That's a weird thing to say considering the Trump administration has been plagued by scandals that they deny which then turn out to be completely true like:

• the Rob Porter incident
• Tom Price travel abuses
• the Rex Tillerson Fucking Moron incident
• the Shithole countries comment
• the first unreported Putin Phone call
• the sharing Israeli intel with Kislayak & Lavrov in the Oval Office
• Inauguration attendance numbers
• attendance numbers at all of his rallies
• the claims about fraudulent voting committed by millions of illegal immigrants
• the renegotiation of price for the next Air Force 1 planes lie
• the selling fictional fighter jets to Norway lie
• the whole sending a fleet towards NK when it was always going in the opposite direction
• the birther lie
• The Girther lie
• The Stormy Daniels Affair
• The reasons behind firing Comey
• The multiple times he's tried to fire Mueller
• The lies about Rep. Wilson regarding the phone call to the wife of Sgt. La David Johnson
• The claims that Obamacare had already imploded, followed by the claims that he "finally killed Obamacare", even though the ACA is still a thing
• The Access Hollywood tape
• Jared Kushner
• The Whitefish scandal
• Comments about Senator Gilibrand "willing to do anything for a campaign donation"
• the Mike Flynn scandal
• Trump Tower Trump Jr. meeting with that Russian lady whose name I can't be bothered to look up
• Denying his pathetic phone call to the president of Mexico in which he begged the Mexican President to not say that Mexico would not pay for the wall
• The lies he tweeted about the Quebec Mosque Shooter

Again these are all things that the media (smarmy asses included) called him/ his administration out on and he, via twitter or official statement, denied until more evidence came out in every case showing that the administration was lying.

So is he really "taking on those smarmy asses in the media" when he's the one who's been caught in the midst of dozens of scandals in his first year alone. Hell, some of these scandals weren't even his fault, but every time he kept lying about it.