U.S. President Donald Trump had plenty to say about the media’s use of anonymous sources at a campaign rally in Montana on Thursday.
Meanwhile, on Twitter, a Fox Business Network (FBN) correspondent said Trump had been one of his own unnamed sources in the past.
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The occasion for the remarks was a rally on behalf of State Auditor Matt Rosendale, who is challenging Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in the midterm elections in November.
In a speech that touched on numerous topics, Trump lambasted journalists for using anonymous sources in their stories.
Here’s what he said:
“Seventy-five per cent of those people are downright dishonest, downright dishonest.
“They’re fake. They’re fake. They quote sources, a source within the Trump Organization said, a source, they don’t have a source, they never use names anymore.
“You know in the old days, you have to use names. Jim Smith said that Donald Trump is a bad guy. They don’t do that anymore.
“They say a source within the administration, they make the sources up, they don’t exist in many cases.”
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For all that Trump had to say about anonymous sources, Fox Business Network correspondent Charles Gasparino had plenty more.
In a series of tweets, he noted that Trump himself had acted as one of his anonymous sources for “years.”
Gasparino went on to say that he has always personally had good relations with Trump but that his “anonymous source schtick is complete BS he knows it.”
This is far from the first time that the issues of anonymous sources and leaked information have cropped up since Trump took office.
Last July, Trump’s then-communications director Anthony Scaramucci vowed to crack down on leakers, taking aim at then-chief of staff Reince Priebus as one of his suspects.
Scaramucci was later fired after he reportedly spent only 10 days on the job — though he himself insisted he lasted 11 days.
The firing came after The New Yorker published a story about Scaramucci calling a reporter to rant about leakers.
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Anonymous sources weren’t the only topic that Trump delved into on Thursday.
He took a shot at Sen. Elizabeth Warren, calling her “Pocahontas” to challenge her claim of Indigenous ancestry.
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Trump also took shots at Therese Okoumou, the activist who climbed the Statue of Liberty in protest of family separations at the U.S.-Mexico border.
“You saw that clown yesterday on the Statue of Liberty, you saw the guys that went up there?” Trump asked the Montana crowd.
“I wouldn’t have done it! I would have said, let’s get some nets and let’s wait until she comes down.”
- With files from The Associated Press
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