Even Trump's threat to cancel his 'fake news' subscriptions was a lie
He once threatened to cancel the New York Times and the Washington Post.
Donald Trump made a big deal last year of canceling his New York Times and Washington Post subscriptions, calling them “fake.” But his campaign quietly paid hundreds of dollars for online subscriptions to both.
After years of attacking the American media as the “enemy of the people” and purveyors of “fake news” that makes him look bad, Trump announced last October that he was going to cancel both his Post and Times subscriptions.
“The New York Times, which is a fake newspaper — we don’t even want it in the White House anymore,” he told Fox News. “We’re going to probably terminate that and The Washington Post. They’re fake.”
Trump was angered at the time by the papers’ coverage of his attempts to pressure the Ukrainian president to dig up dirt on his political opponents.
His administration also instructed federal agencies to not renew their own subscriptions to the two outlets. Then-press secretary Stephanie Grisham put out of statement noting that “Not renewing subscriptions across all federal agencies will be a significant cost saving—hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars will be saved.”
But Trump’s own campaign continued to make payments at least monthly to both outlets for online subscriptions.
According to Federal Election Commission disclosures, Donald J. Trump for President Inc. paid at least $220 to the Post and at least $180 to the Times after his cancellation announcement.
A Trump campaign spokesperson did not immediately respond to an inquiry for this story.
Even after losing to President-elect Joe Biden in last month’s election, Trump has continued to attack the media and claim that he boycotts these outlets.
“I read the Fake News Washington Post as little as possible,” he tweeted on Saturday.
Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.
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