The Atlantic

Trump Says He Is Cutting Back on Cable TV

The president says he doesn't need the “total negativity,” and describes his draw to TV audiences as the biggest “since the World Trade Center came down.”
Source: Brendan McDermid / Reuters

You could be forgiven for not making it through the entire transcript of Donald Trump’s recent interview with the Associated Press. The conversation is dizzying and at times incoherent.

In a series of astonishing statements, Trump underscores the extent to which his worldview—and his sense of himself—is shaped by what he sees on television. Yet at the same time, his media literacy is questionable.

References to the news media surface repeatedly throughout the conversation. “I used to get great press,” Trump says at one

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