‘Enemy of the people’
Crowd cheers president as he blasts news media
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump unloaded on the news media Friday for using anonymous sources — just hours after members of his own staff insisted on briefing reporters only on condition their names be concealed.
Unleashing a line of attack that energized an enthusiastic crowd at the nation’s largest gathering of conservative activists, Trump again called news media the “enemy of the people” and said unethical reporters “make up stories and make up sources.”
“They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name,” he declared. “Let their name be put out there.”
Trump told the Conservative Political Action Conference that while not all reporters are bad, the “fake news” crowd “doesn’t represent the people. It will never represent the people and we’re going to do something about it.”
Trump’s approach energized CPAC attendees who cheered and serenaded him with chants of “Trump!” and “USA!”
Trump didn’t expand on what he had in mind or which news organizations he was talking about. But his broadsides represented an escalation of his battle against the press, which he has taken to calling “the opposition party.”
The president has chafed at a number of anonymously sourced stories, including numerous reports describing contacts between his campaign advisers and Russian intelligence agents, which the White House has sharply disputed.
However, members of his White House team regularly demand anonymity when talking to reporters. That was the case Friday morning when Trump officials briefed reporters on chief of staff Reince Priebus’ contact with top FBI officials concerning Russia.
Later Friday, after Trump’s speech, several news organizations including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, CNN and Politico were blocked from joining a White House media gaggle, according to news reports.
The Associated Press chose not to participate following the move by White House press secretary Sean Spicer. Lauren Easton, the AP’s director of media relations, said in a statement: “The AP believes the public should have as much access to the president as possible.”
Trump’s appearance at CPAC represented a triumph for both speaker and audience — each ascendant after years when they were far from the center of the political universe.
Elizabeth Connors of New York recalled past gatherings as collections of the “downtrodden.” Today, she said, “it’s energized” after years in which “we’ve been just pushed down, pushed
down, pushed down.”
Nicholas Henderson of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, was there in his “Make America Great Again” hat and pronounced Trump’s speech rousing.
“He touched on a lot of things we’d already heard before, which is reassuring, tells us he’s still committed to those promises he made during the campaign,” Henderson said.
Trump, who first appeared at CPAC as a reality TV star six years ago, recalled his past visits, saying the crowd put him on the path to the presidency.
His latest speech played out like a greatest hits reel from his 2016 campaign.
He reminisced about his victory in the Republican primaries. He vowed to “build the wall” along the Mexican border. And he denounced Hillary Clinton’s characterization of some of his supporters as “deplorables.”
The crowd responded with chants of “Lock her up!” just as they did at Trump rallies last year.