‘Racism Witch Hunt!’ Trump rips into NYT leak scandal, calling it ‘evil propaganda machine’

US president Donald Trump ramped up his attacks on the “failing New York Times” on Sunday, accusing the paper of engaging in a “Racism Witch Hunt” following leaked comments from the news outlet’s executive editor.

“The failing New York Times, in one of the most devastating portrayals of bad journalism in history, got caught by a leaker that they are shifting from the Phony Russian Collusion Narrative (the Mueller Report & his testimony were a total disaster), to a Racism Witch Hunt,” the president said on Twitter. 

“‘Journalism’ has reached a new low in the history of our Country. It is nothing more than an evil propaganda machine for the Democrat Party. The reporting is so false, biased and evil that it has now become a very sick joke…But the public is aware!” he added. 

Trump’s messages come in the wake of explosive leaked comments from the Times’ executive editor, Dean Baquet, which were made during a staff ‘town hall’ meeting on Monday.

Slate published a transcript of the meeting which shows Baquet talking about the paper emerging from the Mueller investigation “a little tiny bit flat-footed,” but then pivoting to writing about Trump and race. 

“How do we cover America, that’s become so divided by Donald Trump?” he asks. “How do we write about race in a thoughtful way, something we haven’t done in a large way in a long time? That, to me, is the vision for coverage.”

The comments drew a storm of criticism onto The Gray Lady, with many accusing the Times of trying to paint Trump as a racist after the damp-squib Russia investigation petered out. 

Trump also drew attention to the leaked meeting on Saturday describing it as a “disgrace” and retweeting a message from conservative TV host Sharyl Attkisson.

“The takeaway? The NYT says it is mapping out a narrative in advance of any naturally-occurring, true news events, and plans to shape all natural-occurring, true news events so that they are reported in the context of racism. This is what they believe their readers want,” the ‘Full Measure’ presenter Sharyl Attkisson said in the Trump-endorsed message.

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