New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman said Wednesday on MSNBC that, "from a journalism point of view, Donald Trump is a brain-eating disease."
"I find that, from a journalism point of view, Donald Trump is a brain-eating disease. He does so many outrageous things on a daily basis," Friedman told host Andrea Mitchell.
"I think it's a real danger that Trump is going to suck the brains out of so many reporters and columnists because you spend four years outraged at him and then you don't learn anything, and he's done so many outrageous things you can't even keep track of them anymore," Friedman added.
Friedman's comments came after Mitchell argued that the press does not have the "bandwidth to follow" every story that should be covered regarding the Trump administration because so much energy is being devoted to the investigations surrounding Trump and his associates.
"One of the things that is so remarkable is we, because of all these investigations and other things we're doing, we don't have the bandwidth to follow what's happening at [the] EPA, what's happening at [the Department of] Agriculture," Mitchell said.
She then referenced how Trump nominated Sam Clovis, a talk radio host and former Air Force officer, to be the chief scientist at the Department of Agriculture, noting Clovis' lack of scientific experience for the position. Clovis withdrew his nomination last week after being linked to the ongoing Russia investigation.
"In the departments, facts are being ignored," Mitchell added.
Friedman said that it is easy for journalists only to focus on the "outrageous things" that Trump does, citing Trump's decision to nominate Clovis, which he argued shows "such contempt for science and the department."
"And as a journalist or a columnist, you say, how could I not write about that? That's so outrageous" Friedman added. "And yet if I write about it every week, I end up not going out and learning or writing about all these other things."
Friedman also discussed a range of other topics and argued that Niger has an al Qaeda problem in part due to population growth and climate change.
That combination, according to Friedman, is "completely destroying small-scale agriculture, leaving all these young men basically leaving their homes and on the lose, ready to take $50 a month to join al Qaeda."