Trump praises Covington student suing Washington Post: ‘Go get them Nick’

President Trump on Wednesday cheered a student from Covington Catholic High School who is suing The Washington Post for $250 million over its reporting on his interaction with a Native American man on the National Mall earlier this year.

{mosads}The president tweeted a portion Nick Sandmann’s lawsuit in which he alleges the news outlet “ignored basic journalistic standards because it wanted to advance its well-known and easily documented biased agenda against President Donald J. Trump.”

“Go get them Nick!” Trump tweeted. “Fake News!”

“The Washington Post ignored basic journalistic standards because it wanted to advance its well-known and easily documented biased agenda against President Donald J. Trump.” Covington student suing WAPO. Go get them Nick. Fake News!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 20, 2019

The defamation lawsuit accuses the Post of having “targeted and bullied” Sandmann, who was in Washington for the March for Life and had an encounter with Nathan Phillips, a Native American elder who was there for the Indigenous People’s March.

Sandmann, who was wearing a red “Make America Great Again” hat, could be seen on video standing close to Phillips and smiling. The Post and other news outlets reported on the video before additional footage of the interaction emerged.

Sandmann’s lawsuit claims that the Post published “a series of false and defamatory print and online articles” and alleged that it did so “because he was the white, Catholic student wearing a red ‘Make America Great Again’ souvenir cap.”

The suit seeks $250 million, the amount Post owner Jeff Bezos paid for the paper in 2013.

A Post spokeswoman, Kristine Coratti Kelly, said in response to the suit, “We are reviewing a copy of the lawsuit, and we plan to mount a vigorous defense.”

The president has a well-documented track record of attacking the press, and The Washington Post in particular. He has decried negative coverage of him and his administration as “fake news” and referred to reporters and news outlets as the “enemy of the people” as recently as Tuesday.

Trump has in the past suggested politicians should update libel laws to make it easier to sue over critical content.