One week after the shooting at the Capital Gazette newspaper in Annapolis, Maryland, President Donald Trump put an end to any speculation that the tragedy could lead to a truce in his unrelenting war on the news media.
"Fake news. Bad people," Trump said, pointing at the news crews covering his rally Thursday in Great Falls, Montana, as the crowd went wild.
"I see the way they write. They're so damn dishonest," Trump said. "And I don't mean all of them, because some of the finest people I know are journalists really. Hard to believe when I say that. I hate to say it, but I have to say it. But 75 percent of those people are downright dishonest. Downright dishonest. They're fake. They're fake."
"They make the sources up. They don't exist in many cases," he continued. "These are really bad people."
Attacking the news media is nothing new for Trump. His well-chronicled criticism of reporters goes back to before the 2016 campaign and since becoming president he has attacked news outlets that he does not consider friendly as "fake news" and the "enemy of the American people."
Five people were killed on June 26 when a man with a long-running grudge against the Capital Gazette opened fire with a shotgun in the small paper's newsroom.
After the shooting Trump expressed condolences to the victims and their loved ones, leading to some to think that in the future he might temper his rhetoric against the media.
"Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being violently attacked while doing their job," he said.
After initially declining to order flags to half-staff to honor the victims of the shooting, Trump reversed his decision Tuesday amid criticism.
"Is there a cutoff for tragedy?" Annapolis Mayor Gavin Buckley told the Capital Gazette. "This was an attack on the press. It was an attack on freedom of speech. It’s just as important as any other tragedy."
