With False Claims, President Trump Attacks Media on Turnout and Intelligence Rift

President Donald Trump used his first full day in office on Jan 21 to unleash a remarkably bitter attack on the news media, falsely accusing journalists of both inventing a rift between him and intelligence agencies and deliberately understating the size of his inauguration crowd.

In a visit to the Central Intelligence Agency intended to showcase his support for the intelligence community, President Trump ignored his own repeated public statements criticizing the intelligence community, a group he compared to Nazis just over a week ago. He also called journalists “among the most dishonest human beings on earth,” and he said that up to 1.5 million people had attended his inauguration, a claim that photographs disproved. Later, at the White House, he dispatched Sean Spicer, the press secretary, to the briefing room in the West Wing, where Spicer scolded reporters and made a series of false statements. He said news organizations had deliberately misstated the size of the crowd at Trump’s inauguration on Friday in an attempt to sow divisions at a time when President Trump was trying to unify the country, warning that the new administration would hold them to account.


With False Claims, President Trump Attacks Media on Turnout and Intelligence Rift Trump's White House called its first press briefing to complain about reporters’ tweets (Vox) In his first full day in office, President Trump declared war on the media (Vox – War on Media)