Trump team doubles down on media criticism
Members of Donald Trump’s team continued Sunday to blast the media for its coverage of the crowd sizes at the president’s inauguration.
Trump’s top aide and the White House chief of staff took to the Sunday show circuit to defend the president and White House press secretary Sean Spicer, both of whom accused the press of lying about the number of people who attended the inauguration.
Trump’s team hit the media Sunday for focusing on crowd sizes, and accused members of the press of trying to delegitimize his presidency.
Top White House aide Kellyanne Conway told NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday that Spicer provided “alternative facts” to reporters during his press briefing on Saturday afternoon.
{mosads}“You’re saying it’s a falsehood. And they’re giving — Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that,” Conway said in defense of the information.
“The way that you just laughed at me is actually symbolic of the way — very representative of the way we’re treated by the press. I’ll just ignore it. I’m bigger than that. I’m a kind and gracious person,” she said.
“Chuck, if we’re going to keep referring to our press secretary in those types of terms, I think we’re going to have to rethink our relationship here,” Conway said.
In another interview on NBC’s “Sunday Today,” Conway said the coverage of the president has had a negative effect on the country’s democracy.
“He has just absorbed an unprecedented — qualitatively and quantitatively — unprecedented deluge of negative criticism and coverage that’s frankly unfair and a little bit dangerous to our democracy,” Conway said.
“You know, the question for everyone who covers him and who thinks about him is: What is the line between thoughtful criticism and skepticism and, you know, flat out denial and delegitimization of what just happened?”
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus delivered a similar message.
Priebus blasted the media, getting into a heated conversation on “Fox News Sunday,” where he accused members of press of trying to delegitimize Trump’s presidency.
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