Trump at CPAC: Right’s Unlikely Hero Renews Attack on Press

President Donald Trump intensified his slashing attack on the news media during an appearance before the Conservative Political Action Conference , reiterating his charge that “fake news” outlets are “the enemy of the people.” The opening portion of the president’s free-range, campaign-style speech centered on a declaration of war on the news media — a new foil to replace vanquished political opponents like Hillary Clinton. “They are very smart, they are very cunning, they are very dishonest,” Trump said to the delight of the crowd. “It doesn’t represent the people; it never will represent the people.” President Trump, who once posed as his own public relations man to plant news stories in New York tabloids — and spoke frequently with reporters off the record during the campaign — called for an end to the use of “sources,” meaning anonymous sources. “A few days ago, I called the fake news the enemy of the people because they have no sources — they just make it up,” he said. He added that his “enemy of the people” label applied only to “dishonest” reporters and editors.

President Trump, who suggested revisiting First Amendment protections for the news media during the campaign, refined that attack on Feb 24, urging his supporters to use their free-speech rights to counter hostile press accounts from outlets like CNN, which he called the “Clinton News Network.” “They always bring up the First Amendment,” Trump said of journalists. “Nobody loves it better than me.” After spending 10 minutes listing the shortcomings of the news media, Trump said criticism “doesn’t bother me.”