Trump Can’t Handle the Truth

Sycophants replace reporters in his White House

Credit: Getty Images

A fundamental role of the free press is to be a representative of the people. Within that role is working to hold the powerful accountable. That is especially true on one of the most important journalism assignments in the world: the White House.

But what the current president is doing to remake and neuter the White House press corps is an important but significantly underreported story. It is trampling your right to know, in service of making him look good. The casualty of this push and pull is the truth. More on that in a moment.

As someone who has spent years covering Democratic and Republican presidents, some of my most contentious encounters occurred in the Oval Office. The questions were tough, but the answers, even the non-answers, were always telling. Those days are gone.

The White House press pool, reporters selected for special limited access to the president, nowadays sometimes consists only of right-wing media. That affects the kind of questions that get asked and coverage in general. That can and often does result in what is known among journalists as “sweetheart” coverage. Chapter 1 of the old authoritarian playbook could be titled “Control the Media.” If that book needs a rewrite, Donald Trump is your guy.

How many times have you wondered why 44% of the country still supports the president as he directs soldiers to patrol selected cities, orders heavily armed masked men to snatch people off the street, causes prices to rise, gives tax cuts to billionaires, and ends health insurance for millions? That is a complicated question with no short answer, but one of the main reasons is that millions of Americans are hearing lies or don’t know what the president is actually doing … because much of the media has been silenced by or is fearful of Trump.

He knows where his loyal followers get their “news,” and he is making sure those organizations toe the MAGA line.

Trump’s manipulation can be felt from legacy media (see: CBS News and The Washington Post) to local television ownership consolidation to the burgeoning MAGA-mediasphere of podcasts and social media influencers. But it all starts where the press and the president are in each other’s presence on many if not most days.

One way Trump and his communications team are attempting to reshape how the media does its job is by controlling who gets access.

For more than a century, the White House system mostly worked reasonably well. President Woodrow Wilson’s contentious relationship with the press pushed a handful of journalists to create the White House Correspondents’ Association (WHCA) in 1914.

The WHCA supported reporters covering the president by managing the White House press pool. Thirty media outlets, like the Associated Press (AP), The New York Times, and broadcast networks, would be included in the pool on a rotating basis.

In February, the Trump administration tossed out the WHCA and took over the role of assigning press pool slots. Karoline Leavitt, Trump’s press secretary, claimed that “it’s not about ideology. It’s about increasing the wide array of outlets that have access.” And if you believe that, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn …

In reality, it was about limiting independent media and giving access to MAGA-friendly outlets. It was also, as is often the case with Trump, about retribution.

In a January executive order, Trump renamed the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The AP continued to refer to the body of water by its previous name, in place since the 17th century. In a fit of pique, Trump limited AP’s White House access. The AP is an independent global news agency that disseminates information to thousands of media organizations all over the world.

In April, a federal judge ruled that Trump officials must “rescind their viewpoint-based denial” and reinstate the wire service’s full access, which they did. But it didn’t end there. The White House revoked AP’s press pool slot, which it had held since the pool was created. In response, the WHCA called out Trump for “retaliat[ing] against news organizations for coverage the White House doesn’t like.”

Limiting the access of independent news organizations has made room to add explicitly pro-Trump “new media” representatives. Many of the newcomers to the White House press corp are not professional journalists, as is evidenced by the questions they ask. “Why is Donald Trump soooo awesome?” and “Is it possible for Democrats to hate America more?” Those are actual questions asked in the White House briefing room.

“Many of the questions aren’t designed to get answers, but to create another confrontation or make Trump look good. That’s not journalism. High schoolers could do a better job than some of these people,” a White House correspondent told CNN.

Which brings us back to the beginning of our story. Earlier this week, a critical photo opportunity took place with Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. Who was in the press pool that day to hold Trump accountable? According to CNN, no wire services and no major print publications were allowed. Fox “News,” Breitbart, and the Washington Examiner were invited, as was an ardent Trump supporter named Brian Glenn.

You’ve probably never heard of Glenn, a representative of a MAGA-streaming service. His previous claim to fame was an embarrassing incident from Zelensky’s last Oval Office meeting, when Glenn chided the world leader for not wearing a suit.

On Monday, Glenn shouted to Zelensky, now wearing an all-black suit, “You look fabulous in that suit.” Trump chimed in, “I said the same thing,” before telling Zelensky, “Isn’t that nice? That’s the one that attacked you last time.” Trump and JD Vance also attacked him last time. Zelensky slyly responded to Glenn, “You are in the same suit. I changed, you did not.”

After that ridiculous exchange, Glenn threw softballs at Trump, including: “Do you think the American media really doesn’t even want a peace deal? Because they’ve been so critical of you every step of the way as you lead the charge for peace.”

This non-question allowed Trump to rant for three and a half minutes about the press. “The level of hatred and animosity” from the media “is incredible,” Trump said.

Also this week arrived solid evidence, not that we really needed any more, that Fox is and has been squarely in Trump’s corner. It comes from a just-released court filing by Smartmatic, an electronic voting system company that’s suing Fox for $2.7 billion over the 2020 election.

Text exchanges from the filing reveal that Jeanine Pirro, the former Fox host and newly minted U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, told the Republican National Committee chair that she was determined to help Trump. “I’m the Number 1 watched show on all news cable all weekend. I work so hard for the President and party,” Pirro wrote in a text soon after the 2020 election.

In a text message to a friend, Pirro wrote that Fox host Sean Hannity “[stormed] in [to the Oval Office] like he owns the place, throws his papers on the Pres desk and says, you don’t mind if I use your private bathroom, and walks into bathroom within Oval and uses it. Looks at me and says, I got to talk to him … It’s all abt him, period. No one else matters.”

Fox host Maria Bartiromo wrote to Trump lawyer Sidney Power, “I want you to overturn this,” referring to the 2020 election.

So the most-watched news organization is unabashedly pro-Trump, and the White House press corp is loaded with pro-Trump representatives squeezing out independent journalists. If Trump’s actions were good for America, he wouldn’t need to control the information coming out of the White House. History shows that presidents with something to hide are generally the ones who “hate” the press (see: Richard Nixon).

As Americans, we need to know if Trump’s “press” opportunities are nothing more than staged appearances with supporters asking rehearsed questions. The only way to combat this nonsense is to seek out independent journalism that works hard to report the truth, or as close to the truth as it is humanly possible to do. Often just as important as how Trump answers questions is who is asking them.

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Stay Steady,
Dan