Trump personally calls out Time Magazine for fake news story about removing MLK bust from Oval Office

By Saagar Enjeti, DCNF

President Donald Trump went after a Time Magazine reporter for spreading a rumor that the Martin Luther King Jr. bust had been removed from the Oval Office.

Trump said the reporter, Zeke Miller, couldn’t see the bust because a camera man was standing in front of it and immediately assumed it had been removed. Trump admonished the media in a speech at CIA headquarters Saturday for initially running with the story before issuing a retraction that he said did not get as much attention as the original story. He continued that he did bring back a bust of Winston Churchill to the Oval Office because he admires Churchill, and confirmed that British Prime Minister Theresa May would visit the U.S. shortly.

After Trump declared that “the media are the most dishonest human beings on earth,” and repeated his criticism, he was met with cheers and applause. Trump also took umbrage at the media’s frequent comparisons of his inaugural crowd to that of President Barack Obama’s 2009 address.

Miller apologized for spreading the news late Friday night in a series of tweets:

Correction: The MLK bust is still in the Oval Office. It was obscured by an agent and door.

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 21, 2017

Tweeting again: wh aide confirms the MLK bust is still there. I looked for it in the oval 2x & didn’t see it. My apologies to my colleagues

— Zeke Miller (@ZekeJMiller) January 21, 2017

Miller was scolded that night by White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who tweeted a photo of the bust inside the oval office, along with an admonishment of the media’s frequent tweeting of stories before verifying facts.

A reminder of the media danger of tweet first check facts later https://t.co/dYqwRv1p0f

— Sean Spicer (@PressSec) January 21, 2017

Follow Saagar Enjeti on Twitter

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