Donald Trump is renewing his attacks on the media, hoping to discredit journalists who criticize his job performance as he approaches the 100-day mark of his presidency April 29, a traditional time for assessing any new chief executive.

"The Fake Media (not Real Media) has gotten even worse since the election," Trump wrote on Twitter. "Every story is badly slanted. We have to hold them to the truth!"

Trump is attempting to inoculate himself against negative media reporting by saying the media can't be trusted to cover him fairly. As part of that effort, he blasted journalists for their coverage of a recent special election for a House seat in Kansas, where Republican Rob Estes defeated Democrat James Thompson by 7 percentage points in the traditionally GOP district. "The recent Kansas election (Congress) was a really big media event, until the Republicans won." Trump tweeted Monday. "Now they play the same game with Georgia-BAD!" He was referring to a special election scheduled Tuesday for another traditionally GOP House seat.

And Republican Trump tweeted that a new Rasmussen poll shows that his job approval has risen to 50 percent, considerably higher than the ratings found in many other polls that Trump wants Americans to ignore. In fact, a new Pew Research Center survey found that Trump's job-approval rating is mediocre at best, with only 39 percent of Americans giving him a favorable rating, the same as two months ago, and 54 disapproving.

In another sign of trouble for Trump, the public's rating of fellow Republicans is on the decline. Forty percent have a favorable opinion of the Republican Party, down from 47 percent in January before Trump took office. (Americans' view of the Democratic party also declined to 45 percent favorable today from 51 percent in January.)

And the latest Gallup poll finds that only 45 percent of Americans think Trump keeps his promises, down from 62 percent in February. By condemning the media, Trump is encouraging the public to dismiss coverage of such survey research.

Hoping to give a positive spin to his tenure, Trump used the occasion of the annual White House Easter Egg Roll Monday to make a political statement to bolster his supporters. "We will be stronger and bigger and better as a nation than ever before," he declared. "We're right on track. You see what's happening, and we are right on track."

But the media critiques of Trump are nearly everywhere, reflecting the traditional adversarial role of the news media in covering the presidency. Among those who also received harshly negative coverage at the start of their time in office were George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan. Bush and Reagan were Republicans and Clinton was a Democrat.