Trump returns to attacks on media: ‘These are really bad people’

President Trump attacked the media once again on Thursday, calling them “downright dishonest” and “really bad people” during a campaign-style rally in Montana.

“I see the way they write. They’re so damn dishonest,” Trump said. “And I don’t mean all of them, because some of the finest people I know are journalists really. Hard to believe when I say that. I hate to say it, but I have to say it. But 75 percent of those people are downright dishonest. Downright dishonest. They’re fake. They’re fake.”

“They make the sources up. They don’t exist in many cases,” he continued. “These are really bad people.”

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Trump’s comments, made at a rally in Montana where he blasted incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Tester (Mont.), came a week after a gunman opened fire on the newsroom of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Md., leaving five people dead and several others injured. 

The suspected shooter, who was identified as 38-year-old Jarrod Ramos, was arrested shortly after the attack and charged with five counts of first-degree murder. 

While the attack was not determined to be politically motivated, it reignited criticism of Trump’s own rhetoric toward the press, which he has previously called the “enemy of the American people.” 

After the shooting last week, Trump offered his condolences to the shooting’s victims and their families, and condemned the attack. 

“Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their job,” he said.