President Trump veered into an attack on the news media Thursday during a speech detailing his plan to expand energy development.
Trump spoke about decades-old fears the U.S. was running out of oil, saying “it was fake.”
“Don’t we love that term, fake? What we’ve learned about fake over the last little while. Fake News. CNN — fake,” Trump said at the Energy Department. “Whoops, their camera just went off.”
Trump’s remark prompted laughter and applause from some in the room, including Energy Secretary Rick Perry and Vice President Pence, who stood at his side.
{mosads}Earlier Thursday, the president sparked outrage after he took to Twitter to attack MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” co-hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski.
“I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore),” he tweeted. “Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”
The president did not address his tweets, but White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders offered an unapologetic defense of it during her Thursday press briefing.