Big Lines From Trump's News Conference

President Trump held forth with reporters at a lengthy news conference Thursday afternoon, defending his first weeks in office and again going after the media over "fake news." A sampling, via the Washington Post, the Guardian, and the New York Times:

• On his White House: “I open the paper and I see stories of chaos, chaos. It’s the exact opposite. This administration is running like a fine-tuned machine, despite not being able to get my Cabinet approved.”
• On his progress: “I don’t think there’s ever been a president elected who in this short period of time has done what we have done.”
• On the travel ban: "We had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban, but we had a bad court. We got a bad decision."
• A swipe at Obama? “To be honest, I inherited a mess. It’s a mess. At home and abroad, it’s a mess. Jobs are pouring out of the country.”

• On Michael Flynn: The ousted NSA chief is a "fine person," but "he didn't tell the vice president of the United States the facts. And then he didn't remember. And that just wasn't acceptable to me.”
• On the media: “The press has become so dishonest that if we don’t talk about it we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people. The press are out of control. The level of dishonesty is out of control.”
• On Russia: The Russia story "is a ruse. ... I have nothing to do with Russia."
• On leaks/fake news: "The leaks are real, but the news is fake."
• To an African-American reporter: "Are they friends of yours?" when she asked about the Congressional Black Caucus.
• On "dreamers": “We are going to deal with DACA with heart," he said of the Obama program to protect undocumented immigrants brought to the US as kids.
• On himself: "I'm not a bad person by the way. ... I do get good ratings."

(More President Trump stories.)