President Trump joked about “freedom of the press” during a meeting of his Cabinet on Thursday just hours after slamming the news media on Twitter.
Trump quipped that reporters had the “freedom of the press” to decide whether or not to attend the remainder of the Cabinet briefing, offering them a chance to stay for the full meeting.
{mosads}“If you’d like, you can stay. If you’d like, you can leave…freedom of the press,” he said, according to pool reports.
Earlier on Thursday, Trump responded to a coordinated campaign of newspaper editorials criticizing his remarks about the press with new attacks,.
“The Boston Globe, which was sold to the the Failing New York Times for 1.3 BILLION DOLLARS (plus 800 million dollars in losses & investment), or 2.1 BILLION DOLLARS, was then sold by the Times for 1 DOLLAR. Now the Globe is in COLLUSION with other papers on free press. PROVE IT!” Trump tweeted.
“There is nothing that I would want more for our Country than true FREEDOM OF THE PRESS. The fact is that the Press is FREE to write and say anything it wants, but much of what it says is FAKE NEWS, pushing a political agenda or just plain trying to hurt people. HONESTY WINS!” he added minutes later.
Trump has faced criticism in recent weeks for his rhetoric towards reporters and other members of the national news media, which he often brands as “fake news” and has recently called an “enemy of the people.”
But Trump seems to like the attacks, and they have also been popular with his core supporters, who cheer the attacks at rallies and chant “CNN sucks” on camera.