US President Donald Trump revealed the winners of his "Fake News Awards" last night, escalating his already persistent attacks on a number of major US media outlets.
The awards were announced hours after a senator Mr from Trump's own Republican party hurled a stinging rebuke at the president, accusing the US leader of undermining the free press with Stalinist language.
The president announced the ten "honorees" using his preferred medium of Twitter, linking to a list published on the Republican Party's website that crashed minutes after his big reveal.
The "winners" of the spoof awards included top networks and newspapers CNN, The New York Times and The Washington Post, all of which have been regular targets of Mr Trump's ire.
And the FAKE NEWS winners are...https://t.co/59G6x2f7fD
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 18, 2018
Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman, who writes a regular opinion column for The New York Times, nabbed the number one spot.
The administration said he merited the award for writing "on the day of President Trump's historic, landslide victory that the economy would never recover."
Following Mr Trump’s election, Mr Krugman had written that Mr Trump's inexperience on economic policy and unpredictability risked further damaging the weak global economy.
The list also pointed to a reporting error from ABC's veteran reporter Brian Ross, who was suspended for four weeks without pay after he was forced to correct a report on ex-Trump aide Michael Flynn.
In follow-up tweets to his "Fake News" announcement, the commander-in-chief posted that "despite some very corrupt and dishonest media coverage, there are many great reporters I respect and lots of GOOD NEWS for the American people to be proud of!"
"Together there is nothing we can't overcome – even a very biased media. We ARE Making America Great Again!"
Earlier in the day Republican Senator Jeff Flake criticised what he called the president's dangerous disregard for the truth, and his designation of the mainstream news media as an "enemy of the people."
In a rare intra-party rebuke from the Senate floor, Mr Flake said the president's portrayal of the press as "the enemy of the people"and repeated White House references to "fake news" and "alternative facts" had spurred copycats such as Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte.
Stalin, who led the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until he died in 1953, used the phrase "enemy of the people" to describe those he wanted annihilated.
Mr Trump's use of the phrase "should be a source of great shame," Mr Flake said.
Mr Flake, an Arizona conservative who has frequently clashed with Mr Trump, described himself in October as out of step with his party and said would not seek re-election. His term ends in January 2019.
"Not only has the past year seen an American president borrow despotic language to refer to the free press, but it seems he has in turn inspired dictators and authoritarians. ...This is reprehensible," Mr Flake said.
White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, responding to Mr Flake's speech, said the senator was an attention-seeker.
"He's not criticising the president because he's against oppression," Ms Sanders said at a White House briefing.
"He's criticising the president because he has terrible poll numbers and he is, I think, looking for some attention."
Trump says he gets more exercise than people think
Meanwhile, do not expect President Trump to hit the gym, despite his doctor's orders.
He gets plenty of exercise on the golf course and at the White House complex, he said.
"I get exercise. I mean I walk, I this, I that," Mr Trump, 71, said during an Oval Office interview with Reuters.
"I run over to a building next door. I get more exercise than people think."
Dr Ronny Jackson, the White House physician, said on Tuesday that Mr Trump was in excellent health overall but needed to lose weight, eat better, and break a sweat more often.
The fast-food-loving Mr Trump praised Dr Jackson, who has served as a physician to previous presidents, but seemed wary of taking the not-so-subtle suggestion to use the White House's exercise facilities.
"A lot of people go to the gym and they’ll work out for two hours and all. I’ve seen people ... then they get their new knees when they're 55 years old and they get their new hips and they do all those things. I don’t have those problems," Mr Trump said.
He did say he was open to changing his diet, perhaps with smaller portion sizes on White House meals.
Mr Trump's predecessors, Barack Obama and George W Bush, were fitness enthusiasts, but Mr Trump has no daily workout routine. He gets exercise by playing golf, he said, even though he typically rides around the course in a golf cart.
Walking would leave him on the course longer than he prefers, he said. "I don’t want to spend the time."
Trump is considered overweight and borderline obese at 1.90m (6'3") and 108kg (17st).
"Most of us could lose a couple of pounds," he said, before scanning the Reuters reporters in the room and pronouncing them in "pretty good shape."
He said he had impressed medical staff with his recent performance on a treadmill, regular workouts or not.
"I was on a treadmill for the first time actually in quite awhile, and it was at a very steep angle, and I was there for a very long time," he said.
"They were surprised. And they said, 'Well you can stop now, that’s amazing.' And I said, 'I can go much longer than this if you want me to.'"
