President Donald Trump extended his late-night tirade against The New York Times early Tuesday, after posting a series of attacks late Monday night. The Times reported that the Trump administration had dropped its $200 million demand for a payment from Harvard University, setting off a fresh burst of anger from the president.
“Why hasn’t the Fake News New York Times adjusted its phony article on the corruption and antisemitism which has taken place at Harvard,” Trump railed Tuesday morning. “They never call for facts, or factchecks, because the Times’ is a corrupt, unprincipled, and pathetic vehicle of the Left.”
“They wrote only negatively about me in the last Election, and I won in a landslide,” Trump claimed, contrary to the certified results. He then took aim at what he claimed was the Times’ “rapidly falling circulation.”
In a post just past midnight, Trump had charged that the Times got its reporting about Harvard “completely wrong.”
“I hereby demand that the morons that run (into the ground!) the Times’ change their story, immediately,” the President wrote, despite the First Amendment’s strong protections for the press.
He then attacked the paper’s reporting on the election and polling results.
“The New York Times coverage of me is so purposely wrong. We will soon see how I do in my lawsuit against these fraudsters! FAKE NEWS!” he declared.
The president appeared to be referring to a report in The New York Times, which said in part that “President Trump has backtracked on a major point in negotiations with Harvard, dropping his administration’s demand for a $200 million payment to the government.”
Less than one hour earlier, Trump escalated his battle with Harvard University, calling the 389-year-old institution “Strongly Antisemitic,” while alleging it had been “behaving very badly.”
“We are now seeking One Billion Dollars in damages, and want nothing further to do, into the future, with Harvard University,” Trump wrote.
Pointing to discussions about a “job training concept” that he suggested had dissolved, the president called it “merely a way of Harvard getting out of a large cash settlement of more than 500 Million Dollars, a number that should be much higher for the serious and heinous illegalities that they have committed. This should be a Criminal, not Civil, event.”
AFP reported that Trump’s allegations did not specify “the basis for criminal action or charges he envisaged could be involved.”
