Deputy Assistant to the President Sebastian Gorka said Monday that the administration would continue to label negative coverage about Donald Trump “fake news” until the media is weaned off its “monumental desire” to smear the President.
“There is a monumental desire on behalf of the majority of the media, not just the pollsters, the majority of the media to attack a duly elected President in the second week of his term,” Gorka told conservative radio host Michael Medved in an interview flagged by CNN.
“That’s how unhealthy the situation is and until the media understands how wrong that attitude is, and how it hurts their credibility, we are going to continue to say, ‘fake news.’ I’m sorry, Michael. That’s the reality,” he added.
Gorka recently joined the administration after stints as national security editor for Breitbart News and co-founder of consulting firm Threat Knowledge Group.
He and other advisers including Press Secretary Sean Spicer and Counselor to the President Kellyanne Conway often dismiss reports about the administration as “fake news,” which Trump claims is pushed by a “dishonest media” bent on discrediting his presidency.
As CNN reported, Gorka’s Monday comments came after Medved asked him to acknowledge whether the White House’s Holocaust Remembrance Day statement was “at least questionable” for neglecting to explicitly mention the Nazis’ mass extermination of Jews. Doing so broke with years of tradition.
Though the statement was criticized by both conservative and liberal Jewish groups and cheered by white nationalists, Gorka called discussion of it “asinine.”
“It’s a Holocaust remembrance statement,” Gorka said. “No, I’m not going to admit it. Because it’s asinine. It’s absurd. You’re making a statement about the Holocaust. Of course it’s about the Holocaust because that’s what the statement’s about. It’s only reasonable to twist it if your objective is to attack the President.”
