Over roughly the past day, President Trump has decried the “totally dishonest” media, with its “fake news” and “fake books.” He has argued that Google is biased against conservatives. The president has even declared there is no chaos in his White House, which he claimed is a “ ‘smooth running machine’ with changing parts,” despite the tumult that emanates almost daily from within its walls. The president and his supporters are under siege, the tweets imply, from pernicious forces conspiring against them. One former White House staffer described Trump’s tweets this week as just the latest salvo in the long narrative arc he’s long been building against his favorite villains, including the media and Mueller’s probe. “This is Trump at war — war with the elites; war with the permanent political class; war with the opposition party media, tech oligarchs, the Antifa anarchists,” Stephen K. Bannon, Trump’s former White House chief strategist, wrote in a text message.

Source: Washington Post August 30, 2018 23:38 UTC