Honest Abe Also Fought ‘Fake News'

Like Trump, Lincoln faced relentless hostility in the press.

- Newt Gingrich

When The New York Times printed a wild headline asserting that the FBI had investigated whether President Donald Trump was possibly a Russian agent, I was furious. However, I was also reminded of another time in our nation’s history in which the press was this hostile to the American president.

I called Trump and told him no president since Abraham Lincoln had faced the kind of unending bias and hostility that he is living through.

Indeed, the conservative Media Research Center reported for both 2017 and 2018 that the mainstream evening TV newscasts had been at least 90 percent anti-Trump in their reporting. This relentless hostility parallels what Lincoln had to endure in the media.

Many news outlets opposed Lincoln from the beginning—much like Trump.

Upon Lincoln’s election, the Memphis Daily Appeal wrote on November 13, 1860, “Within 90 days from the time Lincoln is inaugurated, the Republican Party will be utterly ruined and destroyed. His path is environed with so many difficulties, that even if he had the ability of Jefferson and the energy of Jackson, he would fail, but he is a weak and inexperienced man, and his administration will be doomed from the commencement.”

These criticisms of Lincoln were not confined to the South.