Category: Attack the Press

Trump on Business Conflicts: You Knew Who You Were Voting For

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As Donald Trump assured us during the campaign, someday he’ll turn his business into a “blind trust” operated by his children (right after they change the definition of what a “blind trust” is). For now, it appears Trump is still looking out for his own business interests by combining them with the interests of the president-elect.

The latest example comes from the New York Times, which reported on Monday evening that during a meeting with Nigel Farage days after the election, Trump encouraged the British politician and his pro-Brexit entourage to oppose offshore wind farms that threaten to ruin the view at one of his Scottish golf courses. Last year, Trump lost a long legal battle to block the construction of a wind farm near his resort.

“He did not say he hated wind farms as a concept; he just did not like them spoiling the views,” said Andy Wigmore, a media consultant who attended the meeting. Wigmore said he and his associates were already opposed to wind farms, but Trump “did suggest that we should campaign on it” and “spurred us in and we will be going for it.”

Trump spokesperson Hope Hicks initially denied the report, then stopped responding when informed that Wigmore described the conversation with Trump. But Trump took matters into his own hands, blasting the “crooked media” for focusing on his conflicts of interest. He tweeted, a short time after the Times story was published:

But the next day Mr. Trump was acknowledging a recent meeting with the British politician Nigel Farage, in which, The Times reported, he “encouraged Mr. Farage and his entourage to oppose the kind of offshore wind farms that Mr. Trump believes will mar the pristine view from one of his two Scottish golf courses.”

Pressed about his business interests, Mr. Trump also said, “In theory I could run my business perfectly and then run the country perfectly.”

 

(h/t New York Magazine)

Trump Rails Against New York Times for Reporting On His Transition ‘Disarray’

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Twitter

Roughly 10 hours after tweeting that the process of picking his cabinet was “very organized,” President-elect Donald Trump railed against a New York Times report that his transition team was “in a state of disarray” and U.S. allies were “struggling” to reach him.

“The failing @nytimes story is so totally wrong on transition,” Trump tweeted early Wednesday morning. “It is going so smoothly. Also, I have spoken to many foreign leaders.”

According to the Times report, Trump’s transition has been “marked by firings, infighting and revelations that American allies were blindly dialing in to Trump Tower to try to reach the soon-to-be-leader of the free world.”

But on Twitter, the president-elect asserted he’s taken “calls from many foreign leaders,” including Russia, the U.K., China, Saudi Arabia, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.

“I am always available to them,” Trump tweeted, suggesting that the Times is “just upset that they looked like fools” in their coverage of his candidacy and are now taking it out on him.

On Sunday, Trump similarly criticized the paper’s “very poor and highly inaccurate coverage” of his stunning victory over Hillary Clinton in last Tuesday’s presidential election, claiming the paper “is losing thousands of subscribers” as a result.

A spokeswoman for the Times said Trump’s tweet was simply inaccurate.

“We’ve seen a surge in new subscriptions, both print and digital,” Eileen Murphy, senior vice president of communications for the Times, wrote in an email to Yahoo News. “And the rate of growth post-Election Day has been four times better than normal.”

He then claimed that the Times “sent a letter to their subscribers apologizing for their BAD coverage of me.” But the letter — sent by Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. and executive editor Dean Baquet to subscribers thanking them for their loyalty — did not include an apology.

Trump also took issue with the Times’ assertion that he “has suggested that more countries should acquire nuclear weapons.”

In an interview with the Times in March, however, Trump suggested exactly that.

In his interview “60 Minutes” which aired on CBS Sunday night, Trump said he’s going to be “very restrained” in his use of Twitter as commander in chief. But he said he would reserve the right to use it as a “method” to combat what he perceives as negative stories about him.

“I’m going to be very restrained, if I use it at all,” Trump said. “I’m not saying I love it, but it does get the word out.”

Before his latest rant against the Times on Wednesday, Trump pushed back against reports that he had requested security clearances for three of his children.

“I am not trying to get ‘top level security clearance’ for my children,” he tweeted. “This was a typically false news story.”

But according to NBC News, Team Trump has asked that Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law and top adviser, have top-secret clearance for the daily presidential briefing.

(h/t Yahoo News)

Trump Keeps Up Media Attacks With Misleading Tweets About New York Times

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Twitter

President-elect Donald Trump sounded very much like presidential candidate Donald Trump on Sunday morning in a pair of misleading tweets about the New York Times.

According to the New York Times Co.’s latest earnings report, the number of print copies it sold in the third quarter was down from the same period in 2015, but the decline was more than offset by 116,000 new digital-only subscriptions. Overall, third-quarter circulation revenue rose 3 percent; through the first nine months of the year, circulation revenue was up 2.8 percent.

Since Trump launched his White House campaign in June 2015, digital-only news subscriptions to the Times have increased 35 percent, to more than 1.3 million.

Trump’s suggestion that the Times is bleeding readers because of “very poor and highly inaccurate coverage” does not square with the numbers.

The president-elect’s interpretation of a letter to subscribers as an apology for bad coverage is a stretch. Times publisher Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr. wrote Friday that one of the “inevitable questions” in the aftermath of the campaign is: “Did Donald Trump’s sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters?”

“As we reflect on this week’s momentous result, and the months of reporting and polling that preceded it, we aim to rededicate ourselves to the fundamental mission of Times journalism,” Sulzberger added.

Trump’s tweet mirrored coverage of the letter in some conservative media outlets, which seized on portions of Sulzberger’s message. “NY Times admits biased coverage on Trump,” read a headline on Newsmax. A headline on Breitbart News, chaired by Trump campaign chief executive Steve Bannon, read, “New York Times publisher promises to ‘rededicate’ paper to honest reporting.”

“Had the paper actually been fair to both candidates, it wouldn’t need to rededicate itself to honest reporting,” Michael Goodwin wrote in the New York Post.

Yet Sulzberger’s full letter makes clear that he was simply renewing a promise that he believes the Times fulfilled during the campaign.

“We believe we reported on both candidates fairly during the presidential campaign,” he wrote. “You can rely on the New York Times to bring the same level of fairness, the same level of scrutiny, the same independence to our coverage of the new president and his team.”

(h/t Washington Post)

Trump Taunts NBC Reporter From Podium at Florida Rally

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Donald Trump went on a lengthy tirade against the media during a Wednesday rally, capping it off with him calling out an NBC reporter by name at the Miami event.

The Republican nominee helped spark loud “CNN sucks” chants at the rally before targeting NBC’s Katy Tur. She has been a favorite punching bag of his when criticizing the mainstream media, as he has called her called her out in press conferences and events.

“We have massive crowds,” Trump said. “There’s something happening. They’re not reporting it.”

“You’re not reporting it, Katy,” he continued, pointing at Tur. “There’s something happening, Katy. There’s something happening, Katy.”

Members of the media at the event said on Twitter that many in the audience turned and targeted Tur with an onslaught of boos:

Reality

The last time Mr. Trump assailed her by name, Katy Tur had to be escorted out of the rally and to her car by the Secret Service because the fervor he created became too dangerous for her.

In the same press conference where Trump asked Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails, he blasted Katy Tur after she asked a series of questions, telling her to “be quiet.”

And finally, after four months of Trump bragging at rallies of his $1 million dollar donation to veteran charities, journalists uncovered the fact that Trump never donated any money and was lying the entire time. Donald Trump held a press conference to personally attack members of the media including Tur, calling her a “third-rate journalist.”

Media

Bloomberg Video

Trump to Dana Bash: That’s ‘a Very Rude Question’

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With less than two weeks until the 2016 presidential election, CNN’s Dana Bash asked Donald Trump about where, and how, he’s spending his final days as a candidate.

The Republican nominee did not much care for the reporter’s inquiry.

“I think it’s a very rude question, to be honest with you,” said Trump, taking offense to Bash asking why the candidate was at a hotel ribbon-cutting in Washington, rather than campaigning in key battleground locales like Ohio, Pennsylvania or Florida.

“For people who say you’re taking time out of swing states to go do this,” began Bash, referencing Trump’s appearance at the soft opening of his latest real estate jewel, Washington’s Trump International.

Cutting her off, Trump criticized not only the question, but also his opponent, the Democratic nominee: “For you to ask me that question is actually very insulting, because Hillary Clinton does one stop and then goes home and sleeps. Yet you’ll ask me that question.”

Trump has campaign stops scheduled in North Carolina for later on Wednesday, before the nation selects it’s next president on Tuesday November 8, 2016.

(h/t CNN)

Media

Trump Surrogate Newt Gingrich Has Heated Exchange with Megyn Kelly

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A visibly angry Newt Gingrich battled Megyn Kelly in a Tuesday night TV segment that left Donald Trump supporters accusing Kelly of bias.

Gingrich, speaking as a surrogate for Trump, said Kelly is “fascinated with sex” after Kelly brought up allegations of sexual assault and unwanted touching by the GOP nominee.

“You are fascinated with sex and you don’t care about public policy,” Gingrich said.

She responded: “You know what, Mr. Speaker, I’m not fascinated by sex, but I am fascinated by the protection of women, and understanding what we’re getting in the Oval Office.”

Gingrich advanced a common conservative complaint — that allegations against Trump are getting an undue amount of media attention.

The conversation ended with Kelly asserting that Gingrich — a paid Fox News contributor — had “anger issues.”

Gingrich addressed the segment on Twitter Wednesday morning, writing, “For the record, @megynkelly was wrong, i don’t have anger management issues. I do have media bias issues!”

Tuesday’s already tough segment turned fiery when Kelly raised the possibility — stated as a question, not a fact — that Trump could be a “sexual predator.”

Gingrich, who when he was Speaker of the House led the impeachment of Bill Clinton on charges related to his relationship with Monica Lewinsky, objected to this. He tried to turn the conversation around by invoking allegations against Bill Clinton: “I just want to hear you use the words. I want to hear the words ‘Bill Clinton sexual predator.’ I dare you. Say ‘Bill Clinton, sexual predator.'”

Kelly did not take his bait.

Gingrich also seemed to dismiss Fox’s own electoral map, which shows Clinton well ahead of the 270 electoral votes she needs to win the presidency.

Kelly cited several such maps, including Fox’s, and said “these are nonpartisan outlets that are just trying to call the electoral scoreboard.”

“They’re not nonpartisan outlets,” Gingrich responded. “Every outlet you described is part of the establishment.”

“Fox News? Really? Are we? I don’t think so,” she said.

“Oh c’mon,” Gingrich said.

The segment ended up proving what Gingrich said at the very beginning: That Americans are living in “two parallel universes” right now.

(h/t CNN)

Reality

Trump and his surrogates are having a very hard time distinguishing between Bill Clinton’s consensual sex and Donald Trump’s sexual assault. As conservative commentator Ana Navarro explained, “Sexual assault and sex are two different things. One is unwanted, one is wanted.”

Newt Gingrich made an interesting point that Megyn Kelly was fascinated with sex because was in a unique position to be somewhat of an expert being on his third marriage, cheated on his first two wives, asked them for an open marriage, and was having an affair while he was impeaching Bill Clinton.

But I’m sorry we were talking about Megyn Kelly and her supposed fascination with sex.

Media

Trump Keeps Criticizing the Media While Citing it to Attack Clinton

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In a span of 10 minutes, Donald Trump both blamed the media for working against him and used their reporting to bolster his attacks on Hillary Clinton during a rally here Monday.

Citing a new “front page” report from the Wall Street Journal, Trump lobbed a new attack against Clinton that included “shocking new revelations” that Clinton ally Terry McAuliffe’s political action committee donated money toward the campaign of Dr. Jill McGabe, the spouse of the FBI official who later oversaw the investigation into Clinton’s email server.

Both the FBI and a spokesman for the Virginia governor denied any political motive behind the donations.

“It just came out,” Trump teased, seeming to applaud the reporting. “They just figured it out.”

But all that was forgotten just a few minutes later, when Trump called the press “thieves and cooks.” Not all, he hedged, “but much of it.”

He then continued on a long-winded diatribe against the press, who he has singled out in recent weeks as one of his main campaign foes this election cycle.

“The media isn’t just against me, they’re against you,” Trump exclaimed. “That’s really what they’re against. They’re not against me, they’re against what we represent. Like Hillary Clinton, they look down on the hard working people of the country, that’s what’s happened. The media is entitled , condescending, and even contemptuous of the people who don’t share their elitist views.”

The crowd excitedly turned and booed the press, training their sights on those of us sitting amid the rows in the open-air amphitheater.

The Republican nominee promised that if elected he would be the voice of the people, a voice that would “boom through the halls of Washington” and prove that this election would be “bigger than Brexit.”

That is, of course, if Mr. Trump pulls off a win 15 days from now. The polls he once held in such high esteem and gleefully spouted from his podium during the primary have now drawn his ire and wary eye. In fact, the GOP nominee has spent much of his dwindling time on the trail disparaging polls that show him down. Of late, Trump has begun decrying the polling practice of “oversampling” calling it a tactic of voter suppression. “It’s called voter suppression,” Trump extrapolated of the goals of oversampling. “Because people will say ‘oh gee, Trump’s out.’ We’re winning, we’re winning.”

In actuality, oversampling is standard practice for pollsters and can give a deeper look into larger groups of voters.

But Trump cautioned of underestimating him, as some did during the primary process. “Remember what he said?” Trump reflected on President Obama’s nay-saying in the early part of the this year. Mocking the president, Trump mimed, “Donald Trump will never win the Republican primary, he will never do it, sorry. Sorry, he will never win. The Republicans will never do that. Well, they did that. Sorry.”

Trump’s speech – as usual – was filled with attacks for opponents. But he did come stocked with new ideas, rehashing Saturday’s Gettysburg speech where he laid out over two dozen policy plans for what the first hundred days of his administration would look like.

Amid laying out his plans, Trump lamented the state of America’s infrastructure. Concerned over the state of our bridges, Trump decided “I’m going to start swimming across rivers and lakes, I don’t want to drive.”

Later at a rally in Tampa, Trump went out of his way to defend himself against attacks linking him to Russia — but then defended Russian President Vladimir Putin against the same attacks from other politicians.

Trump promised he had “nothing to do with Russia,” and was even willing to provide a written statement on the issue.

Yet in his next breath he defended Putin against attacks from fellow American politicians. “They say such bad things about Putin,” he lamented. “And then they’re supposed to negotiate with Putin? Why would he do this?”

Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, resigned amid reports about his dealings with Russia and Ukraine.

(h/t NBC News)

Reality

According to Donald Trump, when journalists write articles about him, the press is “dishonest” and “out to get him,” but when they write about his rival Hillary Clinton, then they are trustworthy without a shadow of a doubt.

Media

Trump Suggests Curtailing First Amendment

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During an interview with CBS Miami, Donald Trump said he’d like to change the nature of the First Amendment in order to make it easier to file libel lawsuits against the media.

Trump spoke with Jim DeFede on Sunday, and he was asked about whether he feels that “too much protection” is given to the free press. Trump affirmed his belief on this issue, stating that America should lean towards the United Kingdom’s system for libel because it gives people who sue media agencies “a good chance of winning.”

“Our press is allowed to say whatever they want and get away with it. And I think we should go to a system where if they do something wrong… I’m a big believer tremendous believer of the freedom of the press. Nobody believes it stronger than me but if they make terrible, terrible mistakes and those mistakes are made on purpose to injure people. I’m not just talking about me I’m talking anybody else then yes, I think you should have the ability to sue them.”

Under English law, defamatory statements are assumed to be false, and the burden of proof lies with the defendant to show that their statement is true. While Trump talked about this system, Trump said that the American press is never compelled to apologize, and that “they can say anything they want about you or me and there doesn’t have to be any apology.”

Trump’s relationship with the media has been complicated to say the very least. Throughout his campaign, Trump blacklisted news agencies for months, ranted about “dishonest” journalists numerous times, and has threatened to expand libel laws as president.

Recently, the litigious Trump has threatened to sue The New York Times for publishing his old tax information. He has also made similar legal threats to sue the women accusing him of sexual abuse, along with media outlets giving them coverage.

(h/t Mediaite)

Media

CBS Miami

Trump Walked Off of an Interview After a Question About Racism

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Donald Trump on Thursday cut an interview short with an Ohio journalist after the correspondent asked him to address criticism that he’s racist and sexist.

The Republican nominee quietly thanked NBC 4’s Colleen Marshall and began to walk away while she was halfway through asking him how he feels about being “labeled a racist” and “called a sexist” so close to Election Day.

When she proceeded to probe him for his response, he said: “I am the least racist person you’ve ever met.”

Trump had been discussing an array of topics with Marshall, including his claims that the election is rigged and Republican leaders who have withdrawn their support from him, for about three minutes before she brought up the apparently sensitive issue.

(h/t Time)

Reality

If Trump can’t answer a simple question from a reporter without losing his temper, how can we expect him to react when dealing with adversarial foreign leaders?

Trump claimed he was the least racist person ever, and we might be inclined to believe him if it wasn’t for the racist things he has said over the course of his campaign.

So far we’ve cataloged over 115 instances of Trump making a racist comments or claims. Some of them include:

  • Donald Trump was the leader of the “birther” conspiracy theory movement, which was a racist attempt to delegitimize America’s first African-American president.
  • As House Speaker Paul Ryan explained, Donald Trump’s remarks saying a judge presiding over a lawsuit involving his scam of a university was biased solely because of his Mexican heritage is “the textbook definition of a racist comment.”
  • Trump tweeted wildly racist and inaccurate stats about murders by race in the United States.
  • Trump retweeted the same white supremacist not once, but twice.
  • The Trump campaign had 3 known white supremacists as delegates to the Republican National Convention to represent Trump, William Johnson, Guy St. Onge, and Lori Gayne whose Twitter handle was “whitepride”.

Media

Trump Tries to Undercut New York Times Article by Lying

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At a rally in West Palm Beach, Florida, Donald J. Trump went on a raving tear about the media, telling the crowd the press will say any lie in order to keep Hillary Clinton in power.

As his evidence he cited a The New York Times article published back in May with the headline “Crossing the Line: How Donald Trump Behaved With Women in Private” where the authors conducted more than 50 interviews over the course of six weeks.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/15/us/politics/donald-trump-women.html)

In his speech, Trump claimed that one of the women featured in the article, Rowanne Brewer Lane, recanted her story which undercut the rest of the evidence.

However Brewer Lane, who was interviewed for this story by Fox and Friends, only disputed the Times’ framing of her account, never the facts of the events.

“Actually, it was very upsetting. I was not happy to read it at all,” Brewer Lane said. “Well, because The New York Times told us several times that they would make sure that my story that I was telling came across. They promised several times that they would do it accurately. They told me several times and my manager several times that it would not be a hit piece and that my story would come across the way that I was telling it and honestly, and it absolutely was not.”

But when asked what the reporters got wrong, Brewer Lane said they took her quotes and “put a negative connotation on it.”

Even though Brewer Lane never disputed the facts of the article, The New York Times story is just not Rowanne Brewer Lane’s account of Trump in the 1990’s but the experience of 50 women who were interviewed for the article. If we can discount Brewer Lane’s story then that still leaves 49 women, 11 who were named, who had the same experience of misogyny from Donald Trump.

Donald Trump lied.

Reality

Unless Donald Trump can prove that the remaining 49 subjects were also misrepresented, it is incorrect of him to declare the story was “proven false.”

And this does not cover the sexist comments made by Trump since announcing his campaign. Just a few examples include:

1 … 54 55 56 57 58 … 63