed.
Trump became the attacker, and CNN had already completely “crashed.”

Why the footage of Trump’s side shooting down CNN’s plane was broadcast is something people in Japan probably do not understand.
There is exposé journalism in the United States.
There is an online news media outlet called Project Veritas that prides itself on undercover reporting with hidden cameras.
A young journalist named James O’Keefe is at its center, and he went to CNN headquarters and secretly filmed three executives.
All of their conversations—such as “Tell me honestly about Russia-gate,” “There’s really nothing there, you know…”—were made public.
That completely shot down CNN.

That is why Trump, delighted, even tweeted footage of himself from a professional wrestling match.

Takayama:

Ah, the footage of Trump taking down CNN outside the ring, right? (laughs)

(pp. 92–93)

To be continued.