It looks like President Trump and his administration have taken their battle with the “fake news media” to the next level:

The White House is planning to instruct federal agencies to not renew their subscriptions to the New York Times and the Washington Post, administration officials said, escalating President Trump’s battle against the media outlets https://t.co/vn5nXEnnf5 @AndrewRestuccia — Dave Brown (@dave_brown24) October 24, 2019

The White House plans to order all federal agencies not to renew their subscriptions to the New York Times and the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal reports. https://t.co/Azn1gntWDf — Axios (@axios) October 24, 2019

That White House ban on subscriptions to the print editions of the @nytimes and @washingtonpost will apparently extend to all federal agencies. https://t.co/qQNK9janqA — David Martosko (@dmartosko) October 24, 2019

White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham confirmed that today:

Not renewing subscriptions to the @nytimes and @washingtonpost "across all federal agencies will be a significant cost saving—hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars will be saved,” says @PressSec. — Steve Herman (@W7VOA) October 24, 2019

This is a de facto confirmation @POTUS will be instructing federal agencies not to renew their subscriptions to the two newspapers, a senior @WhiteHouse official tells @VOANews. — Steve Herman (@W7VOA) October 24, 2019

And it’s reportedly already happened:

White House says it’s going to do things and doesn’t always follow through, but NYT and WaPo subscriptions were ended. Some aides privately expressing regret. But doubt Trump will stop reading either. WaPo *online* subscription remains. WH still gets WSJ, Hill, NY Post etc. pic.twitter.com/1H3lzdBtYM — Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) October 24, 2019

Last day for hard copy delivery to the Trump White House of New York Times and Washington Post was Tuesday, ending—for now—what was likely long historic streak. "Washington Post also, but The New York Times even more so treats me unbelievably terribly," Trump on Fox Monday. — Jennifer Jacobs (@JenniferJJacobs) October 24, 2019

That escalated quickly.