USA Today’s coverage of the National Guard shooting in Washington, D.C., is a case study in why Americans have stopped trusting legacy media.
It isn’t subtle or honest, and it certainly isn’t journalism.
The headline alone gives the game away:
“Trump sent National Guard to DC to fight crime. Then two were shot.”
Trump sent National Guard to DC to fight crime. Then two were shot https://t.co/Yb7XWGlqWD
— USA TODAY (@USATODAY) November 28, 2025
Before a reader ever reaches the reporting, the blame has been preassigned. Not to the attacker. Not to the circumstances of the shooting. But to Trump.
USA Today downplays a terrorist attack in order to smear President Trump:
“Trump sent National Guard to DC to fight crime. Then two were shot”
Insanity. pic.twitter.com/T1Rbi5qMN2
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) November 28, 2025
From there, the piece predictably reads like activism trying its hardest to imitate reporting.
USA Today opens by claiming President Donald Trump is “stiffening his administration’s resolve to use military might as a crime-fighting tool,” framing his response to the violence perpetrated by a foreign national as some sort of political escalation rather than an effort to protect American citizens.
USA Today notes that Trump ordered more Guard members into Washington despite objections from Democrats and activist judges.
Trump did deploy the National Guard, and crime in Washington dropped immediately.
Streets that had become unwalkable were suddenly under control.
Pretending the Guard created danger rather than responding to it is the kind of framing only legacy journalists could manipulate themselves into believing.
The headline erases the attacker entirely and reroutes responsibility onto Trump.
One person bears responsibility for the death of 20-year-old West Virginia guardswoman Sarah Beckstrom, and that’s if you’re not blaming former President Joe Biden and his State Department.
Rahmanullah Lakanwal, 29, is an Afghan national who was allowed into the country under Biden’s refugee program.
He attacked troops after being welcomed to this country with open arms.
Dishonest legacy media reporters want Beckstrom’s death to be Trump’s fault.
In reality, Biden got 13 troops killed at the airport in Kabul in 2021, during his disastrous exit from Afghanistan.
Four years later, the former president’s Afghan policies are still proving deadly, and the legacy media’s spin is making outlets like USA Today more irrelevant by the day.
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