Tag Archives: Trump inauguration

media news

Yes, the White House is at ‘war’ with the media

White House press secretaries have a singular mission, which is to convey the message of the president to the American public.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is now performing that task to mixed reviews. Those who support Donald Trump’s agenda applaud her; those (of us) who don’t, well, we jeer her.

I’ll offer this jeer, therefore, to Sanders for saying that the White House is not “at war” with the media. Sure thing, Mme. Press Secretary.

Then, why does the president declare that the media are “the enemy of the American people”? Why does he keep insisting that media reports he finds objectionable come from what he refers to as “fake media”? Why does he disparage reporters individually, by name, along with their organizations?

Good grief, Sarah! The president declared war on the media long ago. The first press flack, Sean Spicer, fired the first barrage on Day One of the Trump administration when he challenged the media reporting of the size of the Trump inaugural crowd!

I am pretty certain the media believe they are in a state of “war” with the administration. Whether the White House’s “fine-tuned machine” believes it ignores what many of the rest of us realized long ago.

Sanders took part in a discussion of White House media relations with Mike McCurry, press secretary for the Clinton administration. McCurry, not surprisingly, took issue with Sanders’s assertion that there is no warfare taking place. He said the White House criticizes media reporting “every day,” which he considers to be a form of media war.

Read The Hill’s story here.

I am one of those former media guys who knows White House combat with the press when he sees it.

Thus, I believe Sarah Sanders is, um, quite wrong while she parrots the White House line on its relationship with the media.

national news, political news

Hillary didn’t want to attend inaugural? No kiddin’!

Hillary Rodham Clinton has revealed to the BBC what many of us already suspected, if not knew: She didn’t want to attend the inaugural of Donald John Trump.

As The Hill reported: “I really tried to get out of going,” Clinton said in an appearance on BBC One’s “The Graham Norton Show.” “We thought ‘OK, maybe others aren’t going.’ “

Clinton, the Democratic Party nominee who lost to Trump in 2016, told BBC she sought out the family of President Bush 43; they would attend. She sought advice from President and Mrs. Carter; they were going, too. President and Mrs. Obama, of course, had to be there. President and Mrs. Bush 41 couldn’t attend because of the former president’s poor health.

In many ways I can understand Hillary’s reluctance. Trump had insulted her for months prior to Election Day. He didn’t just dispute policy differences with his opponent. Trump chose to belittle her just as he did his Republican primary opponents prior to winning the GOP nomination; some of those GOP foes chose to boycott the party’s nominating convention. I didn’t blame them, either.

According to BBC: Clinton also said she wanted Trump to “rise to the occasion of being our president” during his inaugural address, but said “that didn’t happen” because of Trump’s “dark, divisive speech.”

Yes, it was dark. It was angry. The new president didn’t strike any kind of unifying tone. He spoke only to the base of voters who carried him to victory. He didn’t speak to the rest of us, seeking to tell us he would do all he could be president of all Americans.

I’m glad Hillary accompanied her husband, the former president, to the inaugural. However, if she’d have stayed away, I surely would have accepted that decision, too.

national news

Chaos continues as Trump takes charge

My goodness. The chaos, the pandemonium, the confusion.

It’s just what Donald J. Trump has ordered … allegedly.

That was some wild weekend as Trump became president of the United States.

* The president delivered 16-minute inaugural speech that re-stated the winning themes of his presidential campaign and painted a dark picture of gloom and “carnage” in the United States of America.

* The next day, White House press secretary Sean Spicer meets the press corps for the first time and delivers a five-minute scolding of what he said was a deliberate misreporting of the size of the crowd at the inauguration. Amazing!

* Meanwhile, White House senior adviser Kellyanne Conway said Spicer was delivering a set of “alternative facts,” prompting “Meet the Press” moderator Chuck Todd to remind her that “alternative facts are falsehoods.”

* Then … the president goes to the CIA ostensibly to pay tribute to the agents who’ve fallen in the line of duty then excoriates the media as a “dishonest” group of people.

* As all this was occurring, several million people around the world hit the streets to march in protest of Trump’s inauguration.

* Finally, Trump told congressional leaders he lost the popular vote to Hillary Clinton because as many as 5 million illegal immigrants cast ballots against him.

Is this what we’re going to get for the next four years? Is this what our allies abroad are going to witness as the 45th president’s administration tries to gain its footing?

He told us he would campaign unconventionally. It now appears that unconventional governance is going to follow.

I’ve got to catch my breath.

media news

Trump continues to play the media perfectly

Donald J. Trump has the media right where he wants them.

In his crosshairs. At the center of public policy debates.

Make no mistake, the president of the United States is demonstrating his amazing skill at playing the media like a cheap fiddle.

What has been fascinating to watch is the discussion over this weekend about the media reporting of inaugural crowd size and the attack-dog performance of press secretary Sean Spicer. He went right after the media in the White House press room. The media took the bait and have launched into an amazing discussion of what many reporters call “small things.”

Yes, the media keep insisting that Trump has lowered the level of discussion to issues that don’t matter — such as inaugural crowd size estimates. The media keep talking about it, however, as if it does matter.

How does the president benefit from all of this?

The Republican Party base that held Trump up while he insulted his way to the GOP nomination and then to the election hates the media’s guts. The base is Trump’s essential audience. He seems to not give a damn — no matter what he says — about representing the entire country. He’s still in campaign mode and he’s going to play to his base as long as is humanly possible.

The media are going to allow it as long as they keep tussling with the president over “small things.”

Meanwhile, many of the rest of out here in the vast stretches of this still-great nation are hoping Team Trump will develop some kind of working relationship with the media that cover it.

These first couple of days seem to portend a rocky ride.

Which might be just to Donald J. Trump’s liking.

national news

‘American carnage’ becomes Trump’s signature line

It turns out Donald J. Trump found a phrase after all that likely might stick in the minds — and perhaps the craw — of millions of Americans.

“The American carnage is going to stop right now,” the president said in his inaugural speech on the steps of the U.S. Capitol.

American carnage.

Wow, man!

I guess the president has chosen to ignore the crime trend in this country, which is that violent crime is at a 40-year low. Sure, some communities have been victimized by evil-intended criminals. Chicago has been torn by waves of violence, as have other large American cities.

Does this portend a nationwide “carnage” that has gripped the nation, a place where all Americans are living in fear of being shot? I’m having difficulty understanding why the brand new president would send this kind of message out across the vast landscape of the nation he leads and around the world that continues to rivet its attention on what occurs in this country.

The president has painted a stark, forbidding and frightening picture of the United States. So help me, I believe he has severely misstated the condition of our great nation and has delivered the same message that fired up the Republican base to nominate him in the first place — and helped carry him to victory in the general election.

The campaign has ended, Mr. President. It is now time to unite the nation. Rhetoric that tells of a fictitious “American carnage” only does more harm.

national news, political news

Hoping the presidency shapes the man

I am going to offer a word of hope in something that none of us can guarantee will occur.

It’s been said that the presidency either shapes the individual or the individual shapes the presidency.

My sincere hope as we head toward the inauguration of Donald J. Trump as the 45th president of the United States that the former takes place.

How will that present itself? Let’s start with the president-elect’s use of Twitter to make policy statements, to answer critics or to rattle the cages of foreign leaders.

We cannot know how the new president will conduct himself once he takes the oath. Trump has demonstrated time and again a reluctance to adhere to established norms as it relates to transitioning from private citizens to the most public of officials.

He says he’ll dial back the use of Twitter as a communications tool. I hope he does. For that matter, I hope he eliminates it and speaks with more reflection, nuance and decorum than he has shown through these Twitter tirades that come usually early in the morning.

It has been said that here in Texas, Rick Perry remade the governor’s office. He turned a traditionally weak office into a more powerful venue. Perry served as governor longer than anyone in Texas history and left a virtually indelible mark on the office through the myriad appointments he made to the state’s highest courts and its many boards and commissions.

Donald Trump will get to make a similar mark on the presidency through his own appointments. He’ll get to select a U.S. Supreme Court nominee, probably soon. I hope that he tilts more toward a centrist appointment, which might be yet another indicator of the office shaping the individual who occupies it.

Will the next president bow to the office or will he seek to remake it in his own image?

I’ll keep hoping for the first thing to occur … and soon!