MEDIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “President Trump devoted the majority of his time at a rowdy rally here on Thursday [8-2-18] targeting the news media, deriding the reporters present as ‘fake, fake disgusting news.’ The rally, intended to galvanize support for Representative Lou Barletta, a Republican who is running for Senate in this fall’s midterm elections, did eventually turn to what Mr. Trump called ‘boring subjects,’ but for much of the event, the president focused on his multiple grievances with the Washington press corps. It underscored yet another day of tensions between the White House and the news media. During an afternoon news briefing, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, the president’s press secretary, pointedly blamed the news media for that tension. And while en route to Pennsylvania, Mr. Trump sought to play down comments from Ivanka Trump, his elder daughter and senior adviser, that explicitly disagreed with his description of journalists as ‘the enemy of the people.’ During the rally, supporters gleefully booed at every dig at the so-called fake news, laughing and jeering as Mr. Trump recalled conversations with his wife, Melania, about anticipating positive coverage, only to be disappointed by what he deemed to be critical headlines.”
–Emily Cochrane, “Trump Bashes ‘Fake News’: ‘They Can Make Anything Bad’,” The New York Times online, August 2, 2018