The White House on Thursday followed up its plan to cancel its subscriptions to the New York Times and the Washington Post by urging all federal agencies to do the same thing.
“Not renewing subscriptions across all federal agencies will be a significant cost saving for taxpayers — hundreds of thousands of dollars,” White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham said in a statement, without indicating how she arrived at that cost savings or how many subscriptions government agencies have.
The Post offers free digital subscriptions to federal employees who use their government email addresses, according to the Wall Street Journal, which first reported the news.
Representatives for the White House, Times and Post did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The move follows Trump’s statement to Fox News earlier this week that the White House “won’t be renewing” its subscriptions to the papers, which he has long derided as “fake news” for their aggressive coverage of his administration. Grisham subsequently confirmed the White House’s cancellation plans to Politico on Tuesday.
In September, Trump kicked off Labor Day morning by attacking the “LameStream media” in a series of tweets, singling out the Washington Post and saying the paper “brought racist attacks against our Nation.” Later that month — and many times before — he went after the Times by name as well.
Tuesday, the Post’s Paul Farhi wrote on Twitter in response to the news, “Two reactions: 1. Thanks for subscribing in the first place; and 2. He’s just getting around to cancelling now?”