Trump Is Back and Angry as Ever As He Labels the Press Reporting WH Leaks the “Enemy”

He’s back!

The embattled President of the United States is back in town, and just as angry and resentful as before he lost his phone privileges.

Trump’s message early Sunday morning: Forget about Russia! The real issue is the leaks coming from the White House, which are fabricated lies made up by the media.

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Trump deleted that tweet and redid it:

I think this translates in Trump speak to: Jared will not lose his security clearance today and although Trump issues no actual denials, he offers his usual cloak of smoke, subterfuge and redirection.

Of course, this could change in a moment because Trump rules with the mercurial temperament of many infamously bad leaders, leaving his entourage hanging in desperation and pitted against one another.

Trump’s message is any reporting on RussiaGate is “fake news”, and now that Republicans had a “big win” in Montana by electing yet another assaulter — specifically someone who assaulted a reporter — you should know that the press is the “enemy”.

The problem for Donald Trump is that while under normal circumstances leaking is frowned upon, the Trump administration’s seeming collaboration with Russia, a hostile foreign power, is a national security issue and a matter of protecting democracy.

So the people leaking are probably whistleblowers or think they are. Leaks are coming from Trump’s own White House, but the majority are coming from the intelligence community, since they are the only power committed to the USA at this point, as the Republican-led Congress continues to look the other way on RussiaGate.

Trump played dumb by pretending that the closeness of the Montana race was “fake news” until the Republican won, which ignores that Trump carried the state by 21 points and Republican Greg Gianforte won by 7 after he assaulted a reporter.

When you do the math, especially since so many had voted before Gianforte assaulted the reporter (although I’m not sure that wouldn’t have been a plus in his column for Trump voters), this was good news for Democrats, not Republicans.

According to Donald Trump, “Fake news” is the enemy; not his alliance with an adversary to the United States or his son-in-law, who wanted to set up a back channel to talk to the Kremlin.

The real fake news Americans need to be worried about is either coming from the White House or Moscow via Macedonia – and sometimes planted in right wing websites.

Trump needs his followers to keep believing him and keep blaming the press. This hatred for the press is what enabled Gianforte’s assault on a reporter, and it’s a hallmark of the loss of freedom.

Trump is trying to smear the press because he can’t answer for the revelations coming out of his own White House.

It was so relaxing when Trump was in a different time zone and not allowed to tweet. But he’s back. Buckle up.

Sarah Jones

Listen to Sarah on the PoliticusUSA Pod on The Daily newsletter podcast here.

Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.

Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.

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