Donald Trump's Changing His Mind About a Top 'Enemy'

Former President Donald Trump described the media as his "friends" during a campaign stop in Michigan on Tuesday.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, has long had a tumultuous relationship with the news media throughout his political career, often describing reporters as his enemies and taking issue with what he views as unfair coverage of him.

He quipped about his relations with the media during a speech in Grand Rapids, Michigan, on Tuesday afternoon.

"I see we have media here. That's nice. They're our deep friends, right? We're getting better over the years, much better," he said, prompting laughter from the audience.

On Tuesday, Trump made two campaign stops—one in Grand Rapids and the other in Green Bay, Wisconsin. These are two of the battleground states, roughly divided evenly between Democrats and Republicans, that could decide the potential rematch between Trump and President Joe Biden in November.

A video of Trump's remarks posted to X, formerly Twitter, by conservative commentator Benny Johnson was viewed more than 86,000 times by Monday morning.

His remarks were celebrated on social media by many of his supporters, some of whom responded with laughter and appeared to interpret the comment as a joke. Johnson, for instance, included a laughing emoji in his post.

Newsweek reached out to Trump's campaign for comment via email.

Trump has cast the media as his enemy several times in recent years, at times sparking backlash from critics who say the rhetoric is inappropriate. He has also famously labeled news outlets he disapproves of as "fake news."

"Much of it is absolutely the enemy of the people," Trump told Fox & Friends in 2020. "And they see it. And nobody said it like I say it, but I say it loud and clear. It's the enemy of the people, whether it's The New York Times, Washington Post, the networks."

He has frequently attacked journalists, including in January 2023, when he argued the journalists who published the leaked draft of Dobbs v. Jackson—the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade—should be jailed if they do not disclose their source.

Meanwhile, Trump is locked in a sharply competitive race with Biden ahead of November, with polls suggesting either candidate could win in November. Trump for months led in most polls, but some recent surveys have shown Biden narrowing the gap.

A Morning Consult poll of 6,018 registered voters from March 29 to 31 found Biden with a narrow lead, winning 44 percent of the respondents' support to Trump's 42 percent. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus one percentage point.

A Clarity Campaign Labs survey among 1,080 registered voters from March 23 to 27 found Trump winning 50 percent to Biden's 46 percent of respondents, amounting to a 4-point lead. The poll had a margin of error of plus or minus 1.85 percentage points.