President Trump used his press conference to skewer the national press corps Thursday.
He lectured the media on their ratings — suggesting they’d fare better with consumers if they pared back the “hatred” and just presented the news. Trump coached them on the types of questions they should ask, joked about classified information saying they all have copies, and lambasted their love of “fake news.” He not so politely reminded members of the media that their national approval rating is collectively lower than Congress’s.
ABC News Politics on Twitter
Pres. Trump to the press: “The public doesn’t believe you people anymore. Now maybe I had something to do with that, I don’t know.” https://t.co/RUDiwpNyMP
“Your ratings aren’t as good as some of the other people waiting,’ Trump said to CNN’s Jim Acosta, whose press conference theatrics made headlines some time ago when Trump accused his network of engaging in “fake news.” Today, Trump seemed to have a slight change of heart saying he will no longer refer to “fake news” as such, but instead will refer to it as “very fake news.”
Aside from the fact that the whole presser was TV gold, it was perfectly illustrative of why Trump won — he speaks beyond the political beltway while the political press and most federal officials are incapable of seeing beyond their laptop screens to the interests of the people they’re supposed to represent.
ABC News Politics on Twitter
Pres. Trump: “The press has become so dishonest that if we don’t talk about it we are doing a tremendous disservice to the American people.” https://t.co/xmmw16VsZA
Media heads are exploding. They’re accustomed to marginalizing complaints of bias as a fringe, fly-over country platitude; a task significantly more difficult when the same complaints are coming from the White House. Their own vanity will prevent them from seeing they are one of many problems with the current political structure and instead will blame Trump for being “unhinged” or something of the like.
The media slasherfest aside, the presser was chock-full of substance. Almost too much substance — leaks, appointments, bias, Russia, campaign, immigration, resignations — a firehose of information embedded in a string of zingers. By design or unintentional? Who knows. But it’ll make covering the bizarre affair incredibly difficult. There’s no single tag line, no distinct takeaway other than Trump is definitely not one to conduct business as usual.
Via LI