President-elect Donald Trump returned to Twitter on Sunday morning, to attack a familiar target: the New York Times.
Trump, who has spent the weekend at Trump Tower in New York forming his transition plans and considering possible administration appointments, tweeted: “Wow, the [New York Times] is losing thousands of subscribers because of their very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the ‘Trump phenomena’.”
He continued:
Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)The @nytimes sent a letter to their subscribers apologizing for their BAD coverage of me. I wonder if it will change - doubt it?
November 13, 2016
The letter to which Trump referred was sent by Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr and executive editor Dean Baquet to subscribers after Tuesday’s election. They wrote: “Did Donald Trump’s sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters?”
Later on Sunday, Trump also said on Twitter: “The [Times] states today that DJT believes ‘more countries should acquire nuclear weapons’. How dishonest are they. I never said this!”
In a discussion with the Times on foreign policy and at a CNN town hall event, Trump said that some countries, such as Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, might be better off if they did acquire nuclear weapons.
Trump’s tweets were a reversion by the president-elect to the freewheeling use of social media which marked much of his campaign before lessening in the final weeks, at the instigation of campaign staff. It also signaled a willingness to continue to use the press as a whipping boy.
The president-elect has long gone after the press and, in particular, the Times. In October, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told the Guardian Trump would file a lawsuit against the newspaper after it published stories about women who alleged that he sexually assaulted them. That suit has yet to be filed.
In September, the Republican nominee tweeted: “My lawyers want to sue the failing [Times] so badly for irresponsible intent. I said no (for now), but they are watching. Really disgusting.”
“Irresponsible intent” does not exist under any standard or doctrine found under US law.
Trump’s adversarial relationship with the press has gone beyond Twitter. As a presidential candidate, he long kept a blacklist of outlets like the Washington Post which were prohibited from being credentialed for events.
He also made attacks on the media a standard part of his stump speech and urged crowds at his events to boo and heckle reporters.
In February, Trump pledged to “open up the libel laws” so that “when [newspapers] write purposely negative stories … we can sue them and make lots of money”.
The Times reported extensively on Trump’s background, in October revealing that he may not have paid federal income tax for 18 years; investigating multiple allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour and assault; and compiling an exhaustive list of “the 282 people, places and things” he had insulted on Twitter during his campaign.