by WorldTribune Staff, February 17, 2017

Highlights from President Donald Trump’s Feb. 16 press conference:

So if the Democrats who have … All you have to do is look at where they are right now. The only thing they can do is delay, because they’ve screwed things up royally. Believe me. Let me list to you some of the things that we’ve done in just a short period of time. Just got here. I got here with no cabinet. Again, each of these actions is a promise I made to the American people. So we’ll go over just some of them …

• We directed the elimination of regulations that undermine manufacturing, and called for expedited approval of the permits needed for America and American infrastructure — and that means plants, equipment, roads, bridges, factories …

• We directed the creation of a task force for reducing violent crime in America, including the horrendous situation — take a look Chicago and others — taking place right now in our inner cities. Horrible. We’ve ordered the Department of Homeland Security and justice to coordinate on a plan to destroy criminal cartels coming into the United States with drugs. We’re becoming a drug-infested nation. Drugs becoming cheaper than candy bars, and we’re not gonna let it happen any longer …
• We’ve undertaken the most substantial border security measures in a generation to keep our nation and our tax dollars safe, and are now in the process of beginning to build a promised wall on the southern border …
• We are saving American lives every single day. The court system has not made it easy for us. And we’ve even created a new office in Homeland Security dedicated to the forgotten American victims of illegal immigrant violence, of which there are many. We’ve taken decisive action to keep radical Islamic terrorists out of our country. Though parts of our necessary and constitutional actions were blocked by a judge’s — in my opinion — incorrect and unsafe ruling, our administration is working night and day to keep you safe, including reporters safe …
• I will not back down from defending our country. I got elected on defense of our country. I keep my campaign promises, and our citizens will be very happy when they see the results. They already are; I can tell you that. Extreme vetting will be put in place, and it already is in place in many places. In fact, we had to go quicker than we thought because of the bad decision we received from a circuit that has been overturned at a record number. I’ve heard 80 percent. I find that hard to believe. That’s just a number I’ve heard, that they’re overturned 80 percent of the time …
• We’ve also taken steps to begin construction of the Keystone pipeline and Dakota Access pipelines — thousands and thousands of jobs — and put new buy America measures in place to require American steel for American pipelines …

This last month has represented an unprecedented degree of action on behalf of the great citizens of our country. Again, I say it, there has never been a presidency that’s done so much in such a short period of time. And we haven’t even started the big work yet that starts early next week. Some very big things are gonna be announced next week …

I’ll tell you something. I’ll be honest. Because I sort of enjoy this back-and-forth and I guess I have all my life, but I’ve never seen more dishonest media than, frankly, the political media. I thought the financial media was much better, much more honest, but I will say that I never get phone calls from the media. How do they write a story like that in the Wall Street Journal without asking me, or how do they the write a story in the New York Times, put it on the front page …

The leaks are real. You know what they said. You saw it. And the leaks are absolutely real. The news is fake because so much of the news is fake. So one thing that I felt it was very important to do — and I hope we can correct it. Because there’s nobody I have more respect for — well, maybe a little — than reporters, than good reporters. It’s very important to me, and especially in this position. It’s very important. I don’t mind bad stories. I can handle a bad story better than anybody, as long as it true. And, you know, over a course of time I’ll make mistakes and you’ll write badly, and I’m okay with that. But I’m not okay when it is fake. I mean, I watch CNN. It’s so much anger and hatred, and just the hatred …

But we have an administration where the Democrats are making it very difficult. I think we’re setting a record or close to a record in the time of approval of a cabinet. I mean, the numbers are crazy. When I’m looking, some of them were approved immediately; I’m going forever, and I still have a lot of people that we’re waiting for. And that’s all they’re doing is delaying. And you look at Schumer and the mess that he’s got over there and they have nothing going. The only thing they can do is delay …

Here’s the thing. The public isn’t… You know, they read newspapers, they see television, they watch. They don’t know if it’s true or false because they’re not involved. I’m involved. I’ve been involved with this stuff all my life. But I’m involved. So I know when you’re telling the truth and when you’re not. I just see many, many untruthful things. And I’ll tell you what else I see: I see tone. You know the word “tone.” The tone is such hatred …

I won with news conferences and probably speeches. I certainly didn’t win by people listening to you people (press). That’s for sure. But I’m having a good time …

Tomorrow they will say, “Donald Trump rants and raves at the press!” I’m not ranting and raving. I’m just telling you, y’know, you’re dishonest people …

But if you go, as an example you’re CNN, I mean, it’s story after story after story is bad. I won. I won. And the other thing, chaos. There’s zero chaos. We are running — this is a fine-tuned machine. And Reince (Priebus) happens to be doing a good job, but half of his job is putting out lies by the press. You know, I said to him yesterday, you know, this whole Russia scam that you guys are building so that you don’t talk about the real subject which is illegal leaks, but I watched him yesterday working so hard to try and get that story proper, and I’m saying here’s my chief of staff, a really good guy, did a phenomenal job at RNC — won the election, right? Won the presidency. We got some senators, we got some — all over the country, you take a look, he’s done a great job. But I said to myself, you know, and I said to somebody that was in there, I said you take a look Reince, he’s working so hard just putting out fires that are fake fires. I mean, they’re fake. They’re not true …

Unfortunately, much of the media in Washington, DC, along with New York, Los Angeles, in particular, speaks not for the people, but for the special interests and for those profiting off a very, very obviously broken system. The press has become so dishonest that if we don’t talk about it, we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people, tremendous disservice. We have to talk about it to find out what’s going on because the press honestly is out of control …

Full transcript

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