President Donald Trump accused The New York Times of altering a photo of Trump National Doral, his Miami resort, on a Truth Social post. He said the paper showed a facade that had been blackened and denigrated so the property would look shoddy, filthy, and bad, and that the image was meant for world leaders even though, in his words, it is not the “TRUMP” way.
He said the real facade matched a second picture he posted, not the one he said the Times had doctored. He also pointed to the resort’s Blue Monster Golf Course, home of the Cadillac Championship, and called it one of the best and toughest courses anywhere in the world. He labeled the coverage “Artificial News” and wrote that the Times “is a CROOKED outfit that caters to Lunatics who want to see our Country fail.”
Trump tied the photo complaint to a broader claim about the paper’s future. “Some day in the not too distant future The Times will be forced to close its dirty doors, and that will be a Great Day for America!” he wrote, signing the message “President DONALD J. TRUMP.”
A rally report set off an earlier post about empty seats
The Doral message came a few hours after another Truth Social post aimed at the same paper. The Times had reported that the venue for a rally Trump held in Alabama on Friday “was not full.” In his reply, Trump wrote as if the paper were talking about his rally in Ohio on Saturday.
He rejected any suggestion of empty seats. “There are no empty seats, there haven’t been for years, and there never will be,” he wrote in part. He went on, “The Rallies are ‘HOTTER’ than ever. They are all ‘happenings,’ and they never happened before, and will never be duplicated again.”
In the later post, he said the paper’s numbers were “way down due to lack of credibility,” and he described the Doral item as only a small sample of coverage he said he had faced every day for many years.
He named two reporters he said he had not spoken with in years, writing, “Guys like Liddle’ Peter Baker, and Maggot HAGerman, are Third Rate Reporters, who I haven’t spoken to in years, but who write about me constantly, never fact checking, or caring, about whether or not their story is true.”
That same message ended with the line about the paper’s doors. Trump wrote that someday, not too far off, the Times would be forced to close, and he called that outcome a great day for the country.
Monday also brought separate limits on press access. During his second term, Trump has tried to keep CNN, MS NOW, and Politico out of the White House. The administration has kept tightening press access, such as when it subpoenaed New York Times journalists over a Qatari Air Force One story and federal agents showed up at their homes. On Monday, the White House refused to let Politico travel on Air Force One.
A few hours after that decision, Trump answered CNN’s Kristen Holmes when she raised poll numbers among Latino voters that she described as sinking. “You’re fake news!” he said. “You’re CNN. You’re fake news. My poll numbers are great, and all you have to do is look at the crowds we’re drawing, and every time I leave – that candidate will be losing – and by the time I leave, they’re winning. No, CNN poll numbers are fake, and your whole outfit is fake, and so are you.”
Published: Oct 6, 2026 07:45 am