Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
Editorials & Other Articles
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
Inside Trump's decade-long war on the press: 75,000 posts, 3,500 direct attacks (Editor & Publisher)
Last edited Mon Sep 8, 2025, 05:11 PM - Edit history (1)
For those who think the enemy is CNN, MSNBC or the New York Times, you're wrong. The enemy is Trump. Without a doubt.
By Diane Sylvester | for E&P Magazine
In February 2017, then-President Donald Trump posted on Twitter, calling the press “the enemy of the American people” and naming outlets such as CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times. Hours later, he deleted and reposted the statement, this time adding more news organizations.
It was not an isolated incident. From his 2016 presidential campaign to his current term, Trump has repeatedly attacked journalists and media outlets at public events and on social media.
Stephanie Sugars, senior reporter for the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, has spent years cataloguing these posts during his campaigns and presidential terms. Her work, compiled in a public database, details more than 3,500 Trump posts on Twitter (now X) and Truth Social since 2015, targeting the press. The catalogue tags the posts by target — individual journalists, specific news outlets or “the media” — and type of attack.
Sugars estimates she has reviewed some 75,000 posts across both platforms. Working roughly 900 hours between November 2024 and June of this year to update the database with a backlog of posts that hadn’t been tracked when President Biden was in office.
In February 2017, then-President Donald Trump posted on Twitter, calling the press “the enemy of the American people” and naming outlets such as CNN, The Washington Post and The New York Times. Hours later, he deleted and reposted the statement, this time adding more news organizations.
It was not an isolated incident. From his 2016 presidential campaign to his current term, Trump has repeatedly attacked journalists and media outlets at public events and on social media.
Stephanie Sugars, senior reporter for the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker at the Freedom of the Press Foundation, has spent years cataloguing these posts during his campaigns and presidential terms. Her work, compiled in a public database, details more than 3,500 Trump posts on Twitter (now X) and Truth Social since 2015, targeting the press. The catalogue tags the posts by target — individual journalists, specific news outlets or “the media” — and type of attack.
Sugars estimates she has reviewed some 75,000 posts across both platforms. Working roughly 900 hours between November 2024 and June of this year to update the database with a backlog of posts that hadn’t been tracked when President Biden was in office.
Read more: https://www.editorandpublisher.com/stories/inside-trumps-decade-long-war-on-the-press-75000-posts-3500-direct-attacks,257529