President Donald Trump devoted some of his Sunday morning to launching a new attack against the Washington Post, accusing the paper of being involved in “Presidential Harassment!” What did the paper do? Write a long, deeply reported story about the president’s racist tweets and his North Carolina rally where supporters chanted “send her back” while he was attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar.
“The Washington Post Story, about my speech in North Carolina and tweet, with its phony sources who do not exist, is Fake News,” Trump tweeted. “The only thing people were talking about is the record setting crowd and the tremendous enthusiasm, far greater than the Democrats. You’ll see in 2020!” He then sent out a separate tweet that only included two words: “Presidential Harassment.” And then shortly thereafter sent a third tweet: “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”
Trump may have been particularly troubled with how the story began. “President Trump’s own top aides didn’t think he fully understood what he had done last Sunday, when he fired off a trio of racist tweets before a trip to his golf course.” notes the Post. The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman pointed out on Twitter that the narrative of a president who doesn’t quite understand the consequences of his actions “is always something that upsets him.”
Moments after blasting the Post, Trump doubled down on his attack against the four minority congresswomen collectively known as “The Squad.” “I don’t believe the four Congresswomen are capable of loving our Country,” Trump wrote less than 10 minutes after he blasted the Post. “They should apologize to America (and Israel) for the horrible (hateful) things they have said. They are destroying the Democrat Party, but are weak & insecure people who can never destroy our great Nation!”
