Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to President Donald Trump, said Monday that the administration will continue using the term “fake news” until the media understands that their “monumental desire” to attack the President is wrong.
“There is a monumental desire on behalf of the majority of the media, not just the pollsters, the majority of the media to attack a duly elected President in the second week of his term,” Gorka, a former Breitbart editor who also holds a PhD in political science, told syndicated conservative radio host Michael Medved.
“That’s how unhealthy the situation is and until the media understands how wrong that attitude is, and how it hurts their credibility, we are going to continue to say, ‘fake news.’ I’m sorry, Michael. That’s the reality,” he added.
Trump and his staff have repeatedly used the term “fake news” to discredit reporting on the presidential administration from mainstream outlets such as CNN and The New York Times, often offering no evidence to back up their disputes with those outlets’ stories.
Earlier in the interview, Gorka was asked Medved whether he would acknowledge that the administration’s controversial statement on Holocaust Remembrance Day was “at least questionable in being the first such statement in many years that didn’t recognize that Jewish extermination was the chief goal of the Holocaust.”
Gorka replied by calling criticism of the statement “asinine,” arguing that it was motivated by the media’s desire to attack Trump.
“It’s a Holocaust remembrance statement,” Gorka said. “No, I’m not going to admit it. Because it’s asinine. It’s absurd. You’re making a statement about the Holocaust. Of course it’s about the Holocaust because that’s what the statement’s about. It’s only reasonable to twist it if your objective is to attack the President.”
Gorka also sparred with a caller who contended that “every time you call everything fake news, it just turns everyone except your hardcore fans off.”
“Not everything’s fake news,” the caller added.
“You know, I would beg to differ,” Gorka shot back. “Every single organ that generates these kinds of stories comes from the same clique of media organs that predicted that Hillary (Clinton) would win and that Brexit wouldn’t occur. I know what fake news is. And it’s coming from those organizations. It’s time that you yourself understood that as well.”
