President Donald Trump said that he is considering creating a pro-state media site while speaking in Central Florida on Thursday.
"CNN is a voice that really seems to be a voice out there, and it's a terrible thing for our country. And we ought to start our own network and put some real news out there," he said, evoking cheers from the crowd. "They are so bad for our country. They are so bad for our country. I go out there and they say, 'Boy, the media hates your country,' and it's just a shame. It's just a shame. And we really are. We are looking at that. We should do something about it, too. Put some really talented people and get a real voice out there. Not a voice that's fake."
Trump's wording was somewhat unclear. He did not offer specifics about the "we" in his remarks about starting a media network to offer "real news."
The president made the comments while speaking about his support for Medicare at The Villages, a retirement community.
"In my campaign for president, I made you a sacred pledge that I would strengthen, protect and defend Medicare for all of our senior citizens," he said. "Today I'll sign a very historic executive order that does exactly that — we are making your Medicare even better, and ... it will never be taken away from you, we're not letting anyone get close." (Trump proposed cutting Medicare by $845 billion over the next 10 years in his 2020 budget.)
While promoting his health care vision and railing against the Medicare for All proposals endorsed by some of the Democrats running in 2020, Trump incorporated some of his typical talking points. He spoke about the economy, Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and staying in office for longer than two terms.
As he often does, Trump criticized the media. His attack against CNN followed days of lashing out at Democrats over their ongoing impeachment inquiry and, to a lesser extent, the media covering the proceedings.
He has bristled at a New York Times story published on Tuesday, which said that Trump had talked about creating a border wall fortified with an alligator-filled moat. He claimed the story was not true and on Thursday pushed back against an ABC News article on another aspect of the story: that Trump had discussed shooting migrants in their legs.
The president's repeated attacks on the media have factored into declining evaluations of American press freedom. In April, Reporters Without Borders classified press freedom in the U.S. as "problematic" for the first time. The report cited an "increasingly hostile climate that goes beyond Donald Trump's comments." The ranking marked the third consecutive year in which the U.S. has suffered a drop in the global ranking.
