Donald Trump came up with a new derisive name for the media on Tuesday.
And critics promptly responded with a punchline.
Speaking at a rally in Sparrows Point, Maryland, Trump justified his frequent appearances on the campaign trail ahead of the 2026 midterm elections by arguing he needs to personally spread the word about what he described as the country’s success under his administration.
“I had to get out, I had to do it, we had to explain what we’re doing,” he told the crowd. “There’s never been a time like this in our country.”
After boasting about investment he claimed is pouring into the United States, Trump complained he was forced to toot his own horn because the press wouldn’t do it for him.
“The media doesn’t like talking about that. I used to call them the fake news but as president I have to be a little more respectful of the media than that, so now I call them the artificial news,” he said, in his latest in a long line of attacks on the press.
“I took artificial off the word intelligence,” he continued, referencing his recent push to rebrand artificial intelligence as “super intelligence.”
The term super intelligence “is really, I think, much better, it’s really much more accurate because it’s not really artificial intelligence, it’s super intelligence,” he said.
“Artificial means fake. So I call them the artificial media, but let’s not get into that,” he added.
Trump’s tangent was quickly mocked on social media, with some joking that, by his own logic, it may only be a matter of time before he has to upgrade the term “artificial media” to the “super media.”