This article is more than 3 years old

This article is more than 3 years old

President-elect Donald Trump returned to Twitter on Sunday morning, to attack a familiar target: the New York Times.



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Trump, who has spent the weekend at Trump Tower in New York forming his transition plans and considering possible administration appointments, tweeted: “Wow, the [New York Times] is losing thousands of subscribers because of their very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the ‘Trump phenomena’.”

He continued:

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) The @nytimes sent a letter to their subscribers apologizing for their BAD coverage of me. I wonder if it will change - doubt it?

The letter to which Trump referred was sent by Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr and executive editor Dean Baquet to subscribers after Tuesday’s election. They wrote: “Did Donald Trump’s sheer unconventionality lead us and other news outlets to underestimate his support among American voters?”

Later on Sunday, Trump also said on Twitter: “The [Times] states today that DJT believes ‘more countries should acquire nuclear weapons’. How dishonest are they. I never said this!”

In a discussion with the Times on foreign policy and at a CNN town hall event, Trump said that some countries, such as Japan, South Korea and Saudi Arabia, might be better off if they did acquire nuclear weapons.

Trump’s tweets were a reversion by the president-elect to the freewheeling use of social media which marked much of his campaign before lessening in the final weeks, at the instigation of campaign staff. It also signaled a willingness to continue to use the press as a whipping boy.

The president-elect has long gone after the press and, in particular, the Times. In October, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway told the Guardian Trump would file a lawsuit against the newspaper after it published stories about women who alleged that he sexually assaulted them. That suit has yet to be filed.

In September, the Republican nominee tweeted: “My lawyers want to sue the failing [Times] so badly for irresponsible intent. I said no (for now), but they are watching. Really disgusting.”

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“Irresponsible intent” does not exist under any standard or doctrine found under US law.

Trump’s adversarial relationship with the press has gone beyond Twitter. As a presidential candidate, he long kept a blacklist of outlets like the Washington Post which were prohibited from being credentialed for events.

He also made attacks on the media a standard part of his stump speech and urged crowds at his events to boo and heckle reporters.

In February, Trump pledged to “open up the libel laws” so that “when [newspapers] write purposely negative stories … we can sue them and make lots of money”.

The Times reported extensively on Trump’s background, in October revealing that he may not have paid federal income tax for 18 years; investigating multiple allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviour and assault; and compiling an exhaustive list of “the 282 people, places and things” he had insulted on Twitter during his campaign.