Donald Trump rails against the New York Times after critical pieces
Donald Trump exploded at the New York Times in a lengthy Twitter rant early Sunday morning, less than a day after he threatened to ban the newspaper's reporters from covering his events.
Calling the Times a "failing" news outlet that "never" spoke to him, Trump blasted their recent coverage of his campaign on the social media platform:
He also took general aim at the "disgusting and corrupt media," asserting that if it weren't for their dishonest reporting, "I would be beating Hillary by 20%." According to recent polls, Trump now lags behind rival Hillary Clinton by several points both nationally and in several key battleground states.
Trump seemed to be reacting to an unflattering New York Times report published Saturday morning dissecting recent campaign missteps.
The Times reported that a group of Trump's "confidants" had asked him to hit the reset button on the campaign back in June, but that "[n]early two months later, the effort to save Mr. Trump from himself has plainly failed."
"He has repeatedly signaled to his advisers and allies his willingness to change and adapt, but has grown only more volatile and prone to provocation since then," the paper wrote, "clashing with a Gold Star family, making comments that have been seen as inciting violence and linking his political opponents to terrorism."
Following that report, Trump pondered aloud at a Friday rally in Connecticut whether he should withdraw the media credentials for Times journalists.
"The newspaper is going to hell," Trump said late Friday night. "They've got a couple of reporters in that newspaper who are so bad. I mean, lack of talent. But it's going to hell. So I think maybe what we will do -- maybe we will start thinking about taking their press credentials away from them."
If the campaign decides to act against the Times, the paper would join a growing list of media outlets banned from covering Trump's events, including the Washington Post, Politico, and the conservative-leaning National Review.
When Trump's vice presidential candidate Mike Pence was asked by Fox News Sunday whether he had discussed the media blacklists with the billionaire, he replied: "We'll keep our private conversations private, but that's an ongoing discussion in the campaign."
"I do believe in the public's right to know, whether it's about these latest allegations about Hillary Clinton or otherwise," Pence said. "And we'll continue to -- we'll continue to advance that principle."