If the fabled 3 a.m. phone call came early Friday for President Donald Trump, he would have been awake and thinking about his media critics.
The president tweeted out a partial statement about CNN, which was targeted Wednesday by a mail bomb along with nearly a dozen other Trump critics, at 2:48 a.m.: "Funny how lowly rated CNN and others can criticize."
He then deleted that tweet and posted an expanded version of the same sentiment 16 minutes later, at 3:14 a.m.
"Funny how lowly rated CNN, and others, can criticize me at will," Trump complained, "even blaming me for the current spate of Bombs and ridiculously comparing this to September 11th and the Oklahoma City bombing, yet when I criticize them they go wild and scream, 'it’s just not Presidential!'"
Trump has complained since launching his presidential campaign about CNN's coverage of him, referring to the network's reporting as "fake news," and in July 2017 tweeted a roughly edited video of himself beating up a figure with the CNN logo over its face in a wrestling ring.
The president's late-night tweet alarmed other social media users, who urged him to get some sleep and focus on investigating bombs that targeted Hillary Clinton and two of his Democratic predecessors, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama, among others.