In remarks to diners at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida on Saturday night, Donald Trump called the American media “crooked bastards” and Gen Mark Milley, the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, a “fucking idiot”.
The meandering, foul-mouthed speech to Turning Point USA, a group for young conservatives, was streamed by Jack Posobiec, a rightwing blogger and provocateur.
The insult to the press recalled barbs while Trump was in power, including calling reporters and editors “fake news” and the “enemy of the people”, attacks many in the media regarded as dangerous, inviting political violence. “The country is at a very important, dangerous place,” Trump said, amid familiar lies about his defeat in the 2020 election, which he says was the result of electoral fraud.
“We have no press. The press is so corrupt. We don’t have a press. If there is a good story about us, a good story about any of the people that are Republicans, conservatives, they make it a bad story. And if it’s a bad story they make it the worst story in history. It is the most dishonest group of people.”
Trump claimed to have transformed Americans’ views of the press, saying “when I first announced I was running in 2015 they had a 94%-95% approval rating. And right now they have a lower approval rating than Congress.“I consider that to be a great honor because they are a bunch of very dishonest, crooked bastards.”
The remark was met with laughter.
Trump’s penchant for swearing is well-known, to the extent that his four-year presidency prompted soul-searching among some US media outlets about which words could properly be printed. The Guardian has long had few such scruples.
Rawr
Article URL : https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/dec/06/trump-attacks-us-media-mark-milley-foul-mouthed-speech