Under cloudy skies in fall 2002, as guests and reporters looked on, Donald J. Trump dug into the ground with a gold-painted shovel to signify the opening of Trump National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J.

“Let’s take a little dirt out of here,” Mr. Trump said.

Even on this occasion, long before he would use the term “fake news” to describe how he was portrayed in the news media, Mr. Trump took a shot at the huddle of reporters gathered on the soggy lawn. Waving the shovel full of dirt at them, he said, according to The Bernardsville News, “O.K., now let’s throw it on the press.”

Fifteen years later, Eric Trump, the executive vice president of the Trump Organization and the president’s second son, hopped into a golf cart to take me on a tour of the 535-acre club that people in the Trump administration have referred to as “the summer White House” and “White House North.”

As we rolled past the clubhouse and toward a small herd of penned goats, he complained about the coverage of his father’s administration before stopping to gaze at the rolling hills of mowed grass.