Donald Trump phoned into Fox News on Thursday morning to lambast the “dishonest media” in an extraordinary tirade that had even the hosts looking uncomfortable.
The President appeared to be riled up after former FBI Director, James Comey, spoke at a town hall event for CNN to promote his new book, which gives an insider account of his firing last year.
During the monologue, Trump referred to “leakin’ lyin’ Comey”, revealed his secret for “looking good” and suggested he should receive positive media coverage in exchange for money.
“People have to understand how dishonest the media is. And in all fairness to Fox, you guys don’t always treat me great, but you treat me fairly,” President Trump began.
“It’s not like Fox is perfect for me, they’re not, they’re tough. But at least it’s fair.
“When you look at some of the others like CNN, they’ll have a council of seven people and of the seven people every one of them is against me.
“Where do they even find these people?”
One of the hosts tried to interject to no avail, saying: “Excuse me Mr President but I would recommend you watch less of them.”
“I don’t watch them at all!” the President shouted back, just seconds after giving a detailed description of their recent coverage.
Barely pausing for breath, Trump then suggested he should get positive media coverage because of the money his show The Apprentice used to make.
He said: “I’ll tell you what, I watched leakin’ lyin’ Comey last night and I hated to do it. Y’know, one of the reasons, people say ‘you’re still looking good Mr President, how do you do it?’
Then it got a bit... weird.
“Well one of the things I’ve been able to do, which is something I never thought I had the ability, I would always watch, frankly now I don’t have time for two reasons. There’s too much and I don’t have time, but I would watch whether it’s good or bad, I would always watch, I have an ability, I don’t watch NBC anymore, they’re as bad as CNN, I don’t.. and by the way I made them a fortune with The Apprentice, think of that one. I made them and.. I made them a fortune.
“You would think that these guys would treat me good, I made them a fortune, so they treat me horribly and they treat me falsely. And just one thing - I don’t watch things that I can put it out of my mind and I never ever thought that would be possible.
“And you know what that does? It keeps you on the ball. It keeps you... you keep your sanity and it works very well.”
Once again, one of the hosts, by this point looking distinctly uncomfortable, tried to stop Trump, saying: “Mr President can I ask you...”
Ignoring her, he continued: “I did watch a liar/leaker and his performance by the way, was horrible and I will say this - Anderson Cooper was surprisingly tough and he did a good job.”