Trump promised big change, but started presidency by picking small fights

Trump turned what was intended to be a bridge-building visit to the CIA on Saturday into a media-bashing session centred on what he saw as low-ball reports about the crowd size on Inauguration Day. He berated a magazine journalist by name for an inaccurate report about Oval Office decor that had been quickly corrected. Then, he dispatched his press secretary, Sean Spicer, to the White House briefing room to reinforce the message in an angry tirade that included false — and easy to fact-check — statements.

Indeed, some of Trump’s remarks at CIA headquarters, with agency brass looking on, might well have come at one of his raucous campaign rallies. But this time, it was a memorial to fallen CIA agents that served as the backdrop for Trump’s declaration that journalists are “the most dishonest human beings on Earth.”