U have to consider a couple things.
Trump set the bar very low. Like....lowest it's ever been. In addition to that, the media never took a break to attack everything he says sometimes ignoring context which only hurts their credibility (their credibility is also lowest it's ever been).
At some point unfortunately, people got used to it and it's just become the norm for Trump to say outlandish shit.
U can agree Trump is most to blame, but media is culpable as well. So I don't think they're being lap dogs, I think it's unfortunately par for the course at this point.