President Trump Accuses Press Of Covering Up Terrorist Attacks

In his speech to the United States Central Command Monday, President Trump expressed his intentions to fight terrorism and accused the press of not covering terrorist attacks.

He listed several known terror attacks, including those in San Bernardino, Orlando, Boston and New York City, apparently as a justification for his recent executive order limiting immigration.

"You seen what happened in Paris, and Nice," he said. "All over Europe. It's gotten to a point where it's not even being reported. And in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it. They have their reasons, and you understand that."

Bradd Jaffy noted that the the press is not covering up any attacks — an ironic accusation to levy after White House counselor Kellyanne Conway referenced a non-existent terrorist attack in an interview.

Jaffy, of NBC News, also said that none of the attacks Trump listed would have been prevented by his executive order. The terrorists involved did not come from Iraq, Iran, Syria, Somalia, Sudan, Libya or Yemen — those countries which were named in the immigration ban.

Trump did not mention the recent terrorist attack on a mosque in Quebec City. A French-Canadian gunman killed six people and injured eight at the place of worship.

Patch reached out to the Department of Defense for a list of any attacks that the press might have missed, but the DOD declined to respond and directed inquiries to the White House.

A White House spokeswoman said she was unable to comment on the matter. Patch reached out to Hope Hicks, a long-time communications aide to the president, but received no response.

Sean Spicer, White House press secretary, told reporters on Air Force One that Trump "felt that members of media don't always cover some of those events to the extent that other events might get covered."

Later, the White House sent out a list of 78 attacks, many of which it believes were not sufficiently covered.

The locations of the incidents include New York City, Denmark, France, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, Bonsia, Egypt and more. Several of the attacks listed garnered widespread coverage, including the aforementioned incidents in France and San Bernardino. Others received more localized coverage, depending on the incident's scale.

Most of the others appear to be crimes such as shootings and stabbings. Many of the attackers are listed as "unidentified."

One incident simply lists a police officer who was attacked with a knife in Boston by a "US person." This appears to refer to an incident on June 3, 2015, when police officers shot and killed a man under investigation for connections to terror who was reportedly waving a knife. This probably stretches most definitions of a terrorist attack, but it was covered by CNN.

It's not clear which, if any, of these events were not covered. For instance, a lesser-known incident in Garland, Texas, chosen from the list arbitrarily, yielded 80,000 Google results, including a story in the Washington Post.

Not included in the list is Dylann Roof's killing of nine black churchgoers in Charleston, South Carolina, in June 2015, driven by a white supremacist ideology.

Photo credit: Voice of America