I've embedded the entire video of Trump's presser yesterday, although for this piece I'm focusing mainly on his beatdown of CNN and BuzzFeed, which starts at 1:07:45. Once you get to it, stick with it for awhile, because Trump takes a few questions on other subjects but comes back to the matter several times.
He's got harsh words not only for the media but also for the intelligence community, which he smacks down for constantly running to the press every time they talk to him. To demonstrate this, Trump explains that before his last intelligence briefing, he didn't tell anyone on his staff that it was happening - not even his longtime personal assistant, who always knows about his appointments - and went and took the meeting under those circumstances. Sure enough, as soon as the meeting was over, the press knew about it.
In other words, it had to be the intelligence officials who leaked the information because no one else could have, and Trump made it clear he's going to put a stop to that when he's president.
But back to CNN and BuzzFeed. The case against BuzzFeed is now so airtight, even most of the lefty media aren't trying to defend what they did. Publishing an unsubstantiated memo based on a totally bogus dossier, which had only been shared with Trump as an example of how to recognize completely false garbage, and failing to explain that was a journalistic capital offense as far as I'm concerned. BuzzFeed should shut down and cease operations in shame today as far as I'm concerned. The organization is a total disgrace.
As for CNN, some are defending its story on the existence of the dossier because CNN didn't go so far as to actually publish it or write about what was in it. But that doesn't wash as far as I'm concerned because a) CNN wrongly reported that the document had been shown to Trump as real intelligence (it hadn't), and b) reporting on the existence of the dossier implies that it's legitimate, when even a little competent reporting would have shown CNN it had its hands on a load of garbage. How humiliating is it for CNN that it was the even more liberal MSNBC that got the story right and revealed just how totally bogus the whole thing was in the first place?
Pretty humiliating, and CNN deserved every bit of it. It also deserved the rough treatment Trump dished out here, like I said, starting around 1:07:45:
Yet when asked what kinds of "reforms" Trump would favor for a media far too willing to report fake news, Trump said the only reform he favors is "people that have some moral compass." That's exactly right. The last thing we need is the government taking some sort of action to try to "reform" the dishonest media. What we need is journalists who are honest, and who don't jump on phony stories like this to advance an agenda.
I really liked what Trump said, however, about how much the media can hurt a person with less power and influence than he has: "The advantage I have is that I can speak back. When it happens to someone who doesn't have this kind of megaphone, it's very unfair, and I've seen people destroyed."
So have I. I'll never forget the disgraceful case of Julie Boonstra, a Michigan cancer patient who spoke publicly about the problems ObamaCare caused for her insurance - only to be roundly and unfairly attacked by national news media, including the dispicable Washington Post. These awful people, especially "fact-checker" Glenn Kessler, have no conscience, no compassion and no regard for truth. They went after a totally defenseless woman who had been hurt by government policy, because she dared to point out a flaw in the actions of their sun king hero.
Trump can fight back, and he does. What can Julie Boonstra do? I and some others tried to tell her side of the story, but we can never do so with as loud a megaphone as these malefactors.
So was it inappropriate for Trump to use this press conference to publicly label CNN a horrible organization that peddles "fake news"? Not at all. It's the truth. CNN's story on the bogus dossier may not have been as bad as what BuzzFeed did, but what kind of standard is that? CNN put out information that led people to believe Trump had been involved in horrible, embarrassing, salacious activities - and none of it ever happened. It is not OK to report that just because someone said it. You need some sense of the information's viability, and CNN had none.
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If CNN can use the megaphone that is its own network to paddle such garbage, why can't Trump use what he has to call them out?
If CNN can use the megaphone that is its own network to paddle such garbage, why can't Trump use what he has to call them out? He can. And he should. And hell no, he shouldn't let them ask a question. To hell with them. They're liars.
CNN has made a very conscious decision to attack Trump at every turn - to play up narratives about him that are negative to the exclusion of far more substantive news - and it has a First Amendment right to do that. But it doesn't have a right to be treated as if it's not doing that.
Some may say I'm being inconsistent because I didn't cheer Barack Obama when he tried to marginalize Fox News reporters. Here's the difference: Fox was critical of Obama, and Obama often shot back. But if Fox had run an embarrassing and salacious story about Obama that turned out to be totally false, then during a press conference in which this was being discussed, Obama would have had every right to shoot them down and refuse to take their questions.
But that never happened. It did happen with CNN and Trump, and if CNN or any other media outlet is going to operate like this, they should expect abuse from the guy they're doing it to. And from all indications, as long as Trump is president, they're going to get it.
