Trump uses policy speech to attack media, promises to sue accusers

GETTSYBURG, Pa (Reuters) - US Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump promised yesterday to foil a proposed deal for AT&T to buy Time Warner if he wins the November 8 election, arguing it was an example of a “power structure” rigged against both him and voters.

Trump, whose candidacy has caused ruptures in his party, listed his policy plans for the first 100 days of his presidency in a campaign speech in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, near the site of a Civil War battlefield and a celebrated address by President Abraham Lincoln.

But he also defiantly raised personal grievances, describing how, if elected, he would address them from the White House in a way he said would benefit Americans.

The speech was billed by his campaign as a major outlining of his policies and principles. Many of the policy ideas Trump listed yesterday were familiar, not least his promise to build a wall on the border with Mexico to deter illegal immigration and to renegotiate trade deals and to scrap the Obamacare health policy.

Moments after promising Americans that he represented a hopeful break from the status quo, he promised to sue nearly a dozen women who have come forward in the last two weeks to accuse him of sexual assault, calling them liars.

And he added a new threat to his repeated castigation of US media corporations, which he says cover his campaign unfairly to help Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.

“They’re trying desperately to suppress my vote and the voice of the American people,” Trump, who often rails against media outlets and journalists covering his events, told supporters in his speech. Trump has not provided evidence for his assertion that the election would be rigged.

“As an example of the power structure I’m fighting, AT&T is buying Time Warner and thus CNN, a deal we will not approve in my administration because it’s too much concentration of power in the hands of too few,” Trump said.