With a sweeping charge, Trump is basically accusing his press corps of Stephen Glass-level fabrication. That's a pretty serious allegation. Multiple news agencies have reported this week that some of Trump's own staffers, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, were disappointed by the Republican presidential nominee's performance in Monday's debate. Trump is claiming every outlet that published these negative sentiments simply made them up. That's far-fetched, to say the least.

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But the real irony here is that Trump actually loves unnamed sources — when they say things he wants to hear.

Just think back to Trump's birther phase, which shouldn't be too hard, since he only gave up on the idea that President Obama might have been born outside the United States a couple weeks ago.

https://twitter.com/sarahkendzior/status/781895107838484480

Who was this "extremely credible source"? Trump never said. So, by his own standard, we should assume the source does not exist.

Remember when Trump cited a National Enquirer story linking Ted Cruz's father to JFK's assassin? The Enquirer described its unnamed sources only as "top D.C. insiders," yet Trump had no qualms about telling voters on live television that "his father was with Lee Harvey Oswald prior to [Kennedy] being, you know, shot. I mean, the whole thing is ridiculous. What is this, right? Prior to his being shot. And nobody even brings it up. I mean, they don't even talk about that. That was reported, and nobody talks about it."

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Then there was the time Trump circulated the Page 6 rumor that media frenemy Joe Scarborough is secretly dating his MSNBC co-host, Mika Brzezinski. The New York Post's source was identified as "an NBC insider," but that was no problem for Trump. He seemed to think claiming the existence of a covert romance would invalidate the critical commentary of the "Morning Joe" tandem, so he went with it.

And, of course, there is Trump's oft-used "people are saying" strategy for spreading innuendo and misinformation. As in:

"Many people are saying that the Iranians killed the scientist who helped the U.S. because of Hillary Clinton's hacked emails."

"There's something going on that we don’t know about. And you almost think — I'm not saying that, and I'm not a conspiracy person. ... Half the people in this room are saying it."

"I'd hate to see something like that get in his way, but a lot of people are talking about it, and I know that even some states are looking at it very strongly — the fact that he was born in Canada and he has had a double passport."

"I don't bring it up because I don't know enough to really discuss it. I will say there are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder."

Who are these "people" who are always "saying"? Like a good journalist, Trump never reveals his confidential sources.