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Trump attacks McCain again, saying he didn’t get a ‘thank you’ for approving late senator’s funeral

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President Trump on Wednesday escalated his unrelenting attacks on the late senator from Arizona and former GOP presidential nominee John McCain, who even in death has remained one of Trump’s top targets for abuse as fellow Republicans have repeatedly begged him to stop.

In a five-minute diatribe during an appearance at a General Dynamics tank factory in Lima, Ohio, Trump argued that McCain, a lifelong Pentagon booster and former prisoner of war in Vietnam, “didn’t get the job done” for veterans while also grousing that he did not receive proper gratitude for McCain’s funeral last September.

“I gave him the kind of funeral he wanted, which as president I had to approve,” Trump said inaccurately, an apparent reference to allowing the use of military transport to carry McCain’s body to Washington. “I don’t care about this, I didn’t get a thank-you, that’s okay. We sent him on the way. But I wasn’t a fan of John McCain.”

He added, “I have to be honest, I never liked him much. Hasn’t been for me. I’ve really, probably, never will.”

The full-throated repudiation of a deceased and revered member of his party was remarkable even for a president constantly at war with his rivals, and it came amid an outpouring of statements in recent days praising McCain in the face of Trump’s attacks.

“It’s deplorable what he said,” Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.), chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said in an interview with Atlanta-based Georgia Public Broadcasting earlier Wednesday, referring to previous Trump attacks on McCain. “It will be deplorable seven months from now, if he says it again, and I will continue to speak out. . . . We should never reduce the service that people give to this country, including the offering of their own life.”

Trump’s comments are part of a longtime pattern in which he lashes into those he sees as challenging him — whether prominent or obscure, alive or dead.

In recent days, the president has also attacked George Conway, the husband of senior White House aide Kellyanne Conway, calling him a “stone cold loser,” “a whack job” and a “husband from hell” after Conway raised questions about the president’s mental health on Twitter. Others who have drawn the president’s ire in recent days have included weekend Fox News hosts and “Saturday Night Live” writers and performers.

Some close to the president have attributed his frustrations to worrying over the looming report on Russian election interference from the special counsel’s office — which he mocked Wednesday on the South Lawn of the White House en route to Ohio — while others said he simply has fewer advisers to restrain him from airing his grievances.Trump: ‘I was never a fan of John McCain, and I never will be’

President Trump lashed out at late senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) on March 19. (Photo: Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)

Animosity between Trump, who received draft deferments from military service, and McCain stretches back decades and came to a head during the 2016 campaign when Trump declared that McCain was “not a war hero” because he had been captured after his plane was shot down over North Vietnam.

Aides say the new round of frustrations over McCain was fueled by a news report Trump saw recently about McCain’s role in handing over a copy of an intelligence dossier to the FBI after the 2016 election. Trump inaccurately blames the disputed document for kicking off the FBI’s investigation into Russian interference in the campaign to help Trump.

Trump has regularly railed about McCain in the nearly seven months since his death, complaining about the dossier and the senator’s vote against repealing the Affordable Care Act. Exasperated advisers have encouraged him repeatedly to drop the issue, but his grudge against McCain is particularly visceral, according to current and former aides.

Some of McCain’s supporters said the criticism would amuse McCain, who would have appreciated that the president was still tormented by his legacy. Mark Salter, McCain’s longtime friend and co-author, said that at first he was angered by the president’s mischaracterizations.

“It’s reaching a point of boredom for all of us. McCain is getting some kind of amusement out of it that he’s still in the guy’s head somewhere,” Salter said. “It doesn’t help him, but he can’t control himself. He obviously resents John. He obviously craves the admiration that John received in life. He may excoriate the establishment and fake news and everything else, but he craves its approval.”

At Trump’s event in Lima, Fred Creech, a 61-year-old welder from Wapakoneta, Ohio, said he was a Trump supporter who appreciated the president’s visit but said he was not thrilled by the extended anti-McCain diatribe.

“I can understand what he was saying, but I don’t know that it was totally necessary to explain all that to every single person out here,” Creech said.

Mike Phillips, 58, of Lafayette, Ohio, who works as a forklift driver at the plant, said he was a Trump supporter who appreciated the president’s political incorrectness. “We’ve got a president up there right now that has backbone,” he said. “And we’re sorry if we hurt a few feelings, if that’s the way it is, but we’ve got to be strong again.”

But Phillips was not eager to wade into the McCain controversy: “I do not have a comment on his comment. I’m not going there.”

Republicans have privately urged Trump to be more decorous about their late colleague, but most have done little in response to the continued attacks, aside from veiled criticisms. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) posted a tweet before Trump’s Ohio speech that praised McCain but did not mention the president.

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), who was close to McCain and remains close to Trump, said at an event in South Carolina on Monday that he had repeatedly counseled the president against attacking his late friend, to no avail.

“He’s an American hero, and nothing will ever change that in my eyes. I want to help this president, I want him to be successful,” he said. “ . . . I think the president’s comments about Senator McCain hurt him more than they hurt the legacy of Senator McCain.”

A number of Democratic presidential candidates on Wednesday sharply criticized Trump’s attacks on McCain, including South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who said Trump “faked a disability in order to avoid serving,” a reference to the president’s disputed medical deferment for bone spurs.

Beto O’Rourke, appearing at a campaign stop in Conway, N.H., pointed to McCain’s disavowal of racial attacks in the 2008 presidential race against Barack Obama.

“I think that kind of dignity and civility and mutual respect in our politics is missing right now,” O’Rourke said. “I hope that we go back to his example. Instead of focusing on the president’s comments I want to focus on Senator McCain and his example.”

The president is unlikely to change his posture toward McCain, aides say. He takes particular pride in the idea that GOP voters prefer him over McCain, and aides say he has bragged that Republicans might cringe but not punish him over the attacks.

On the day of McCain’s death, he scuttled issuing a statement drafted by White House aides honoring his life. He reluctantly lowered the U.S. flags over the White House briefly before they were raised — then under a fierce backlash, lowered them again.

The president also fumed about the wall-to-wall news coverage of McCain’s death and that he was not invited to the funeral at Washington National Cathedral, current and former administration officials said.

Trump said in Lima that he did not like McCain because he received a “fake and phony” dossier and handed it over to the FBI, “hoping to put me in jeopardy.” McCain had said he handed over the document after it was provided to him on the sidelines of a security conference because he thought it was important for law enforcement to investigate.

The president said, without providing examples or evidence, that McCain “didn’t get the job done for our great vets at the VA and they knew it.”

And he attacked McCain’s status as a longtime defense hawk who advocated a robust U.S. presence in the Middle East and Afghanistan. “We’re in a war in the Middle East that McCain pushed so hard,” Trump said.

After about five minutes of complaining about McCain, Trump seemed to realize he had flown to Ohio for another reason. Explaining his jeremiad, he said the news media had asked him about McCain — but only after he tweeted attacks on the late senator.

“Not my kind of guy, but some people like him and I think that’s great,” he said. “Now, let’s get back and get onto the subject of tanks and this economy.”

[Washington Post]

Trump: George Conway ‘A Wack Job’

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President Trump on Wednesday escalated his attacks on George Conway, calling him a “whack job” who is doing a “disservice” to his wife, White House counselor Kellyanne Conway.

“I don’t know him. He’s a whack job, there’s no question about it,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House before traveling to Ohio.

The president added that Conway’s Twitter attacks are “doing a tremendous disservice to a wonderful wife.”

“Kellyanne is a wonderful woman and I call him Mr. Kellyanne,” Trump continued, repeating what he appears to believe is an insult to refer to Conway by his wife’s first name.

“It isn’t—except perhaps to the extremely juvenile and boorish,” Conway responded to a reporter who asked why it is an insult. “What I really wouldn’t want to be called is “Individual-[ ].”

Federal prosecutors made apparent references to Trump as “Individual-1” in its indictment of former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen.

The comments came just hours after Trump tweeted that Conway is a “stone cold LOSER” and a “husband from hell” who is “jealous of his wife’s success.”

“You. Are. Nuts,” Conway tweeted in response before repeating his claim that the president suffers from mental illness or a personality disorder. “You seem determined to prove my point.  Good for you! #NarcissisticPersonalityDisorder.”

This week’s back-and-forth between Trump and George Conway has elevated what had previously been a family feud watched by Washington insiders into the mainstream consciousness.

Kellyanne Conway defended the president’s attacks on her husband, telling Politico that Trump is within his rights to respond when accused of having mental problems.

“He left it alone for months out of respect for me,” Conway said. “But you think he shouldn’t respond when somebody, a non-medical professional accuses him of having a mental disorder? You think he should just take that sitting down?”

Despite Trump’s claim he does not know George Conway, the two men do have a personal history that pre-dates their Twitter feud.

Trump considered tapping Conway, a high-powered appellate lawyer, to lead the Justice Department’s civil division in 2017 but Conway said he took himself out of consideration, citing the president’s attacks on the department over the Russia investigation.

In a 2006 letter obtained by The Washington Post, Trump praised Conway’s legal skills used in a dispute at Trump World Tower in New York.

“I wanted to thank you for your wonderful assistance in ridding Trump World Tower of some very bad people,” Trump to Conway. “What I was most impressed with was how quickly you were able to comprehend a very bad situation.”

Trump added that Conway had “a truly great voice,” which he said is “certainly not a bad asset for a top trial lawyer!”

[The Hill]

Trump retweets QAnon conspiracy theorist, via Larry the Cable Guy, to slam the TSA

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From a QAnon conspiracy theorist to actor James Woods to comedian Larry the Cable Guy to the leader of the free world. Thus travels information in the age of Twitter and President Trump, who took a late-night swing at a familiar punching bag — the Transportation Security Administration — via a nearly two-year-old video spread by a character on the far fringes of the Internet.

“Not a good situation!” Trump tweeted on Tuesday just before midnight about the clip of a young man subjected to a very thorough pat-down by a TSA agent.

Trump’s critique of the TSA, an agency he has lashed out at repeatedly on the campaign trail, is hardly extreme. The video he retweeted garnered millions of views and sparked outrage back in March 2017 after a woman named Jennifer Williamson filmed her son, who she said had a sensory processing disorder, at Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport.

But the source who belatedly brought the video to Trump’s attention, through a winding path of Twitter celebrities, is likely to raise new questions about where a president fond of spreading conspiracy theories gets his information.

The video was reshared on Monday by a Twitter account called Deep State Exposed, which is operated by Jeremy Stone, a follower of the QAnon conspiracy theory. Stone’s twitter bio includes the phrase “WWG1WGA,” shorthand for “Where We Go One We Go All,” a rallying cry for the bizarre theory that ties together the Pizzagateconspiracy and a supposed “deep state” plot to control American politics. Stone soon added a follow-up tweet to the viral video claiming that “TSA goes out of their way to hire high school dropouts with an inclination for sexual perversion. It’s mind control!!!”

On his Twitter feed, Stone regularly mixes fake Hillary Clinton quotes with truly odd conspiracies. The next clip posted after the video retweeted by the president was a piece of shaky cellphone footage suggesting that empty Walmarts are being used as “CONCENTRATION CAMPS SET TO HOUSE AMERICAN CITIZENS!!”

Tuesday night was not Trump’s first brush with that account’s particular brand of paranoia. The Twitter bio for Deep State Exposed boasts of nine retweets from the president. The feed made headlines in September 2017 when Trump reshared a meme from the account about Hillary Clinton’s book “What Happened.”

Stone’s latest presidential nod of approval tapped into a long-simmering point of anger for Trump: the TSA and the American airport experience in general. In May 2016, Trump complained that the TSA was “falling apart.” At the Republican National Convention two months later, Trump called the agency a “total disaster”and promised that he would “fix TSA.” Yet, among Trump’s budget moves was a proposal in 2017 to slash TSA’s funding to help pay for his border wall.

At rallies and in interviews, Trump also routinely complains that America’s airportsare “like from a third-world country.”

So it’s no surprise that the video of the young man in Dallas undergoing an intense body search would resonate. James Woods, an actor turned conservative social media activist who has been suspended from Twitter in the past for sharing a hoax, helped spread the clip by tweeting it with the simple phrase, “Uh…”

Larry the Cable Guy, a stand-up comedian famed for his “Git-R-Done” catchphrase, then weighed in, calling the video “Absolutely ridiculous!”

“How many times do you have to feel a kid up to figure out he’s not a threat? This is infuriating and hard to watch,” the comedian tweeted, which caught the president’s eye hours later. Donald Trump Jr. also joined in the outrage, calling the video “sickening.” (Deep State Exposed quickly thanked the president’s son for the retweet, adding in a fake Hillary Clinton quote for good measure.)

As for TSA, the agency in 2017 defended its handling of the viral pat-down at the Texas airport, noting that the procedure took “approximately two minutes” and “was observed by the mother and two police officers who were called to mitigate the concerns of the mother.” The agency even wrote a lengthy blog post titled “TSA Mythbuster: The Rest of the DFW Pat-down Story” to combat blowback from the incident.

“TSA allows for a pat-down of a teenage passenger, and in this case, all approved procedures were followed to resolve an alarm of the passenger’s laptop,” spokeswoman Lisa Farbstein told The Post at the time. “The passengers were at the checkpoint for approximately 45 minutes, which included the time it took to discuss screening procedures with the mother and to screen three carry-on items that required further inspection.”

[Washington Post]

Trump Touts CNN Poll With 71% Saying the Economy Is in Good Shape: ‘Is CNN Becoming a Believer?’

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President Donald Trump regularly denounces CNN as “fake news,” but this afternoon he touted a poll released by the network this week showing a notable positive result for him.

The poll, released yesterday, finds 71 percent of people saying the economy is in good shape, “the highest share to say so since February 2001, and the best rating during Trump’s presidency by two points.” (26 percent say it’s “very good” and 45 percent say “somewhat good.”)

51 percent approve of Trump’s handling of the economy and his overall approval rating is at 42 percent.

[Mediaite]

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

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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]

President Trump again blasts John McCain, says he was ‘never a fan’ and ‘never will be’

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President Donald Trump again criticized the late Sen. John McCain Tuesday, pointing specifically to his vote against repealing Obamacare and saying was “never a fan” and “never will be.”

“I’m very unhappy that he didn’t repeal and replace Obamacare, as you know. He campaigned on repealing and replacing Obamacare for years and then they got to a vote and he said thumbs down,” Trump said. “Plus there were other things. I was never a fan of John McCain and I never will be.”

The president’s comments came during an Oval Office meeting with the president of Brazil and after a series of weekend tweets in which Trump blasted the senator, who passed away battling brain cancer in last August.

Trump accused him of “spreading the fake and totally discredited dossier” and of sending it to the FBI and the media “hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election.” But the president’s claim is not accurate. McCain wasn’t made aware of the dossier until after the election when he passed it on to the FBI.

The dossier, compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, alleged links between the Trump campaign and Russian officials. Along with other explosive allegations, it alleged that Russians held compromising information about Trump that could be used to blackmail him.

On ABC’s “The View” on Monday, McCain’s daughter Meghan fired back at Trump, saying he “spends his weekend obsessing over great men” because “he will never be a great man” like her father.

[ABC News]

President Trump pledges to get to ‘the bottom of’ alleged anti-conservative bias on social media

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President Donald Trump doubled down on his words of support for conservatives on social media – a group he says has faced “big discrimination.”

“Things are happening, names are taken off, people aren’t getting through, you’ve heard the same complaints and it seems to be if they are conservative, if they’re Republicans, if they’re in a certain group there’s discrimination and big discrimination,” Trump said.

“I see it absolutely on Twitter and on Facebook which I have also and others,” Trump said during a joint press conference in the Rose Garden with Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro on Tuesday.

“I get to see what’s going on first hand and it is not good, we use the word ‘collusion’ very loosely all the time and I will tell you there is collusion with respect to that because something has to be going on and when you get the back scene, back office statements made by executives of the various companies and you see the level of, in many cases, hatred they have for a certain group of people who happen to be in power, that happen to have won the election, you say that’s really unfair,” Trump continued. “So something’s happening with those groups of folks who are running Facebook and Google and Twitter and I do think we have to get to the bottom of it.”

Twitter says it enforces its rules “dispassionately and equally for all users, regardless of their background or political affiliation.”

His comments come on the heels of a lawsuit by Rep. Devin Nunes, the former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who is suing political strategist Liz Mair, Twitter and two twitter accounts for negligence, defamation, insulting words and civil conspiracy.

The lawsuit was first reported by Fox News.

[ABC News]

Trump rips Kellyanne Conway’s husband, conservative lawyer George Conway, for calling him mentally ill: ‘A total loser!’

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President Donald Trump tore into top White House advisor Kellyanne Conway’s husband on Tuesday, calling him a “total loser” after he accused Trump of exhibiting symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder.

George Conway, a veteran attorney with deep roots in Republican politics, has become a prominent critic of his spouse’s boss, even as his wife remains one of Trump’s most committed public defenders.

On Monday, George Conway sent a series of tweets displaying the symptoms of narcissistic personality disorder and anti-social personality disorder listed in the latest edition of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Health Disorders.

He explicitly connected those posts to Trump. “*All* Americans should be thinking seriously *now* about Trump’s mental condition and psychological state, including and especially the media, Congress—and the Vice President and Cabinet,” he tweeted.

In response Monday evening, Trump’s 2020 campaign manager, Brad Parscale, took a swing at Conway, saying he “hurts his wife because he is jealous of her success.”

On Tuesday morning, the president piled on, retweeting Parscale’s post under a heading “a total loser!”

Conway had reportedly been in line for a role in the Trump administration’s Justice Department. But Conway said in June 2017 that he was pulling himself out of consideration. “For me and my family, this is not the right time for me to leave the private sector and take on a new role in the federal government,” Conway said in a statement at the time.

The White House did not immediately respond to CNBC’s request for comment on the exchange between George Conway and Trump. George Conway did not immediately provide comment to CNBC on his Twitter exchange.

He did, however, double down in responses to Trump on Tuesday morning.

“Tell us, @realDonaldTrump—which of these diagnostic criteria do you not satisfy?” Conway tweeted.

Conway added: “Congratulations! You just guaranteed that millions of more people are going to learn about narcissistic personality disorder and malignant narcissism! Great job!”

[CNBC]

Trump blasts ‘fake news media’ as ‘absolute enemy’ in latest attack on press

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President Trump on Tuesday said that “Fake News” is the “absolute Enemy” of the people and country as he renewed his attacks on the media.

Trump lashed out at the “Fake News Media” as “dishonest” and “corrupt,” lamenting that “there has never been a time like this in American History.”

“Very exciting but also, very sad!” he tweeted. “Fake News is the absolute Enemy of the People and our Country itself!”

It’s unclear what specifically triggered Tuesday morning’s barb toward the press, but Trump, who regularly derides coverage of his administration he considers unfavorable as “fake news,” has accused the news media of blaming him for last week’s deadly shootings at a pair of mosques in New Zealand.

Some U.S. media coverage has focused on the suspected gunman’s manifesto, which called Trump a “symbol of renewed white identity,” and some pundits have argued the president has stoked white nationalist fervor worldwide.

The president over the weekend lashed out at the media on multiple occasions.

He targeted “Saturday Night Live” after the sketch comedy show aired a rerun that included an opening that imagined the world if he never became president, suggesting the program should face consequences for its jokes at his expense.

In the same tweet on Sunday, he called it “hard to believe” he won the presidency with “such one sided media coverage.”

Later Sunday, Trump chastised a trio of Fox News anchors, suggesting they should work at competitor CNN instead. The message appeared to come after one of the individuals anchored a segment that highlighted economic concerns in parts of the Midwest.

The president routinely labels NBC, CNN and The Washington Post as “fake news” and has called The New York Times an “enemy of the people.” He has rarely targeted Fox News in his attacks.

[The Hill]

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

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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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