By Dan Calabrese ——Bio and Archives--February 17, 2017
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Over the course of the lengthy and bizarre news conference that President Trump held Thursday, few moments crystallized the unusual nature of his presidency as effectively as an exchange he had at the end with April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks. Ryan asked Trump if he would include the CBC in discussions about his agenda for addressing urban policy. The CBC, for those unaware, is the Congressional Black Caucus, a group of African American legislators that is often a leading voice on the Hill for issues dealing with the black community. Trump appeared briefly to be unaware of what the initials stood for, and so Ryan asked more pointedly. . . . Ryan pointed out to the president that she is a journalist and that, while she does know members of the CBC, that’s not her role. “I’m sure some of them are watching right now,” she added. Trump went on to say that he had been trying to set up a meeting with Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), the ranking Democrat on the House Oversight Committee and a CBC member. He then claimed that Cummings had balked at following through, but the CBC tweeted its side of the story. This wasn’t the first dust-up between Ryan and the White House. On Monday, Ryan accused Trump aide Omarosa Manigault of having physically intimidated her near the Oval Office and that Manigault claimed the administration was maintaining “dossiers” of information on members of the media. (White House press secretary Sean # denied that this was the case in his daily briefing on Wednesday.) During the campaign, Manigault accused Ryan of being on the payroll of Hillary Clinton, thanks to a misinterpretation of an email released by WikiLeaks. This history is probably why Trump also told Ryan that her question was “very professional, very good.” However, the weirdness of the Trump-Ryan exchange on Thursday extends beyond the reporter’s relationship with the administration. Trump’s suggestion that a black reporter is somehow allied with or working on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus is fraught for obvious reasons, but also came shortly after Trump insisted, without being prompted, that he was not racist.And it wasn't just the Post, not by long shot. Check Facebook trending to see how the liberal media jumped all over this, all of them having the exact same take on it: Trump was a racist for assuming a black reporter would be friends with the CBC. He was also treating her like his secretary or something by asking her to set up the meeting. Now first, let's nuke that: It was Ryan who specifically brought up the prospect of Trump meeting with the CBC. It was Ryan who ackowledged that yes, she does know many of them personally. And anyone who uses their brain understands that Trump was not literally asking Ryan to set up the meeting, but was simply expressing that politics are making it difficult to get something set up. It sort of reminds me of the time many years ago when a reporter asked then-Detroit Tigers general manager Dave Dombrowski if he'd be interested in trading a player who had a very lucrative contract, thus making such a deal very difficult to pull off. Dombrowski replied: "You try to trade him." Did the reporter reply in a fit of self-seriousness, "That's not my role . . . I'm a journalist"? Of course not. Because he understood the statement was rhetorical. Give the political press zero points for ability to think. But there's a larger point to be made here about what the media are doing with this today. Trump pointed out during the presser that their own trust numbers are in the tank, and that they are doing it to themselves by refusing to be straight in the coverage of serious news. Instead, they look for absurdities like this one and twist them beyond all recognition for the purpose of damaging the president. If they would just get things right, Trump said, he would have no problem with them - even if their coverage of him was negative. As long as it was true. And in the presser, he gave them a variety of substantive subjects to cover. What did they choose to focus on? This nonsense. In other words, they went ahead and did the very thing he continually warned them is killing their credibility. The political class and ideological activists may think this is good coverage, but normal people want to hear about how the administration is actually governing. Watch the presser for yourself. It will take a long time to watch the whole thing, but if you can, please do it. And decide for yourself if Trump's approach is "bizarre" or if he's simply trying to update the nation about what he's doing, despite the press's complete lack of interest in talking about any of it. Here's the whole thing:
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Dan Calabrese’s column is distributed by HermanCain.com, which can be found at HermanCain
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