For those unfamiliar with how Washington works: The only fake news to be harvested inside the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room and its adjacent cramped offices, and indeed the only news of any kind, is planted there by the president’s designated spokespersons. As I explained earlier this week (“Why Trump’s White House Reporter Ban Matters So Little”), virtually the only consequence to Trump’s exiling CNN, MS NOW, and Politico from this urban smallholding was that these reporters were briefly and partially impeded in bringing to market whatever officially sanctioned utterances, many of them transparent lies, that the president wished to convey. That makes Trump’s expulsion of these news organizations—overturned in court early Thursday by a temporary restraining order from a Trump-appointed judge—not only illegal but bizarrely self-defeating. In game theory it’s called a subgame imperfection. In life it’s called called “a really stupid thing to do.”
One of the six reporting incidents concerned information that was spoon-fed to Politico by the White House press office itself. As Scott Nover reported in The Washington Post, the White House sent a Politico reporter—presumably Cheyenne Haslett, who covers the White House for the publication, though possibly Felicia Schwartz, a national-security reporter who shared the byline on the resulting story—an invitation to interview a certain administration official. I like to think this invitation was hand-delivered on cream-colored cardstock lettered in Cormorant Garamond. More likely, though, it came in a routine email that Haslett opened at home or inside Politico’s newsroom across the river in Rosslyn, Virginia. At the appointed hour Haslett and/or Schwartz, along with representatives from various other news organizations that Trump didn’t kick out of the White House, phoned the press office and heard a White House press aide say,: “Good afternoon, and thank you for joining this press call. The contents of this call are on background, attributable to a senior administration official. By remaining on the line, you agree to those terms.” Nover has a copy of the recording.
“It is my opinion,” Trump tweeted in May 2017, “that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media.” He’s uttered that sentiment many times since. But a more accurate assessment would be that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the White House, to which the White House wishes not to be held accountable.
Vice-presidents leak, too. “May I go off the record for just a minute?” a vice-president I will not name said to me once. I don’t remember what the off-the-record comment was, but I do remember being surprised that even vice-presidents played this game. (I was much younger then.) They still do. The “senior administration official” the White House press office served up to Politico and other news organizations on that fateful phone call, Oliver Darcy reported Wednesday in Status, was Vice President JD Vance. The subject was the likelihood of a deal to end the war with Iran. Vance said it was 80 to 85 percent certain, and that was true; the Islamabad Memorandum of Understanding was released less than a week later. But the deal fell through soon after, leaving us still at war with Iran three months later. Anybody who wants to complain the information Politico imparted was somehow wrong will have to blame Vance.
In a letter to CNN, the White House press office appeared to dispute, seven months after the event, that the United States military attacked an Iranian school, even though various other news outlets and a United Nations report confirmed the strike. Indeed, all the offending CNN story reported was the publicly-released UN report’s conclusion that the attack was a war crime. If I ever get kicked out of the White House, I’d like it to be for showing more enterprise than that.
What’s most striking is that none of the many stories used to justify CNN’s, MS NOW’s, and Politico’s expulsion were untrue. Individual news outlets do get it wrong now and then, because nobody’s perfect. Couldn’t White House lawyers find any examples? I guess they were in too much of a hurry. Vance’s background comments were unreliable insofar as they conveyed false optimism that the Iran war would end soon. But even Vance doesn’t appear to have been telling deliberate lies. (Maybe the headline should have been: “Vice President Tells Truth!”) What the “reporting incidents” have in common is that most contradicted the Trump White House line. If Trump doesn’t like being exposed as a liar, then instead of kicking out reporters he might consider lying less.
Hence then, the article about trump is punishing reporters for doing his bidding was published today ( ) and is available on The New Republic ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Trump Is Punishing Reporters for Doing His Bidding )
Also on site :
- Donald Trump Once Said President Xi Was Worth a ‘Double-Size Big Mac’—Now He’s Hosting a Lavish State Dinner: Here’s What’s on the Menu
- ’60s Folk Singer Was Discovered by David Bowie at 15 and Produced by Jimmy Page at 16—Where Is She Now?
- Aamir Khan to Receive Screen Icon Award as Singapore Film Festival Opens With Hur Jin-ho’s ‘The Assassin(s)’