Friday, 24 February 2017

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

OXON HILL, Md. — President Trump intensified his slashing attack on the news media during an appearance before the Conservative Political Action Conference on Friday, 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,” Mr. Trump said to the delight of the crowd packed into the main ballroom at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center just south of Washington. “It doesn’t represent the people; it never will represent the people.”

He also opened up the latest in a succession of surprise rhetorical attacks on longstanding American allies, extemporizing about a friend named Jim who told him to avoid the “City of Lights” because “Paris is no longer Paris.”

Mr. 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.

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