Trump condemns media as ‘fake disgusting news’

DONALD Trump has condemned the media as “fake, fake disgusting news” as he unleashed a torrent of grievances at a campaign rally in which he cast journalists as his true political opponent.

The president was speaking in Pennsylvania, a state he took from the Democrats in 2016 and that is home to a Senate seat he is trying to place in the Republicans’ column this autumn.

But the race between Republican Lou Barletta and two-term incumbent Democrat Bob Casey took a back seat to Mr Trump’s invective against the media, which came amid a backdrop of antagonism to journalists from the White House and hostility from the thousands packed into a loud Wilkes-Barre arena.

“Whatever happened to the free press? Whatever happened to honest reporting?” Mr Trump asked, pointing to the media at the back of the hall. “They don’t report it. They only make up stories.”

Time and time again he denounced the press for underselling his accomplishments and doubting his political rise.

He tore into the media for diminishing what he accomplished at his Singapore summit with North Korea leader Kim Jong Un; he complained about the tough questioning he received in Helsinki when he met Russia’s Vladimir Putin last month; and he began his rally speech with a 10-minute remembrance of his 2016 election-night victory, bemoaning that Pennsylvania was not the state to clinch the White House for him only because “the fake news refused to call it”.

With each denunciation, the crowd jeered and screamed at the press in the holding pen.