President Trump taunted the “fake news media” on Twitter Tuesday, admitting he enjoyed seeing reporters and news outlets work themselves into a frenzy as they cover his unconventional administration.
“The Fake News Media is going CRAZY! They are totally unhinged and in many ways, after witnessing first hand the damage they do to so many innocent and decent people, I enjoy watching,” Trump tweeted. “In 7 years, when I am no longer in office, their ratings will dry up and they will be gone!”
[More: Trump’s fight against ‘unpatriotic’ media intensifies]
The Fake News Media is going CRAZY! They are totally unhinged and in many ways, after witnessing first hand the damage they do to so many innocent and decent people, I enjoy watching. In 7 years, when I am no longer in office, their ratings will dry up and they will be gone!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 31, 2018
Trump’s relationship with the press has been fraught ever since he officially launched his bid for the White House in 2015. But tensions have escalated in the last week over the president’s insistence on referring to the media as the “enemy of the people.”
[Related: New York Times publisher: I told Trump his anti-press language is ‘increasingly dangerous’]
Trump’s tweet comes as he and his legal team, most publicly represented by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani, use the press to ramp up their attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller and his federal Russia investigation. Media coverage, in particular, has focused on both men’s claims that “collusion is not a crime” ahead of Trump’s ex-campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s trial in Virginia starting Tuesday.
“Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)!” Trump also tweeted Tuesday.
Manafort faces a slew of federal charges, mostly related to bank and tax fraud, stemming from Mueller’s Russia probe.
