US President Donald Trump has launched a personal verbal attack on New York Times journalists, reportedly branding them a "maggot" and a "flunky", amid an escalating clash between his administration and the newspaper. The confrontation matters because it coincides with the Department of Justice issuing a subpoena to the Times over what has been described as an incendiary report concerning events aboard Air Force One, marking a further sharpening of tensions between the White House and a major American news organisation.

Beyond the headline claims, the available text offers little substantive detail, as the underlying report about Air Force One and the specific grounds for the DOJ subpoena are not set out in the material provided. The story sits within a broader pattern of friction between Trump and the mainstream press, with the use of the legal system against a newspaper raising questions about press freedom and the boundary between political disputes and law enforcement action.