President Donald Trump on Monday accused the New York Times of making up “stories & sources” in articles about him, the latest in a long line of attacks against the paper from the President and his administration.
Trump was likely reacting to a front-page story about his administration’s stumbles over the first two weeks of his presidency, published in the paper on Monday. Trump left no ambiguity about his opinion on his Twitter account:
The failing @nytimes writes total fiction concerning me. They have gotten it wrong for two years, and now are making up stories & sources!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 6, 2017
The Times’ senior vice president for communications, Eileen Murphy, told TPM via email Monday that the publication had not heard from the White House about any requested corrections to the story, which portrayed a disorganized White House operation.
The article’s authors, Glenn Thrush and Maggie Habberman, noted in the article that they conducted “interviews with dozens of government officials, congressional aides, former staff members and other observers of the new administration, many of whom requested anonymity.”
Trump isn’t the administration’s only Times antagonist: In an interview with the paper published Jan. 26, Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, said “[t]he paper of record for our beloved republic, The New York Times, should be absolutely ashamed and humiliated” of its election coverage.
Bannon also said that he had read the Times for most of his adult life.
In October of last year, lawyers for Trump threatened to sue the Times after the paper published the accounts of two women who claimed Trump had touched them inappropriately years ago. And Trump himself has repeatedly gone after the paper with threats:
My lawyers want to sue the failing @nytimes so badly for irresponsible intent. I said no (for now), but they are watching. Really disgusting
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 17, 2016
However, when Trump sat down with editors and writers for the Times after his electoral win in November, the exchange was largely cordial. He called the paper a “great, great American jewel. A world jewel,” and closed the meeting by saying “I hope we can all get along well.”
Whiny baby whines that the other kids are so unfair.
Whiny baby just wants to go back to his playhouse up in the Trump Tower tree and sulk.
I miss President Obama
Along with countless millions of others, like me.
Only when they are HIS alternate facts…