Presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden accused President Trump of “an all-out assault on the media” during World Press Freedom Day on Sunday.
The former vice president criticized Trump’s treatment of the press in a campaign statement, saying his rhetoric threatens the freedom of the press as his “repeated efforts to demonize the media put us on such a dangerous path.”
“While many presidents have been unhappy with their media coverage, only Donald Trump has attacked the independence of journalists and launched an all-out assault on the media,” Biden’s statement said.
“He bullies and berates individual members of the press, rather than take responsibility for his failures of leadership,” he continued. “His efforts to undermine public confidence in the integrity of fact-based reporting violate our core American values and threaten our very system of government.”
Biden called it “particularly offensive” that the White House allegedly is spreading misinformation and bullying reporters during the coronavirus pandemic. The U.S. has counted more than 1.1 million cases and at least 66,760 deaths, according to data from Johns Hopkins University.
The likely Democratic nominee pledged to repair the presidential relationship with the media and to refrain from “bullying” at “regular, fact-based briefings” across the administration.
“We must urgently reverse the trend of threats to the media at home and abroad, and once we have reversed it, we must assure that attacks on our free press are never again acceptable in any corner of society, and certainly not in the White House,” he said in the statement.
The White House did not immediately return a request for comment.
The president has promoted his anti-press views throughout his 2016 campaign and presidency, calling stories that criticize his administration “fake news.”