Donald Trump Claims Media Ignoring Certain Russia Facts; Proven Wrong

Though he’s reportedly refraining from golf today out of respect for the grieving students of Florida, this day of mourning hasn’t stopped President Donald Trump from his other favorite hobbies: Tweeting and complaining about the media.

“Funny how the fake News Media doesn’t want to say that the Russian group was formed in 2014, long before my run for President,” Trump tweeted this afternoon. “Maybe they knew I was going to run even thought I didn’t know!”

Trump’s claim was, naturally, fact-checked within minutes, and found lacking in accuracy. A Washington Post writer tweeted a list of news outlets that had, of course, reported the very fact that Trump claimed was ignored: The Washington Post, The New York Times, NPR, CNN, Fox News, ABC, NBC, CBS, MSNBC, PBS, AP, Reuters, New Yorker, BuzzFeed, Daily Beast, BBC, Slate, Vox, Atlantic. And that’s just a partial list.

Trump wasn’t upset with all news organizations today, though, retweeting a New York Post opinion column by Michael Goodwin headlined “Charges Deal Don A Big Win.”

But the most blatant bit of presidential cherry-picking came with Trump’s re-tweeting of selected tweets by Rob Goldman, Facebook’s VP of Ads.

Goldman’s tweets from yesterday address the Mueller indictments and note that Facebook “shared Russian ads with Congress, Mueller and the American people to help the public understand how the Russians abused our system.” Still, Goldman writes, “there are keys facts about the Russian actions that are still not well understood,” and he then goes on to say that “the majority of the Russian ad spend happened AFTER the election,” and that “The main goal of the Russian propaganda and misinformation effort is to divide America by using our institutions, like free speech and social media, against us.”

Music to Trump’s ears, right?