From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily.

Today, for 77 minutes amid intense scrutiny of his leadership and connections to Russia,

President Trump turns the scrutiny back on the news media, attacking its credibility and

its judgment during a remarkable news conference. And the view from Russia, why the government of

Vladimir Putin may relish all of this attention, no matter how good or bad.

It's Friday, February 17th.

I turn on the TV, open the newspapers, and I see stories of chaos.

Yet it is the exact opposite. This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine.

In these stories, Trump sees a version of his presidency that he does not like.

I mean, it's story after story after story is bad.

This week, it's the story of his national security advisor,

retired Lieutenant General Michael Flynn. He was forced to resign after reports

that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about a phone call with the Russian ambassador to the

United States. The press has become so dishonest that if we don't talk about it,

we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people.

A tremendous disservice. We have to talk about it, to find out what's going on,

because the press honestly is out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control.

That view of the press brings us and the rest of the media to the White House on Thursday afternoon,

where President Trump is standing behind a podium in the East Room.

This press conference was hastily called. There was an hour's notice,

at least in terms of when the cable networks broke in to say they were going to do this.

Jim Rudenberg is the media columnist at the time and a former political reporter.

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