Now, goaded by Stephen K. Bannon, his chief strategist, Mr. Trump has turned on the news media
with escalating rhetoric, labeling major outlets as “the enemy of the American people.”
“I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year,” Mr. Trump wrote.
Whether the New England-bred spokesman realizes it or not, the expression is perhaps less an insult than a reminder of an era when Donald J. Trump mastered the New York tabloid terrain —
and his own narrative — shaping his image with a combination of on-the-record bluster and off-the-record gossip.
He would tell us 100 times: ‘Now listen, I’m going to tell you something, but it didn’t come from me.’”
Mr. Trump, who taunted his blind-quoted critics on Friday — “Let ’em say it to my face!” — hid his own identity to push self-promoting
stories in the 1980s, posing as his own public-relations man under the fake names John Miller and John Barron.
“New York is extremely intense and competitive, but it is actually a much smaller pond than Washington, where you have many more players with access to many more sources,” said Howard Wolfson, who has split his career between New York
and Washington, advising former Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
Reporters back in New York, however, knew that the president’s call for an end to “sources” — meaning anonymous sources leaking damaging details of his campaign’s relationship
with Russian officials — did not jibe with his onetime role as a no-fingerprints gossipmonger, trumpeting his business dealings and romantic life in late-night phone calls.
A tabloid darling back when he was running a close-knit real estate and branding business in New York, President Trump has found himself subsumed and increasingly infuriated by a national media
that regularly confronts him with leaks and criticisms.
“It’s like Nixonian times again,” said George Rush, a veteran New York gossip columnist who has covered Mr. Trump for decades.