"This Must Be Illegal": Trump Sharply Attacks Media for Criticizing Him

"This Must Be Illegal": Trump Sharply Attacks Media for Criticizing Him AFP • 5 hours • 2 minutes read US President Trump sharply attacked media outlets that report critically. In a speech at the Department of Justice, Trump accused them of reporting "97.6 percent bad" about him and added: "This must stop, this must be illegal." In a speech at the Department of Justice, US President Donald Trump sharply attacked media outlets and political opponents that report critically and politically. Trump accused the news channels CNN and MSNBC, as well as unnamed newspapers, of reporting "97.6 percent bad" about him and added: "This must stop, this must be illegal." Trump also announced that he would take action against "corrupt forces" within the Department of Justice. Trump described the media he criticized as "the political arms of the Democratic Party." "And in my opinion, they are truly corrupt and illegal." Trump, who claims freedom of speech for himself, has been at odds with media outlets and publishers critical of him for years. Even during his first presidential candidacy and his first term in office, Trump repeatedly and harshly attacked journalists. In mid-February, the US government announced that it would in future decide for itself which media outlets would be granted access to certain events and trips of the US President. The White House thus broke with a decades-old tradition. Until now, the non-governmental White House Correspondents Association (WHCA) had decided on the composition of the so-called pool: the group of journalists who report from close quarters from the Oval Office or from the President's aircraft during trips. Trump, the first convicted felon in the White House, also used his speech at the Department of Justice to attack his predecessor, Joe Biden, alleging that Biden instrumentalized the department to take action against him. "Our predecessors turned the Department of Justice into a ministry of injustice," Trump said. "I stand before you today to declare that those days are over and will never return." Trump announced investigations into his opponents within the Department of Justice. "We must be honest about the lies and abuses that have taken place within these walls." His administration will "drive the corrupt forces out of our government, and we will (...) expose their egregious crimes and grave misconduct," the US President said. Trump was indicted in a total of four criminal cases in 2023. However, he was only convicted in the case involving the hush-money payment to a former porn actress – the sentence imposed does not provide for a penalty, but merely upholds the conviction. Two other cases against Trump have been dropped. The case in Georgia concerning his attempts to overturn his 2020 election defeat is on hold. On his first day in office, Trump pardoned more than 1,500 of those involved in the storming of the Capitol in Washington. The attack on the seat of Congress came after Trump whipped up his supporters with false claims that his defeat to Biden in the November 2020 presidential election was the result of fraud.