The New York Times fired back at Donald Trump after he called the paper “failing” and “fake” over a reporter’s war crimes question.
On Monday evening, the storied outlet issued a statement via a spokesperson, in which they slammed the “derisive comments” the president made to their reporter, Zolan Kanno-Youngs, and called out “his pattern” of avoiding “fair questions.”
“President Trump’s derisive comments to a New York Times reporter today are the latest example in his pattern of answering fair questions with inaccurate attacks,” the Times’ spokesperson said. “Contrary to the president’s false claims, our extensive reporting and polling during the 2024 presidential campaign captured the race in full, including his advantages. Mr. Trump himself celebrated this polling and reporting numerous times.”
The statement continued: “We ask questions of elected leaders to hold them accountable to the public they serve. Our entire White House team – including the talented journalist who posed questions to Mr. Trump today – reports with the same rigor and scrutiny on all who hold the office”
The Times’ response came hours after Trump laid into Kanno-Youngs after the latter grilled the president over his Easter morning warning to Iran, in which he threatened to destroy civilian infrastructure in the country if the Strait of Hormuz wasn’t opened by Tuesday.
At first, Trump refused to answer the question and asked the reporter to identify which outlet he worked for. After identifying himself as a reporter for the Times, Trump said, “Failing, failing! Circulation way down at The New York Times. What’s going on with that?”
Rather than engaged with Trump’s question, Kanno-Youngs pivoted back to the topic of Iran, asking point-blank if the president was concerned if his threat would “amount to war crimes.”
After Trump gave a rambling response defending his actions, Kanno-Young once again asked for clarity, which triggered a big response from the president.
“Quiet, quiet, quiet. You no longer have credibility at The New York Times because The New York Times said, ‘Oh, Trump won’t win the election,’ and I won in a landslide, I won every swing state,” Trump sounded off. “They’re running on past fumes, and you can’t keep doing that. You have to be able to give the correct news and people like you, who I know, are fake. You’re fake!
This is not the first time Trump has taken aim at the Times. Just last week, Trump slammed the New York Times, the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal for having, what he called, “a lot of bad stories.”
During this same update, he told White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt she was “doing a terrible job,” given his constant bad publicity.
“We have to straighten out our media,” Trump noted at the time. “The New York Times circulation, you know, has gone way down. The Washington Post is almost extinct.”
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