Houston Chronicle Sunday

Trump attacks media in CIA visit

President rejects reports of size of inaugural crowd

- By Philip Rucker and Greg Miller

On his first full day in office, President Donald Trump visited the Central Intelligen­ce Agency’s headquarte­rs to express his gratitude for the intelligen­ce community, which he had repeatedly railed against and recently likened to Nazis.

What Trump delivered Saturday was a campaignst­yle, stream-of-consciousn­ess airing of grievances — at the Senate for delaying confirmati­on of his nominees; at critics for questionin­g whether he is smart and vigorous; and at journalist­s, whom he called “the most dishonest human be- ings on earth” and accused of lying about the size of his inaugurati­on crowd.

Trump claimed falsely that the crowd for his swearing-in stretched down the National Mall to the Washington Monument and totaled more than 1 million people. It did not. Trump accused television networks of showing “an empty field” and reporting that he drew just 250,000 people to witness Friday’s ceremony.

“It looked like a million, a million and a half people,” Trump said, falsely claiming that his crowd “went all the way back to the Washington Monument.”

During his 2009 inaugural address, President Barack Obama’s crowd ex-

The president thanked the same intelligen­ce community he recently lambasted.

tended that far, and photos from that day show a crowd clearly much larger than the one that showed up for Trump.

“It’s a lie,” Trump said of the crowd estimates for Friday’s event. “We caught (the media). We caught them in a beauty.”

Trump also misreprese­nted what happened to the weather during his swearing in. Hesaid he felt a few drops of rain as he started delivering his address, but then ,“God looked down and, and he said we’re not going to let it rain on your speech. … The truth is it stopped immediatel­y.”

Light rain continued to fall through the first few minutes of the speech — and VIPs at the dais took out ponchos, including former president George W. Bush — and then quit. Trump said there was a downpour right after he finished, which did not occur.

Speaking from the lobby of CIA headquarte­rs in Langley, Va., before a wall of stars honoring intelligen­ce officers who died in service, Trump declared, “I have a running war with the media. They are among the most dishonest human beings on earth, right?”

The audience that included about 400 intelligen­ce officers as well as some of Trump’s White House aides applauded in approval. At one point, Trumpclaim­ed that most of the people in the room had voted for him.

“They sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligen­ce community,” Trump said. “I just want to let you know, the reason you’re the number one stop is it is exactly the opposite.”

In fact, Trump repeatedly vilified the intelligen­ce community throughout much of his transition in an attempt to push back against what he saw as politicall­y charged conclusion­s by the CIA and other agencies about Russia’s hacking of Democratic Party emails to interfere with the 2016 election.

Trump has taken particular issue with the CIA’s determinat­ion that Moscow intervened not only to disrupt this country’s election, but to help Trump defeat Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.

At a Jan. 11 news conference, Trump accused U.S. intelligen­ce officials of being behind a Nazi-like smear campaign against him. He has put quotation marks around the word “intelligen­ce” in referring to such officials. And last weekend, for instance, Trump attacked CIA Director John Brennan — who resigned Friday at the conclusion of President Barack Obama’s term — in a pair of tweets, suggesting he was “the leaker of Fake News.”

Trump journeyed to Langley on Saturday — his first in what aides said would be a series of visits to federal department­s and agencies — to show his solidarity with career intelligen­ce officials.

“There is nobody that feels stronger about the intelligen­ce community and the CIA than Donald Trump,” Trump said. “There is nobody.”

Trump vowed to lead the fight against the Islamic State, a rallying cry for intelligen­ce officers: “We’ve been fighting these wars for longer than any wars we’ve ever fought. We have not used the real abilities that we have. We’ve been restrained. We have to get rid of ISIS.”

He added, “Radical Islamic terrorism — and I said it yesterday — has to be eradicated, just off the face of the earth. This is evil.”

Trump delved into the Iraq war, saying: “I wasn’t a fan of Iraq. I didn’t want to go into Iraq.” His statement was at odds with comments he made during a 2002 interview with radio shock jock Howard Stern.

Trump also asserted his oft-stated belief that the United States bungled its exit from the country by not taking Iraq’s oil. “If we kept the oil, we wouldn’t have had ISIS in the first place,” Trump reasoned, saying that was how the terrorist group made its money.

Trumpprais­ed his nominee for CIA director, Rep. Mike Pompeo, R-Kan., who has yet to be confirmed by the Senate, a process that was delayed Friday by objections from Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore.

“You will be getting a total star,” Trump said of Pompeo. “This is a gem.”

Trump also delved into a series of personal grievances. “I’m a person that very strongly believes in academics,” Trump said. “They say, ‘Is Donald Trump an intellectu­al?’ Trust me. I’m, like, a smart person.”

Trump, who at 70 is the oldest mansworn-in for his first term as president, went on to say that he feels like a young man: “I feel like I’m 30, 35, 39. Somebody said, ‘Are you young?’ I said, ‘I think I’m young.’”

 ?? Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images ?? President Donald Trump on Saturday in Langley, Va., thanked CIA workers for their service despite recently accusing the intelligen­ce community of a smear campaign against him. He blamed the media for making up the feud.
Mandel Ngan / AFP/Getty Images President Donald Trump on Saturday in Langley, Va., thanked CIA workers for their service despite recently accusing the intelligen­ce community of a smear campaign against him. He blamed the media for making up the feud.

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from United States