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Trump appears to threaten journalists writing stories he doesn't like

Threat follows media reports on his administration's poor treatment of immigrants, his embrace of racists and attacks on women of colour in Congress, and his low approval ratings

Clark Mindock
New York
Tuesday 20 August 2019 12:48 BST
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Trump berates reporters for asking him about being indicted

Donald Trump has tweeted what appears to be a veiled threat on journalists, claiming that the "LameStream Media" is "treading in very dangerous territory" by reporting on apparent fractures in the Republican Party and the president's own poor polling.

"The LameStream Media is far beyond Fake News, they are treading in very dangerous territory!" Mr Trump wrote on Twitter, retweeting a separate statement claiming there is "great cohesion inside the Republican Party" and that he has "the strongest" polls.

The outburst is nothing new for the bombastic president, who regularly spars with the media during interviews, and who has branded the press as an "enemy of the people" for reporting on unsavoury aspects of Mr Trump's presidency, including the staggering number of lies and falsehoods he has uttered since becoming president (he had lied, exaggerated, or otherwise made false claims more than 10,000 times as of late April, according to a count by the Washington Post).

In addition to reports on turmoil in the Republican Party — which has seen several high-level resignations in recent months — and Mr Trump's poor approval rating — which is and has been at historic lows compared to previous presidents — the press has also reported extensively on the squalid conditions and treatments of migrants in the US and at the American border during Mr Trump's presidency, on the president's rhetorical embrace of white nationalists, and on his racist attacks on women of colour in Congress, among other concerns.

Mr Trump has also directly targeted the press, by revoking access to the White House for journalists. Most famously, the White House revoked CNN reporter Jim Acosta's so-called "hard pass", after a testy press conference in which Mr Acosta asked the president multiple questions (the White House claimed falsely that the reporter had been physical with an intern who tried to take a microphone from him during that questioning, and later released a doctored video of the event to bolster that claim).

The president and his top advisers have all recently been challenging the media on a different front, and have claimed that the US economy is strong in response to reports that analysts have seen signs of an impending recession.

Shortly after Mr Trump's tweet threatening journalists on Tuesday, he sent out a new tweet attacking congresswoman Rashida Tlaib, and calling her an anti-Semite and a liar.

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"Sorry, I don't buy Rep Tlaib's tears," he wrote. "I have watched her violence, craziness and, most importantly, WORDS, for far too long. Now tears? She hates Israel and all Jewish people. She is an anti-Semite. She and her 3 friends are the new face of the Democrat Party. Live with it!"

Ms Tlaib was recently barred from entering Israel, as was her colleague, Ilhan Omar.

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