President Trump has made clear his animus toward mainstream media organizations. Now he’s getting more personal.
Mr. Trump and his key lieutenant, Elon Musk, who has been empowered to run what they call the Department of Government Efficiency as a “special government employee,” have attacked journalists by name in recent days on the social media platforms they own: Truth Social and X.
On his Truth Social account on Friday, Mr. Trump called for The Washington Post to fire Eugene Robinson, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, and labeled him “incompetent.” Mr. Trump frequently posts on the account to his millions of followers and regularly condemns perceived enemies.
Mr. Robinson had written in an opinion column on Thursday that top Republican senators “should be ashamed of themselves” for not standing up to Mr. Trump during the confirmation process for some of his cabinet picks and for not protesting Mr. Musk’s taking an ax to government departments like the United States Agency for International Development, which administers foreign aid programs. Mr. Robinson also appeared on “Morning Joe” on MSNBC on Friday to discuss his column.
“So sad to see him trying to justify the waste, fraud, and corruption at USAID with his pathetic Radical Left SPIN,” Mr. Trump wrote. “He should be fired immediately!!!”
In an email, a spokeswoman for The Post said: “Eugene Robinson is a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist with a 45-year record of integrity, professionalism and scrupulous reporting and commentary. The Washington Post stands behind Gene — just as it stands behind all journalists and news organizations dedicated to independent coverage and a free press.”
Mr. Musk took aim at a Wall Street Journal investigative reporter, Katherine Long. Ms. Long was the first to reveal, in a report in The Journal on Thursday, that Marko Elez, one of Mr. Musk’s lieutenants in the Department of Government Efficiency, was linked to a since-deleted racist social media account that had posted statements like, “You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity.”
Mr. Elez resigned after The Journal approached the White House for comment, according to the article. It was Ms. Long’s first article in her new job at The Journal.
Mr. Musk said in separate replies on X on Friday that Ms. Long was “a disgusting and cruel person” and should be “fired immediately.”
Vice President JD Vance also weighed in on X on Friday, saying that he disagreed with some of Mr. Elez’s posts but that they shouldn’t “ruin a kid’s life.” (Mr. Elez is 25 years old.)
“We shouldn’t reward journalists who try to destroy people. Ever,” Mr. Vance wrote.
The Wall Street Journal did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Journalists have a job to do and should never be attacked by high-ranking government officials for doing it,” Timothy Richardson, the journalism and disinformation program director at PEN America, a free-expression nonprofit, said in a statement.
He added, “Musk’s call for this journalist’s firing contradicts his self-proclaimed free speech advocacy and reveals his hypocrisy.”
The behavior is not new for Mr. Trump. In his first term, he frequently criticized high-profile journalists, including Jim Acosta of CNN, Katy Tur of NBC News and Maggie Haberman of The New York Times.
Since his inauguration in January, Mr. Trump has been quick to demonize what he calls “the fake news media.” He promoted a false claim on his Truth Social account this week that government agencies had given “billions of dollars” to news organizations “as a ‘payoff’ for creating good stories about the Democrats.”
In fact, the cited figures showed millions of dollars being paid in subscriptions to media outlets and professional subscription services.
Mr. Trump’s administration has said it will cancel some government subscriptions to news organizations as it tries to slash government spending. The White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told reporters that the Trump administration would cancel all government Politico subscriptions. The Times reported on Thursday that the Agriculture Department had canceled its subscriptions to Politico Pro, Politico’s professional subscription service, which reports on policy and legislation.
Politico’s leaders said in a note to readers on Thursday that Politico was a privately owned company that had never received any government funding.
“Government agencies that subscribe do so through standard public procurement processes — just like any other tool they buy to work smarter and be more efficient,” the statement said.
