Category: Attack the Press

Trump attacks ‘very fake’ New York Times for tax law piece

President Trump on Monday attacked The New York Times as “very fake” for publishing an article pointing out most Americans will likely receive a tax cut under his 2017 law, even though a majority say they will not.

Speaking at a Tax Day event in Minnesota, Trump held up a printed copy of the Times article and voiced his displeasure with the headline “Face It: You (Probably) Got a Tax Cut.”

“In other words, they’re really pretty upset. You can tell where they’re coming from, come on,” the president said.

Noting the article pointed out a large majority of Americans are expected to receive cuts, something that is positive for him, Trump said “they must have made a mistake. I’m sure these writers will be fired very shortly.”

Trump continued to tout the effects of his tax law but later added that “nothing good comes from The New York Times,” drawing applause from an audience of supporters inside a trucking and equipment facility outside Minneapolis.

The White House staged Monday’s event in order to promote the tax law, which is Trump’s biggest legislative accomplishment and something he plans to tout during his 2020 reelection race.  

Multiple polls show that most Americans believe they are not benefiting from the law, which could limit its effect as a political asset next year. The Times article pointed out the disparity between popular opinion about the law and its actual effects.

“To a large degree, the gap between perception and reality on the tax cuts appears to flow from a sustained – and misleading – effort by liberal opponents of the law to brand it as a broad middle-class tax increase,” it says.

The president has routinely attacked his hometown paper, even though he has sat for multiple interviews with its reporters during his time in office.

His latest remarks came the same afternoon it was announced that the Times had won a Pulitzer Prize for its long-form article investigating Trump’s finances, which said the Trump family has been dodging taxes for years.

[The Hill]

Trump Bashes NY Times for Making Him Look Bad: ‘In 6 Years They Will Be Gone’

Back from his round of golf with Tiger Woods, President Donald Trumptook to Twitter on Saturday evening to bash the New York Times for being corrupt after running a story about sanctuary cities.

“The New York Times Sanctuary Cities/Immigration story today was knowingly wrong on almost every fact. They never call to check for truth. Their sources often don’t even exist, a fraud. They will lie & cheat anyway possible to make me look bad. In 6 years they will be gone,” Trump wrote.

He also insisted that the paper had to beg subscribers for forgiveness after botching coverage of the 2016 election.

“When I won the Election in 2016, the @nytimes had to beg their fleeing subscribers for forgiveness in that they covered the Election (and me) so badly,” Trump wrote. “They didn’t have a clue, it was pathetic. They even apologized to me. But now they are even worse, really corrupt reporting!”

Trump, by the way, doesn’t exactly have his facts right. The New York Timesactually reported that they had a “Trump bump” as a result of the election.

Here is the report from November 2018 (emphasis mine):

More than three million paid digital-only subscribers. More than four million total.

The New York Times Company announced on Thursday that it surpassed those milestones during the third quarter of 2018, when the number of its digital subscribers showed a net increase of roughly 203,000.

That was the highest gain in digital subscribers in a quarter since the so-called Trump bump in the fourth quarter of 2016 and the first quarter of 2017 after the presidential election.

[Mediaite]

Trump Mocks and Jeers Media, Calls For Revenge as Crowd Chants ‘Lock Them Up!’

At President Donald Trump‘s rally in Michigan on Tuesday he went after the media hard several times over the Russia investigation and the Mueller report. At one point, he mocked cable news for slumping ratings and called Rep. Adam Schiff, “Little pencil neck.”

Referring to the media and Democrats and “deep state” together, Trump said “this group of major losers did not just ruthlessly attack me, my family, and everyone who questioned their lies. They tried to divide our country, to poison the national debate, and to tear up the fabric of our great democracy, the greatest anywhere in the world.”

“They did it all because they refused to accept the results of one of the greatest presidential elections, probably number one in our history.”

“Many people were badly hurt by this scam, but more importantly our country was hurt. Our country was hurt. And they’re on artificial respirators right now. They’re getting mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. Little pencil-neck Adam Schiff,” he said, pausing for a crowd reaction. “He has the smallest, thinnest neck I’ve ever seen. He is not a long ball hitter.”

He mocked Schiff’s voice, saying “there still could have been some Russia collision,” and then, describing Schiff, said, “Sick. Sick.

He brought up Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY) and the committee investigations and added, “These people are sick.”

“Sick. Every single deal, every single paper. All of the Democrat politicians. The media bosses. Bad people. The crooked journalists, the totally dishonest TV pundits — and by the way, they know it’s not true. They just got great ratings,” he said. “By the way, their ratings dropped through the floor last night, did you see that?”

There was another big crowd reaction, but it was even bigger as he praised Fox News hosts and their ratings.

“Our friends — Tucker, Sean, Laura — through the roof last night,” he said.

He then said that everyone who “perpetuated the single greatest hoax in the history of politics, they have to be — I’m sorry — they have to be accountable.”

The crowd then began chanting “lock them up” and “lock her up” mixed together.

“Just think of it. A fake dirty dossier, millions and millions of dollars paid for it. By who? Crooked Hillary Clinton, the DNC, and the Democrat party,” he said. The crowd booed and there were some renewed “lock her up” chants.

“They failed in one way. Can you believe it? Maybe I got lucky. They published and printed all of these horrible law lies, they couldn’t get any of the media to print it. Thank you very much, I appreciate it. You never know.”

He then gave the media “a lot of credit” for not publishing news about the dossier prior to the election, though there were no cheers for them from the crowd for that.

[Mediaite]

Trump bashes ‘Morning Joe,’ cable networks for ratings dip after Mueller conclusion

President Donald Trump chided the MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Thursday for ratings that he claimed have dropped in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report to the attorney general, crowing that “fake news never wins.”

Mueller, charged with investigating allegations of collusion between the president’s 2016 campaign and the Russian government, delivered to the Justice Department last week a report that said his team was unable to establish that such collusion occurred. Mueller wrote in his report that he was unable to conclude whether Trump obstructed justice, although Attorney General William Barr and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein wrote in their summary it was their conclusion that the president was innocent of those allegations as well.

“Wow, ratings for ‘Morning Joe,’ which were really bad in the first place, just ‘tanked’ with the release of the Mueller Report,” Trump tweeted about the show — hosted by two of his former friends, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski — where he was once a regular guest. “Likewise, other shows on MSNBC and CNN have gone down by as much as 50%. Just shows, Fake News never wins!”

The former reality TV star frequently harps on ratings, often praising friendly networks like Fox News while pouncing on CNN and MSNBC for their less flattering coverage of him when their ratings dip.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that MSNBC programs saw their ratings plunge after Barr’s announcement. Ratings for host Rachel Maddow’s show, on which the Russia investigation earned breathless coverage nearly every night, dipped 19 percent from their average for the year the night after Barr made his announcement. The next night, her ratings fell slightly once again.

On Fox, meanwhile, Maddow’s time slot competitor Sean Hannity saw his ratings go up by 32 percent over his average. Hannity, a close friend of Trump and one of his greatest media allies, interviewed the president at length on Wednesday’s show.

Maddow had only recently overtaken Hannity in the ratings fight for the first time, likely buoyed at least in part by her relentless focus on the Mueller investigation. Cable news ratings are prone to news-related dips, as viewers are more likely to tune in when there are developments that align with their political views and less likely to tune in for less favorable developments.

Trump and his aides have pummeled the media for its coverage of the Russia investigation in the wake of Barr’s letter to lawmakers about Mueller’s findings. Earlier Thursday, the president tweeted that media outlets “have ZERO credibility or respect” as a result of their Russia probe coverage and have “never been more corrupt” than in this point in time.

On Monday, his reelection campaign sent out a memo to TV producers urging them to think twice before having certain guests on who had asserted there was a strong likelihood that Trump or his campaign conspired with Russian operatives in the 2016 presidential election.

Barr’s summary of the Mueller report, released Sunday, has prompted a wave of hand-wringing across the media universe, though many in the media have been quick to point out that much of the reporting done on Trump’s ties to Russia over the past two years has been borne out by developments in Mueller’s investigation.

[Politico]

Trump slams media for coverage of investigations into ‘all time favorite duly elected President’

President Trump tore into the media over its coverage of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, which concluded without sufficient evidence that the president’s campaign had colluded with Russia during the 2016 election. 

“The Fake News Media has lost tremendous credibility with its corrupt coverage of the illegal Democrat Witch Hunt of your all time favorite duly elected President, me! T.V. ratings of CNN & MSNBC tanked last night after seeing the Mueller Report statement. @FoxNews up BIG!” Trump tweeted Tuesday evening. 

Trump and his conservative allies on Capitol Hill and in the media seized on Attorney General William Barr’s announcement that Mueller found no evidence of collusion, using it to slam mainstream outlets for what they said was speculative reporting that implied Trump’s guilt.

“The Mainstream Media is under fire and being scorned all over the World as being corrupt and FAKE. For two years they pushed the Russian Collusion Delusion when they always knew there was No Collusion. They truly are the Enemy of the People and the Real Opposition Party!” Trump tweeted early Tuesday morning. 

The president has long had an acrimonious relationship with the press, often hammering outlets that reported negative news of the White House as “fake news” and at times even speculating whether he should revoke the press credentials of certain publications’ employees.

Fox News, a staunch defender of the president in its primetime hours, saw a boost in its viewership in the aftermath of the Mueller news, more than quadrupling CNN’s ratings.

[The Hill]

Trump: Media disgraced ‘all over the world’ following Mueller revelations

The conclusion of Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation has discredited media “all over the world,” President Donald Trump tweeted Tuesday morning, celebrating the special counsel’s findings by slamming the news coverage of Mueller’s probe.

“The Mainstream Media is under fire and being scorned all over the World as being corrupt and FAKE,” he tweeted. “For two years they pushed the Russian Collusion Delusion when they always knew there was No Collusion. They truly are the Enemy of the People and the Real Opposition Party!”

Trump and his allies have relentlessly attacked the media since Mueller concluded that no one on Trump’s 2016 campaign conspired to work with Russian agents to influence the 2016 presidential election and was unable to conclude whether Trump sought to obstruct justice.

Most of the ire has been focused on pundits on Twitter and cable news, where the Russia investigation was covered extensively, and has drawn mixed calls for introspection and a media reckoning.

On Monday, the president’s reelection campaign urged networks to reconsider the Democrats they invited on their programs, suggesting several familiar cable news faces — including several House committee chairmen — be blacklisted from the airwaves for “lying to the American people by vigorously and repeatedly claiming there was evidence of collusion.”

While the Trump campaign complained this week that the president’s detractors have made “outlandish, false claims,” Trump himself has long faced similar accusations. Several of Trump’s top advisers, too, have faced withering criticism for making false or misleading claims while defending the president and his policies.

While the president’s attack on the media took a more serious tone Tuesday, some of his aides have attempted to inject mockery into their criticisms.

For example, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Monday shared a mock “Mueller Madness” bracket featuring journalists, celebrities and TV personalities on her Twitter account, asking her 3.8 million followers, “Which of the angry and hysterical @realDonaldTrump haters got it most embarrassingly wrong?”

But while the White House’s attacks on the media are not new, the renewed criticisms have drawn responses from media executives who defended their organizations’ coverage of the Russia investigation. Multiple outlets have noted in recent days that their reporting on Trump and his ties to Russia had been borne out by Mueller’s probe, which resulted in a slew of indictments, convictions and guilty pleas of Trump allies.

[Politico]

Sarah Sanders fuels new hostility against the press with ‘Mueller Madness’ tweet

The White House has been celebrating what it views as vindication of President Donald Trump on the Mueller probe by attacking the media harshly.

The move comes amid increasing hostility against journalists from Trump’s staunchest supporters, and as authorities crack down on foiled plots to violently target the members of the press whom Trump himself has called a threat to the country.

Monday night — just one day after Attorney General William Barr delivered his summary of special counsel Robert Mueller’s findings to lawmakers on Capitol Hill — White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders tweeted out a graphic from The New York Post containing a “Mueller Madness” bracket of various media pundits who were believed to be biased against Trump. The bracket also included the names of several reporters who had written or reported on the probe.

Barr stated in his summary on Sunday evening that Mueller had found no evidence of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.

“Which of the angry and hysterical @realDonaldTrump haters got it most embarrassingly wrong?” Sanders wrote from her official @PressSec account on Monday. “#YouDecide.”

Sanders doubled down Tuesday morning, quoting her own tweet and adding, “How many times do the Democrats and their liberal media allies have to be proven embarrassingly wrong about @realDonaldTrump before they finally accept he’s been a great President?”

Trump himself tweeted one of his most hostile attacks on “the mainstream media” just an hour earlier, calling it “corrupt,” “FAKE,” and the “Enemy of the People and the Real Opposition Party.”

[ThinkProgress]

Trump claims vindication, eyes vengeance

Donald J. Trump has twice gone to war with Democrats and most of the American media — and won both times, dramatically and consequentially.

The big picture: The one-two gut punch to his critics — first, beating Hillary Clinton, and now, vindication from Robert Mueller — won’t just define his first term in office. It’ll shape and sharpen his argument for re-election — and his war against the anti-Trump media.

“Within an hour of learning the findings,” the WashPost reports, “Trump called for an investigation of his critics and cast himself as a victim.”

  • “Aides say Trump plans to … call for organizations to fire members of the media and former government officials who he believes made false accusations about him.”

Attorney General William Barr writes in his summary for Congress that Mueller “did not find that the Trump campaign, or anyone associated with it, conspired or coordinated with the Russian government.”

  • The summary leaves many open questions that could be answered by a full airing of the report, which will be Dems’ main focus this week at least.
  • On obstruction of justice, Mueller wrote that while his report “does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”

Why it matters: The outcome is a huge political victory, and Trump will use it to bludgeon the media and Democrats for the next 18 months.

  • Much of the country will probably agree with him.
  • The president will use it to cast doubt on investigations by House Democrats, or by other state and federal officials.

Now, the vengeance: Trump allies are already pushing to investigate the investigators and attack the media.

  • Don Jr., the president’s eldest son, tweeted: “How this farce started and snowballed … into one the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated on the America should be discovered. Those responsible should be held accountable.”
  • Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, said: “The public deserves to see the interviews, documents, and intelligence that ‘justified’ this investigation in the first place.”
  • And Rudy Giuliani said on Fox News: “[T]here has to be a full and complete investigation, with at least as much enthusiasm as this one, to figure out where did this charge emanate, who started it, and who paid for it.”

State Department bars press corps from Pompeo briefing, won’t release list of attendees

The State Department on Monday said it would not be distributing a transcript or list of attendees from a briefing call with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo held that evening — a call from which the department’s press corps was excluded and only “faith-based media” allowed.

The afternoon phone briefing was to discuss “international religious freedom” with the secretary — who rarely participates in such calls — ahead of his trip to the Middle East. One member of the State Department press corps was invited, only to be un-invited after RSVPing. That reporter was told that the call was for “faith-based media only.”

CNN also RSVP’d to organizers, asking to be included, but received no reply.Despite repeated inquires and complaints from members of the press corps who are based at the department, the State Department on Monday night said they would not be providing a transcript of the call, a list of faith-based media outlets who were allowed to participate or the criteria to be invited.

Officials would not answer questions about whether a range of faiths was included.A reporter with EWTN Global Catholic Television told CNN they were not originally invited to take part in Monday’s call with Pompeo but had asked the State Department if they could take part. The reporter was then invited to a different call involving faith-based organizations and Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback that took place Tuesday and was organized by an outside group.

An article from Religion News Service — which notes that it “is not a faith-based media organization, but rather a secular news service that covers religion, spirituality and ethics” — said participants in the Pompeo briefing “were not told that the call was limited to faith-based media.””While it was not clear which outlets were part of the call, questions were asked by Religion News Service, Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Algemeiner, World Magazine and The Leaven, the newspaper of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas. America Magazine also participated in the call,” according to RNS.On Tuesday evening, one of the participants shared a transcript of the call with the press corps. That transcript showed that Pompeo faced questions about the Israeli election, terrorism and the omission of the word “occupied” when describing the Golan Heights and the West Bank.Pompeo did take part in an on-the-record briefing with the traveling press en route to the Middle East, where he was asked similar questions and provided similar responses.The State Department told the press traveling with Pompeo that the department does not release transcripts for print roundtables. However, they typically release transcripts for all of the secretary’s public press engagements. Former State Department spokesperson John Kirby, who is a CNN Global Affairs analyst, said “it is typical practice that any on the record interview in which a Cabinet official participates is transcribed and published at the earliest appropriate opportunity.””These officials are public servants. What they say — in its entirety — is inherently of public interest. It’s inappropriate and irresponsible not to observe that obligation,” he told CNN.Kirby said he has “certainly seen times when particular journalists or columnists have been targeted for inclusion on given topics.” However, “to exclude beat reporters from something as universally relevant as religious freedom in the Middle East strikes me as not only self-defeating but incredibly small-minded,” he said. “It’s perfectly fine to ensure faith-based media have a seat at such a table. But it’s PR malpractice to cut off access to the broader press corps. I wish I could say I expected more from this crowd,” Kirby said.A State Department spokesperson said in a statement that some press engagements — “Department press briefings, teleconferences on a myriad of policy issues, briefings and sprays by the Secretary of State and other officials— are open to any interested domestic or international press.”

[CNN]

Trump Shares Clip of Fox Host Saying POTUS Has Every Right to Call ‘Fake News’ the ‘Enemy of the American People’

Donald Trump tweeted a clip of Fox News host Jesse Watters complaining about news outlets covering the White House unfavorably, and declaring that Trump “has every right to say that fake news is the enemy of the American people.

Trump continues to serve as Fox News Social Media Intern-in-Chief by posting clips from the network whose own Twitter feed has gone dark for months. On Tuesday evening, he promoted a clip from The Five, which featured Jesse Watters going on a rant about how the press covers Trump.

Watters began by accusing media companies of having a “profit motive” for “crusading” against Trump by, for example, having “reporters up Trump’s you-know-what 24/7.”

News outlets have dedicated multiple reporters to White House coverage for many decades, forming a press “corps,” if you will.

He went on to say that the presidents of CNN and MSNBC “hate this president, and they’re going on a 24-hour news cycle against him.”

Cable news networks have been covering the news 24 hours a day for several decades, as well, a format pioneered by CNN.

Watters then accused the social media networks of “deplatforming conservatives,” then rattled off some of Trump’s approval numbers probably, predicted Trump is “probably on the way to winning a second term,” but bitterly observed that “the media calls this guy a lying mentally ill racist who needs to be imprisoned or impeached.”

“It is so unfair and disgusting what is happening right now, he has every right to say ‘fake news’ is the enemy of the American people.”

Trump thanked Watters, and added “could not have said it any better myself!”, perhaps because Trump has actually said so himself dozens of times:

[Mediaite]

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