U.S. President Donald Trump in a rare and unexpected gesture on Saturday, expressed his appreciation to the media organisations for making his Friday’s inauguration as the 45th President a “fantastic” one.
The Correspondent of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in New York reports that Trump’s surprising gratitude to the media came after several months of adversarial relationship between him and the news outlets.
The president particularly thanked the media for making “great reviews” of his inaugural speech.
“A fantastic day and evening in Washington D.C.
“Thank you to @FoxNews and so many other news outlets for the GREAT reviews of the speech!” Trump tweeted.
NAN reports that there has been a strained relationship between Trump and the American media over what he termed their unfavourable coverage and analyses of him during the presidential electioneering, in favour of his rival Democratic Hillary Clinton, projected to win the presidency.
Trump, who lost the popular vote to Clinton by 2.9 million, however, won the presidency by electoral college vote.
NAN recalls that Trump had at his last Presidential Inaugural Ball on Friday night, hinted his supporters that he would keep tweeting as president so as to “bypass dishonest media”.
“Let me ask you, should I keep the Twitter going or not?
“Keep it going? I think so.
“Because the enemies keep saying ‘Oh, that’s terrible’.
“But it’s a way of bypassing dishonest media,” Trump told the crowd, who cheered in affirmation.
Trump also talked about how he broke all the analyses against him and went on to win the presidency.
According to him, he knew for a long time that he would win.
“I knew that I would win; about four weeks to the election, I knew that we would win.”
He explained his campaign team’s strategy to win the election, disclosing that two weeks to the poll, they had 42 rallies adding, “incredible!”
The president said his support base was no longer just supporters but “a movement”.
“This (Make America Great Again!) is an incredible movement.
“I mean, the world has never seen something like this before.
“There is nothing like this anywhere in the world,” the president said.
He also said that he was already bringing jobs back to America again immediately after winning the election, even before his inauguration.
“The jobs are already coming back. Can’t you see it?” Trump asked the cheering crowd.
According to him, even those who did not like him had told him after the inauguration that “it was incredible!”
Trump, a Republican, was inaugurated on Friday as the 45th president, succeeding former president Barack Obama, a Democrat. (NAN)