Donald Trump responded to Sunday's deadly Orlando shooting pretty much exactly as one would expect he might: by reiterating his plan to ban all Muslims from the United States, and even going so far as to suggest that President Barack Obama might have ties to ISIS.But just when it seemed like the likely Republican nominee had reached his daily capacity for absurd conspiracy and rhetoric, Trump took to Facebook to announce that the Washington Post would be banned from all of his future campaign events, because the paper published a story the candidate didn't particularly like.The ban came in reaction to an article published Monday, addressing Trump's reaction to the Orlando shooting. Though the story, titled "Donald Trump seems to connect President Obama to Orlando shooting," was made up almost entirely of the candidate's own words, Trump posted on Facebook that the headline was "dishonest." Twenty minutes later, he posted again, this time to announce that he was revoking the paper's press credentials as punishment. "Based on the incredibly inaccurate coverage and reporting of the record setting Trump campaign," he wrote, "we are hereby revoking the press credentials of the phony and dishonest Washington Post."In a short statement to the press Monday evening, Trump's campaign elaborated, accusing the Post of lobbying on behalf of its owner, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. "Mr. Trump does not mind a bad story, but it has to be honest," the statement read. "The fact is, the Washington Post is being used by the owners of Amazon as their political lobbyist so that they don't have to pay taxes and don't get sued for monopolistic tendencies that have led to the destruction of department stores and the retail industry."In response, the paper's executive editor, Martin Baron, slammed Trump's overreaction, saying that the campaign's decision is "nothing less than a repudiation of the role of a free and independent press.""When coverage doesn't correspond to what the candidate wants it to be, then a news organization is banished," Baron continued. "The Post will continue to cover Donald Trump as it has all along—honorably, honestly, accurately, energetically, and unflinchingly. We're proud of our coverage, and we're going to keep at it."The Post joins several other media outlets banned by the Trump campaign, including BuzzFeed, the Huffington Post, and Politico. Some journalists are now understandably questioning which outlets will be left standing by November, other than Breitbart and Fox News.Follow VICE Politics on Twitter.Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr
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