Trump to Tell US Federal Agencies to Stop Buying New York Times, Washington Post - Reports

WASHINGTON (Sputnik) - The White House plans to tell US federal agencies not to renew subscriptions to the New York Times and Washington Post - newspapers regularly derided by President Donald Trump as publishers of fake news, US media reported on Thursday.

"Not renewing subscriptions across all federal agencies will be a significant cost saving - hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars will be saved," White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said in an email Thursday, as quoted by the Wall Street Journal.

The administration-wide order follows remarks earlier this week in which Trump said the White House itself would allow subscriptions to the two newspapers to lapse without renewal.

"The New York Times, which is a fake newspaper, we don't even want it in the White House anymore. We're going to probably terminate that and the Washington Post," Trump told the Sean Hannity Show on Fox news. "They're fake."

Trump mocks both papers on a regular basis, referring to the New York Times as "failing" and labeling the Washington Post the "Amazon Washington Post" because it is owned by billionaire Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

Both newspapers claim that their reporters and writers are both neutral and objective observers of events who produce articles free of political bias.