US President Donald Trump launched a bitter attack against the “illegal” media and his political enemies, as a speech at the Department of Justice turned into a grievance-filled diatribe.
“Our predecessors turned the Department of Justice into the Department of Injustice,” Trump said. “I stand before you today to declare that those days are over, and they will never come back.”
In his speech he vowed to go a step further and investigate his foes, saying: “We must be honest about the lies and abuses that have occurred within these walls.”
He said his administration would “expel the rogue actors and corrupt forces from our government, we will… very much expose their egregious crimes and severe misconduct.”
Trump reserved special ire for US media outlets which cover him critically.
Speaking to an audience of prosecutors and law enforcement agents, Trump said broadcasters CNN and MSNBC and unidentified newspapers “literally write 97.6% bad about me” and “it has to stop. It has to be illegal.”
He described the media outlets as “political arms of the Democrat party. And in my opinion they’re really corrupt and they’re illegal. What they do is illegal.”
Trump has made attacks on the US media a central part of his message ever since his first election to the presidency in 2016 — describing them as “enemies of the people” and “fake news.”
