Familiar tone set at White House Trump, aides use campaign tactics on media
WASHINGTON — One by one, just hours after President Donald Trump’s inauguration Friday, some of his most senior aides made the short journey from their new West Wing offices to the press briefing room.
Sean Spicer, the press secretary, stood for a moment behind the lectern where he would conduct news briefings. Steve Bannon, chief strategist, took note of the cramped quarters many correspondents worked in. And Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the president, exchanged pleasantries with the reporters and photographers who document the administration.
Within 48 hours, what had seemed a goodwill tour instead appeared to have been a reconnaissance mission, the new administration sizing up an adversary.
“As you know, I have a
running war with the media,” Trump would say Saturday to CIA employees.
The presidential campaign may be over, but Trump aides stuck to election-year tactics in their first weekend in the White House. Over and over, aides laid down markers that they would continue to unapologetically present their version of events and challenge any perceived slights.
On Sunday, the day many were formally installed to their positions as assistants to the president, Trump advisers defended White House attacks on the media and incorrect claims about the size of the crowd at the inauguration, accusing news organizations of trying to undermine Trump’s legitimacy.
Challenged by “Meet The Press” host Chuck Todd about why Spicer had been dispatched a day earlier to deliver a statement with provably false crowd data, Conway said Spicer had offered “alternative facts.”
“You’re saying it’s a falsehood. And Sean Spicer, our press secretary, gave alternative facts to that,” Conway told the NBC host, who immediately interjected with disbelief.
Conway eventually backed off Spicer’s claims. “I don’t think you can prove those numbers one way or another,” she said. “There’s no way to really quantify crowds.”
Police and cities use statistical methods to estimate crowd sizes to protect public safety during events. And scientists used available evidence to tally Friday’s attendance on the Mall.
When news outlets presented comparisons of Trump’s inauguration crowds to ones for former President Barack Obama’s inaugurals, whether by airing broadcast footage or publishing sideby-side photographs, Trump advisers saw, as chief of staff Reince Priebus characterized it, an “obsession by the media to delegitimize this president.”
“And we are not going to sit around and let it happen,” he told “Fox News Sunday.”
In his Saturday statement, Spicer had also accused reporters of seeking to sow division. Priebus and Conway made a supplemental argument Sunday: that by reporting on and fact-checking the grievances expressed by the president and his aides, journalists were overlooking more substantive matters. Their point was seemingly undermined by Trump tweeting earlier about television ratings for his inaugural – “11 million more than the very good ratings from 4 years ago!” His emphasis on Obama’s second inaugural ignored that first inaugurations historically draw more viewers.
Every new White House experiments with approaches for communicating its message. Obama, in an interview with former aides just before the end of his presidency, said that if he could offer advice to himself eight years earlier, it would be to “spend more time thinking about new ways of communicating with the American people.”
But Trump aides risked damaging the administration’s credibility with such public admonitions over provably false claims. That could impede their efforts to build support for Trump’s agenda beyond his most committed backers.
Indeed, Trump was dismissive of the massive Women’s Marches in Washington and around the world Saturday that grew out of opposition to his election.
“Was under the impression that we just had an election! Why didn’t these people vote? Celebs hurt cause badly,” he tweeted.
He acknowledged later their right to demonstrate, saying, “Peaceful protests are a hallmark of our democracy.”
Later Sunday, in his first appearance in the White House’s East Room as president, Trump turned to the more sober governing tasks ahead. He offered condolences to storm victims in the Southeast before highlighting conversations with foreign leaders.
British Prime Minister Theresa May is set to visit Friday, followed by a summit next week with Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto to discuss, among other issues, the North American Free Trade Agreement. Trump campaigned extensively on renegotiating free-trade deals.
Trump spoke of a “very nice” conversation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone.
Trump also made note of a graceful note from Obama that he had found waiting for him in the Oval Office.
Holding it up, he added: “We won’t even tell the press what’s in that letter.”