Can President Trump handle the truth?

And how should the press treat his mistruths?

Welcome to the Reliable Sources Podcast.

I'm your host Brian Stelter.

This weekly podcast is our chance to go in depth with media leaders and newsmakers.

And this week I'm joined from the New York Times Newsroom by David Leinhart,

an op-ed columnist and associate editorial page editor.

David's been writing about Trump's war against the media, climate change, and

other issues recently, so there's lots to talk about.

David thanks for joining me.

Thanks for having me Brian.

I've been having a hard time articulating exactly what Trump is doing

with all of his fake news attacks and I liked the way you framed it in a piece

earlier this week you said this is one of those weeks when President Trump's

campaign to discredit any independent source of information has been especially chilling.

You know, what you're doing is you're taking it a lot further than war against the media.

You're saying it's a campaign to discredit anybody that's saying things he doesn't like.

Talk me through why this week was especially chilling.

This week was especially chilling because of the ferocity of the language that he used against both the media and against the Mueller investigation. If you look at the atmosphere at these Trump rallies, they really have gotten quite nasty, even

nastier it seems than during the campaign. It does feel like they're kind of on the

cusp of people doing something really inappropriate, not just screaming.

If you look at the anger in their faces, it doesn't look like a scene that anyone would

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