President Donald Trump has downgraded Washington from a swamp, and placed the news media squarely in the center.
In a tweet early Monday (July 24), the President said:
Drain the Swamp should be changed to Drain the Sewer - it's actually much worse than anyone ever thought, and it begins with the Fake News!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 24, 2017
The reference harkened to the days when Washington Post cartoonist Herblock (the pen name for Herbert Block) used to depict then-Republican Senator and VP candidate Richard Nixon coming out of a manhole to suggest the level of his political dealings and character.
That Trump downgrade followed a tweet Sunday about the "failing New York Times," POTUS' favorite description of the newspaper to which he recently granted an interview, and "Amazon Washington Post," a reference to its ownership by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, saying it was hard to read because all the stories that should be positive are "bad."
Those comments came amid tweets about "crooked" Hillary Clinton and calling Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee, "sleazy" for appearing on TV -- he is a frequent face on CNN, for example, another news outlets the president regularly attacks, talking about concerns with possible Trump administration ties to Russia.
