White House urges federal agencies to cancel subscriptions to NYT, WaPost

The White House is urging federal agencies not to renew their subscriptions to The New York Times and The Washington Post after President Trump said earlier in the week he didn’t want either newspaper in the White House.

{mosads}”Not renewing subscriptions across all federal agencies will be a significant cost saving for taxpayers – hundreds of thousands of dollars,” press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement.

The Wall Street Journal first reported the news.

The move marks an escalation of the White House’s battle with the media, and with The New York Times and Washington Post in particular. The two news outlets have been among the leaders in reporting on controversies inside the administration, and Trump regularly attacks both on Twitter.

The president has decried the Times as “the enemy of the people” and the Post as a lobbying arm of Amazon in reference to its owner, Jeff Bezos. Trump has also singled out specific reporters from each outlet on Twitter.

Trump in an interview broadcast Monday night told Sean Hannity of Fox News that the White House would “probably terminate [The New York Times] and The Washington Post.”

Grisham later confirmed that the White House had canceled its subscriptions, and neither publication was among a stack of papers in the press office on Thursday morning.

Federal employees can use their government email address to get a free digital subscriptions to the Post.

Morgan Chalfant contributed