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Donald Trump. | AP Photo/Gerald Herbert Donald Trump takes credit for public distrust of the media

Donald Trump took credit for the public's lack of trust in the media, and called out a New York Times reporter, saying he should have been fired.

Speaking to New York Post columnist Fred Dicker on his WGDJ-AM radio show on Thursday, Trump said of a recent Gallup poll showing public confidence in the media at an all-time low:

“I think I had a lot to do with that poll … because I’ve exposed the media. If you look at The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and if you look at others: the level of dishonesty is enormous. It’s so dishonest. I can do something that’s wonderful and they make it sound terrible," Trump said.

But just a moment later, Trump said he doesn't know if the distrust in the media helps him because "I respect The New York Times. I respect The Washington Post.”

“Everybody is talking about the dishonesty — the total dishonesty — of some of the papers and the media generally. CNN is unbelievably dishonest. They call it the Clinton News Network," Trump said. “I am very proud to say that I think I had a lot to do with that poll number.”

Trump also said Times reporter Jonathan Martin "would have been fired" by the late Abe Rosenthal, who was executive editor of the Times in the late 1970s and 1980s.

“Guys like Jonathan Martin who writes for The New York Times, who would have been fired by the late, great Abe Rosenthal for what he writes. I mean, he writes things on Twitter. Other journalists, I don’t want to mention them," Trump said. “But I read some of them by Jonathan Martin and a couple of their writers — how can you have a writer who’s supposed to be unbiased saying horrible things about a person and then he is supposed to write about them. They should be fired immediately. Someone like Abe Rosenthal, when the paper was run properly, that’s The New York Times, would have fired them on the spot.”

The Times declined to respond to Trump's charges.

Trump also hinted at what may be his plans post-election.

“When this is all over I’ll have to write a book," he said.