Trump pledges support for U.S. intelligence agencies, bashes press at CIA speech

President Donald Trump speaks at the CIA headquarters

(Image credit: Pool/Getty Images)

published 22 January 2017

President Donald Trump visited CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on Saturday and gave a speech pledging full White House support for the CIA, especially in counterterrorism projects, where he argued the United States has been too restrained. "I am so behind you," he said, "you're gonna get so much backing. Maybe you're gonna say, please, don't give us so much backing, Mr. President, please, we don't need that much backing."

Trump also bashed the media for reporting election-era acrimony between himself and intelligence agencies. "I have a running war with the media, they are among the most dishonest human beings on Earth," he said. "They sort of made it sound like I had a feud with the intelligence community. The reason you are the number one stop is exactly the opposite." Watch his full remarks below. Bonnie Kristian

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Explore More

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.