Donald Trump: Unchained and unapologetic
Donald Trump reportedly started work in the Oval Office on Thursday morning and told his staff he wanted to hold a press conference that day. And so he did. Boy, did he. The event, ostensibly an announcement of the president’s new pick for labour secretary, was anything but routine. New nominee Alexander Acosta wasn’t even in attendance - and it probably wasn’t a bad thing that he missed out, since he quickly became an afterthought to the 76-minute free-form scrum that ensued.
So much for White House message discipline. Instead, it was Trump being Trump. The off-the-cuff style got him elected president, of course, so perhaps it’s how he will reboot his four-week-old (!) presidency. Donald Trump was off the leash - just the way he seems to like it. Here are some of the highlights. Thursday’s press conference was Trump v the Media, round eleventy-billion.
Mr Trump said mainstream journalists were the voice of a “broken system” of special interests that he is challenging - which can only be catnip for his base and a way of insulating himself against the recent barrage of negative stories.
When pressed on the simmering scandal over former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn’s contacts with Russia and how the White House handled them, the president parried and then went after “dishonest” reporters who should be “ashamed” about inaccurate reporting based on illegal leaks (the president did not acknowledge the apparent contradiction in such a statement).
He blamed reporters for the New York Times and Wall Street Journal for not directly contacting him before running unflattering stories, as though they had his personal mobile number.
He even engaged in a bit of presidential concern-trolling, telling a CNN reporter his network would “do much better by being different”.
“I started off today by saying that it’s so important to the public to get an honest press,” Mr Trump continued. “The public doesn’t believe you people anymore. Now, maybe I had something to do with that. I don’t know. But they don’t believe you.”
Mr Trump seemed to be at his happiest in this back-and-forth with hostile reporters over whether or not the media are honest - and with good reason. While journalists care deeply about the reputation of their profession, the general public probably views it as so much navel-gazing.
Every minute debating the impartiality and truthfulness of the press is a battle fought on terrain friendly to the president.
Mr Trump has a habit of making statements that have, shall we say, a sometimes distant relationship with reality. He often couches the remarks in phrases like “I’ve heard”, “people are saying”, or “I guess”.
Such was the case when he turned once again - in the scripted portion of his press conference, no less - to the size of his Electoral College victory last November.
In a bit of a twist, however, a reporter from NBC, Peter Alexander, called him on it minutes later.
He said that Barack Obama and Bill Clinton posted bigger margins of victory. Mr Trump replied that he was referring to Republican presidents.