President Donald Trump blasted the media Thursday during a presser. The Trump supporters loved it and the opponent party – the media – hated it. It’s been three weeks of watching the media trash the President with no facts and for many, it was great for some to see him fight back. The media wants a compliant president like past presidents who got up to the lectern and just suffered through the tongue lashing and gotcha questions by the press.
The President addressed the leaks. He said the leaks are real but the news is fake. The leaks are “criminal leaks” and he’s asked the FBI to investigate.
There has been a flood of leaked information to the press from the Trump agencies intended to make him look bad, and at one point, Trump said, “My conversation with Putin was classified, so probably everyone in this room has it…”
CNN’s Jim Acosta, who has had a running battle with President Trump, asked him at the press conference Thursday if he wasn’t undermining the press by calling them “fake news”.
Trump responded with humor, even Acosta laughed.
The media should understand that a lot of people are applauding him for taking on the media after they bashed him 24/7 for three weeks. People are sick of the distorted, one-sided or incomplete news they report. CNN in particular has taken the role of Donald Trump destroyer.
It has gotten them ratings but not trust. About 14% of Republicans trust the press and only 30% of Independents trust the press. Another 51% of the Democrats trust the press which lends truth to the supposition that trust goes up when you tell the people what you want to hear. The media’s hyperbolic reporting has gotten most people to turn them off.
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About 60% of Americans get their news from the Internet.
Trump’s favorability polling by Gallup wasn’t great but the polling by Rasmussen Thursday has him at 55%.
Jim Acosta spoke afterwards about the President’s reaction and described him as defensive and frustrated.
“…the President was in a defensive mode. You could tell when he came out and delivered those remarks at the beginning of this news conference that he was clearly frustrated. He was frustrated with that Time magazine cover that portrayed his White House being in chaos and he talked about his administration being a well-oiled machine in not so many words. So this was a defensive President Trump, a frustrated President Trump. But as you heard in that back and forth I had with him, he is just as determined as ever to go after the news media when there are stories that he doesn’t like, but as I try to remind him, Wolf, we are not fake news, we are real news.”
He’s a little out of touch with the way most people viewed the presser.
Austin Goolsbee, a former chair of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors, said he “‘didn’t know what planet Trump’s speaking from when he says he’s ‘inherited a mess’”.
Most people could explain the “mess” in detail.
Jake Tapper of CNN said the presser was an “airing of grievances” and it was like “Festivus” and he called him “unhinged.”
Nothing was unhinged. As Charles Krauthammer said, “he found him hinged”.
CNN’s John King said, “I got a text from a couple of Democrats during the thing, who of course are not inclined to like him. But I got a text from a Republican senator who said in this text, ‘He should do this with a therapist, not on live television.’”
If that’s true, we can all guess who the senator might be. My bets are on McCain or Graham.
Senator Coons who didn’t hear the conference said it was “hair-raising” for him to hear that Trump said he didn’t direct Mike Flynn to contact the Russian ambassador but should have.
What’s hair-raising about that?
Ann Coulter enjoyed it and said she wished this press conference could have gone on all day.
Trish Regan found it “refreshing” to find him attacking the media who have been brutal and unfair for three weeks.
Rush Limbaugh said it was one of the “most effective” press conferences he has seen. The media will hate him more but he’s doing everything he said he’d do and no one’s going to stop him.
You can listen to the entire press conference. It’s worth it.
