Overview
- During an Oval Office press event, President Trump told press secretary Karoline Leavitt she was "doing a terrible job" as he aired grievances about press coverage.
- Trump said he gets 93% to 97% negative publicity and claimed that proves the public does not believe mainstream media.
- He criticized legacy newspapers, saying The New York Times has shrinking circulation and calling The Washington Post "almost extinct," while labeling major outlets dishonest.
- The moment followed Leavitt’s briefing a day earlier, where she scolded ABC, CBS, and NBC for what she called thin coverage of 18-year-old Sheridan Gorman’s killing in Chicago, which the White House has linked to an undocumented suspect.
- Reporters in the room laughed at the jab, yet the exchange aligns with an ongoing strategy that has included a "Media Offender of the Week" site to publicly single out coverage.