The president, speaking at upstate New York's Fort Drum, claimed 4 million new jobs have been created since his election in November 2016, a number he said "the media in the back never said would be possible."

After Trump's comment was met with cheers and applause from soldiers in the room, he launched into an aside about the media.

"I'm so proud of myself. I didn't call them the 'fake news media,' " Trump continued. "I said to myself, 'I will not today, in front of our great armed forces, call them 'fake news.' We know the real truth but we won't say it today."

Those remarks prompted a a smaller group of audience members to cheer.

Trump was speaking at a bill signing ceremony for the National Defense Authorization Act, which funds military programs for the next year.

The trip comes as Trump is dealing with the fallout from an explosive new memoir written by former White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman, which has been covered extensively by the political press.