“But they’ve got to stop their leaking problems,” Mr. Trump warned the British embassy.
Mr. Trump condemned two freshman congresswomen who are frequent critics of the administration, Representative Ilhan Omar, Democrat of Minnesota, and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, capitalizing on an intraparty feud that has gripped the House majority. The freshman Democrats have accused Ms. Pelosi of singling them out for criticism because they are women of color.
[Read about the tensions between Ms. Pelosi and progressive Democrats.]
Ms. Omar “shouldn’t even be in office” Mr. Trump said, noting that the Muslim congresswoman is part of a group of freshman Democrats who “I don’t even know where they come from.” He also dinged Ms. Ocasio-Cortez for her chilly relationship with Ms. Pelosi, the speaker of the House. “I think Cortez is being very disrespectful to somebody that’s been there a long time,” he said.
Mr. Trump also offered an unusual defense of Ms. Pelosi, whom in the past he has called “Crazy Nancy,” noting that “she is not a racist. For them to call her a racist is a disgrace.”
But he saved perhaps the greatest ad hominem attack of the morning for his perpetual foil, The New York Times, a newspaper that Mr. Trump singled out for a report on the conditions in Border Patrol detention centers.
“They have phony sources,” he said. “I almost cried about that phony story,” he said, calling The Times a “very dishonest newspaper. What they do is a tremendous disservice to this country. They are truly the enemy of the people.” The Times, in a statement last week, said it was “confident in the accuracy of our reporting on the U.S. Border Patrol’s detention centers.”
[Read about conditions inside the detention center in Clint, Tex.]
Mr. Trump said that Vice President Mike Pence would be visiting detention centers to view the conditions there firsthand. “And that was my idea,” he said. “I’d love to be there.”
Then, finally he sent Mr. Acosta off with a handshake and a backslap, sending him back into the White House, before trudging across the lawn and finally boarding his helicopter.