He’s not the first president to have issues with the press — Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln had complaints too — but President Trump has taken his battle with the media to new heights and made his complaints unusually public and caustic.
How that will play out is anybody’s guess, though there’s an adage about the power of journalism: Never pick fights with someone who buys ink by the barrel. That, however, was before Twitter and video made ink unnecessary for communicating with the public.
The president continued his attacks on the media at a Florida rally Saturday, saying he wanted to speak with supporters “without the filter” of the press.
“They don’t get it,” Trump said through whistles and applause from attendees inside a crammed airport hangar.
Though presidents have long complained about the media, none have gone as far as Trump in their public derision. Often he repeats the same words to describe the media — “dishonest,” “disgusting,” “fake.” To many, his words are nonsense, but to supporters, like those in Florida, they resonate.