“Treason?” President Donald Trump tweeted this afternoon about a New York Times op-ed in which he got shivved by an anonymous Trump administration staffer.
About an hour later, Trump tweeted again, insisting the author is “another phony source” of the NYT but also demanding the newspaper turn over the person to the government “for National Security purposes”:
Earlier, Trump had showed up half an hour late this evening to a White House meeting with some of the country’s sheriffs, armed with documents, and began to waive them around as he tore into the NYT op-ed [Watch below].
“He’s part of resistance within the Trump administration. This is what we have to deal with. The dishonest media, it’s really a disgrace,” Trump complained to sympathetic sheriffs.
“Nobody has done what this administration has done in terms of getting things passed, getting things through,” Trump crowed.
“A article just came out,” he said, angrily grabbing a printout of a different article that included the words, “Trump breaks the record for budget gridlock wins.”
“In 20 years it hasn’t been like this until now,” a nearly berserk Trump said, then began ticking off his talking points again, citing unemployment drops, manufacturing job growth, 3.9M people off foodstamps, economic growth in the last quarter of 4.2%. “It was headed down, heading to negative numbers,” Trump insisted.
“Right to try, tax cuts, getting rid of individual mandate. Coming up with a new health care plan. We got the Olympics, got the World Cup, and we’ve started the wall. Nobody has ever done, in Iess than a two year period, what we’ve done.”
“So when you tell me about some anonymous source within the administration, probably he’s failing and here for all the wrong reasons, and the failing New York Times – if I weren’t hear the New York Times probably would not exist,” Trump sneered as sheriffs clapped.
And, someday, when I’m not president, which hopefully will be in about 6.5 years from now, the New York Times and CNN and all these phony media outlets will be out of business.
“They don’t like Donald Trump and I don’t like them,” he added.
Trump blasted the anonymous editorial as “gutless.”
“We’re doing a great job. Our poll numbers are through the roof and, guess what? Nobody is going to come close to beating me in 2020.”
Shortly after Trump’s outburst, White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders chimed in, saying, “the individual behind this piece has chosen to deceive, rather than support, the duly elected President of the United States. He is not putting country first, but putting himself and his ego ahead of the will of the American people.”
“This coward should do the right thing and resign.”
Trump’s remarks to the sheriffs:
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