The New York Times said on Wednesday that it would not “be deterred by false and inflammatory language” in response to President Donald Trump’s latest claim that the outlet’s reporting on his age was an attempt to “libel and demean” him.
The paper said its audience deserved “in-depth reporting and regular updates about the health of the leaders they elect.” The statement came in response to Trump’s Tuesday attack against the paper, apparently over a November article focused on his declining energy, which argued the Times should “cease publication because they are a horrible, biased, and untruthful ‘source’ of information.”
“Mr. Trump welcomed our reporting on the age and fitness of his predecessors; we’re applying the same journalistic scrutiny to his vitality,” spokesperson Nicole Taylor wrote in a statement. “Our reporting is heavily sourced, based on interviews with people clsoe to the president and with medical experts. We won’t be deterred by false and inflammatory language that distorts the role of a free press.”
Still, such an approach to news coverage didn’t seem to resonate with Trump, who claimed again that his cognitive test results were something few people, “including those working at The New York Times,” could do very well.
“Despite all of this, the time and work involved, The New York Times, and some others, like to pretend that I am ‘slowing up,’ am maybe not as sharp as I once was, or am in poor physical health, knowing that it is not true, and knowing that I work very hard, probably harder than I have ever worked before,” Trump wrote. “I will know when I am ‘slowing up,’ but it’s not now! After all of the work I have done with Medical Exams, Cognitive Exams, and everything else, I actually believe it’s seditious, perhaps even treasonous, for The New York Times, and others, to consistently do FAKE reports in order to libel and demean ‘THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES.’ They are true Enemies of the People, and we should do something about it.”
The Times’ Katie Rogers and Dylan Freedman reported last month that Trump has started his events later in recent months and his public appearances had decreased. They wrote that, while “Trump and the people around him still talk about him as if he is the Energizer Bunny of presidential politics,” “the reality is more complicated.”
Trump lashed out at the paper hours after the story published, calling Rogers “ugly, both inside and out” for writing the story and claimed then that the paper was an “ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE.”
