The threat now lurking behind Trump’s media-slamming tweets

President Donald Trump on July 16 slammed the media on Twitter before spending the afternoon at one of his golf courses and tuning in to Fox News in the evening. Here's what President Trump posted, in case you missed it: "HillaryClinton can illegally get the questions to the Debate & delete 33,000 emails but my son Don is being scorned by the Fake News Media?" "With all of its phony unnamed sources & highly slanted & even fraudulent reporting, #Fake News is DISTORTING DEMOCRACY in our country!" "The ABC/Washington Post Poll, even though almost 40% is not bad at this time, was just about the most inaccurate poll around election time!"

Complaints about polls and unnamed sources are standard fare from President Trump, but the president's team is plotting new, targeted attacks. In a report last week on the White House's response to news about Donald Trump Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer was this nugget from The Post's Philip Rucker and Ashley Parker: “A handful of Republican operatives close to the White House are scrambling to Trump Jr.’s defense and have begun what could be an extensive campaign to try to discredit some of the journalists who have been reporting on the matter. Their plan, as one member of the team described it, is to research the reporters’ previous work, in some cases going back years, and to exploit any mistakes or perceived biases. They intend to demand corrections, trumpet errors on social media and feed them to conservative outlets, such as Fox News.”