Following a series of tweets claiming the unfairness of a “crazed” news media attacking him for his rallygoers’ “Send her back” chant, Donald Trump on Friday morning turned his fire on New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who he alleged betrayed him by calling him “a racist” in a column after they had a phone conversation and for unknown reasons attacked his facial appearance. “Thomas ‘the Chin’ Friedman, a weak and pathetic sort of guy,” the president tweeted, “writes columns for The New York Times in between rounds of his favorite game, golf. Two weeks ago, while speaking to a friend on his cell phone, I unfortunately ended up speaking to Friedman. We spoke for a while and he could not have been nicer or more respectful to your favorite President, me. Then I saw the column he wrote, ‘Trump Will Be Re-elected, Won’t He?’ He called me a Racist, which I am not...” He added: “Really Nasty to me in his average I.Q. Columns, kissed my a.. on the call. Phony!”

Aside from the Friedman-bashing tweets, Trump claimed an airport crowd that cheered Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) upon her return to Minneapolis was staged and then retweeted a series of his July 15 attacks on the congresswoman and three Democratic female colleagues for what he called their “foul language and racist hatred” and “horrible & disgusting actions.”