During a press conference in Poland with President Andrzej Duda Thursday, President Donald Trump jumped at another opportunity to slam the U.S. media, specifically CNN, saying the news outlet took a video Trump tweeted over the weekend “too seriously.”
The video, which the President tweeted Sunday with the hashtags “#FraudNewsCNN” and “#FNN,” features Trump tackling someone with a CNN logo superimposed on their face at a wrestling meet. Critics have said the social media post encourages violence against journalist.
#FraudNewsCNN #FNN pic.twitter.com/WYUnHjjUjg
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 2, 2017
CNN wrote a story about the Reddit user who originally created the video, but did not reveal the person’s identity. The network has faced criticism for how it handled the article, with many accusing CNN of blackmailing the Reddit user.
Trump told reporters in Poland Thursday that the outlet has been “fake news for a long time.”
“I think what CNN did was unfortunate for them, as you know now, they have some very serious problems. They’ve been fake news for a long time, they’ve been covering me in a very dishonest way,” he said. “But CNN and others, NBC equally is bad, despite the fact that I made them a fortune with ‘The Apprentice,’ but they forgot that. But CNN has really taken (the video) too seriously and I think they’ve hurt themselves very badly, very very badly.”
He went on to say that not all U.S. media are “fake news,” but that America needs a more fair press.
“What we want to see in the United States is honest, beautiful, free, but honest press, we want to see fair press. I think that’s a very important thing,” he said. “But we don’t want fake news, bad thing. Very bad for our country.”
While Trump has always been critical of the press, in the past week his rampage against the media has escalated, tweeting attacks against CNN and the hosts of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” show.
