Trump Hates Anonymous Sources...Unless He's The One Using Them

Trump has a problem with anonymous sources — unless he’s the one using them.

The president recently tweeted, “When you see ‘anonymous source,’ stop reading the story, it is fiction!”

However he has also tweeted in the past that, “an ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud.”

When Trump doesn’t want to use an anonymous source, he has been known to credit unconfirmed (and maybe fake) PR sources like John Barron, or John Miller. He also referred to a “friend” in a past speech he anonymously identified as “Jim” who “loves Paris” and told him “I don’t go there anymore, Paris is no longer Paris.”

The White House has refused to say whether Jim actually exists, leading to speculation that Jim is an imaginary friend, or an entirely made-up source.

When all those other ambiguous references aren’t available, there’s always “people.” The president has referred to the generalized group of people plenty of times in the past, who say enemies spied on his campaign, claim he’s doing a great job as president, and insist he won the popular vote.