US President Donald Trump has cancelled the subscriptions to the New York Times and the Washington Post after slamming the news publications as 'fake' and has called all federal agencies to also revoke their subscription.
Calling the newspapers as "corrupt" Trump during an interview with Fox News on Monday said, "All these people for doing it from the New York Times, which is a fake newspaper — we don't even want it in the White House anymore," he said during his interview with Hannity. "We're going to probably terminate that and The Washington Post. They're fake."
Days after the interview, White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham in a statement on Thursday confirmed Trump's decision and said, "Not renewing subscriptions across all federal agencies will be a significant cost saving — hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars will be saved."
An impeachment enquiry was announced last month after it was revealed that Trump had abused his powers as a President by asking for a personal favour from Ukraine's President to investigate former Vice President and 2020 candidate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.
Trump accuses media of biased coverage
Trump in the interview had accused members of the press of biased coverage. On the issue of Hunter Biden who is accused of unfair leverage by being hired for a board of a Ukranian energy company despite sufficient experience, Trump said, "he has a bad track record". He said that while Hunter Biden being "thrown out" of the Navy Reserve in 2015 due to testing positive for cocaine would be have been different had his sons been involved in such cases.
"If that were Don Jr., if that were Eric Trump, who are very outstanding young men, it would be the biggest story of the century," Trump said. He has repeatedly slammed the press for reporting on the various policies undertaken by the Trump administration.
However, members of the press community stated that the revoking the subscriptions will not deter them to do "quality journalism". "I have no doubt the hardworking reporters of The New York Times and Washington Post will continue to do quality journalism, regardless of whether the president acknowledges he reads them. Pretending to ignore the work of a free press won't make the news go away or stop reporters from informing the public and holding those in power accountable," Jonathan Karl, the president of the White House Correspondents' Association was quoted as saying by the New York Times.
