President Donald Trump lectured journalists about their “tremendous dishonesty” in a press conference announcing his new pick for labor secretary on Thursday.
Shortly after announcing he would nominate Alexander Acosta to lead the Department of Labor, Trump said he had called the impromptu press conference “to update the American people on the incredible progress that has been made in the last four weeks since my inauguration.”
President Trump: “The press has become so dishonest … we have to find out what’s going on because the press is, honestly, out of control…” pic.twitter.com/3BN33HsgOr
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) February 16, 2017
“I’m making this presentation directly to the American people, with the media present,” Trump said. “Which, is an honor to have you this morning, because many of our nation’s reporters and folks will not tell you the truth, and will not treat the wonderful people of our country with the respect that they deserve.”
“And I hope going forward, we can be a little bit different and maybe get along a little better if that’s possible. Maybe it’s not, and that’s OK,” he added, addressing reporters in the room.
Trump then repeated a well-worn campaign trope — that the media represented coastal power structures that had been corrupted by a global elite.
“Washington, D.C., along with New York and Los Angeles, speaks not for the people but for the special interests and for those profiting off a very, very obviously broken system,” he said. “The press has become so dishonest that if we don’t talk about it, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. Tremendous disservice. We have to talk about it, to find out what’s going on because the press, honestly, is out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control.”
