Friend: Trump’s attacks on media an emotional response to negative coverage

Newsmax CEO Christopher Ruddy defended President Trump’s attacks on the media on Sunday, saying that they are an emotional response to negative press coverage.

“I think it comes out of emotion, which is he’s very angry about the press treatment,” Ruddy, a friend of Trump, said on CNN’s “Reliable Sources.” “You guys haven’t given him a moment to breathe. Ever since he was elected, people on this network, on MSNBC, were calling for his impeachment.”

Ruddy said that news networks have earned Trump’s ire by giving a platform to pundits and analysts who have repeatedly denigrated the president, and said that Trump deserves a break because he is “new at his job.”

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Ruddy also touted Trump’s record as president thus far, complaining that the media has not given him sufficient credit for boosting U.S. economic growth.

Trump has long had a contentious relationship with the press, often deriding news outlets that cover his administration critically as “fake news.”

He declared this week that the media is the “real enemy of the people,” after he came under fire for challenging the U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia meddled in the 2016 election during a news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The performance at the press conference earned bipartisan criticism, with both Democrats and Republicans condemning Trump’s rebuke of his own intelligence officials.