Washington, May 12 (IANS): US President Donald Trump on Friday threatened to cancel White House press briefings as he lashed out at the “fake media” in a tweet storm, defending his aides for inaccuracies in their accounts of his dismissal of FBI Director James Comey.
“The Fake Media is working overtime today!... As a very active President with lots of things happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to stand at podium with perfect accuracy!” Trump said in a tweet.
“Maybe the best thing to do would be to cancel all future ‘press briefings’ and hand out written responses for the sake of accuracy???” he said in a second tweet.
Trump’s communications team came under fire this week for its misrepresentation of the firing of Comey, USA Today reported.
Vice President Mike Pence and White House spokespersons, including Sean Spicer, Kellyanne Conway and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, explained Trump’s decision to dismiss Comey as the result of a recommendation from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, only to have the President himself tell NBC News that “regardless of recommendation I was going to fire Comey”.
The President, in a interview with NBC News on Thursday, said his decision to fire Comey was linked to the FBI’s ongoing investigation into Russian interference into last year’s presidential election as well as any ties between Trump associates and Russian government officials.
“When I decided to just do it, I said to myself, I said you know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story,” Trump said in the interview.
“It’s an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they should have won.”
Also on Friday, Trump took an aim at the former FBI director himself: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!”
Trump has frequently attacked the press during his four months in office.
He has made cracks about “fake media” and threatened to change libel laws. But, according to reports, this the first time he has gone so far as to threaten to do away with briefings altogether.
