So called President Trump will not attend Correspondents Dinner
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Why did we elect this guy again? Clearly he doesn't want the job.
I understand why he doesn't like the press but every President faces the issues that he faces. It's not new. The most powerful man in the world should be questioned and should have constant monitoring by the press. This is a volunteer job. If he doesn't like it. He should resign.
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There's been semi-serious speculation that Trump might resign before his term is up. He may just get bored or frustrated with all the work. And he's now subject to all kinds of rules that he would never tolerate in his private business, and it's showing.
Also, there was a good discussion of Trump's past and present relationships with the press in today's NY Times. He himself used to be the leaker when he was promoting himself to the New York tabloids (I loved the part about the fake accents, which I quoted in bold below).
From the article:
His anger is compounded by his belief that he should still be able to plant and steer stories. That was a lot easier to do when he was running a close-knit real estate and branding business with an aggressive legal team that demanded that nearly everyone in his orbit sign nondisclosure agreements.
And a bit later, on why this is so hard to do:
To some extent, the clash with the press was inevitable. Mr. Trump may be noisier and more confrontational than many of his predecessors, but he is being force-fed lessons all presidents eventually learn — that the iron triangle of the Washington press corps, West Wing staff and federal bureaucracy is simply too powerful to bully.
Reporters back in New York, however, knew that the president’s call for an end to “sources” — meaning anonymous sources leaking damaging details of his campaign’s relationship with Russian officials — did not jibe with his onetime role as a no-fingerprints gossipmonger, trumpeting his business dealings and romantic life in late-night phone calls.
“I’m against the people that make up stories and make up sources,” Mr. Trump said. “They shouldn’t be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody’s name. Let their name be put out there. Let their name be put out.”
“He used to be the one leaking!” Ms. Stasi pointed out on Friday from her office at The Daily News, where she is a columnist. “He was leaking about himself. He would call up with fake accents and pretend it wasn’t him. He would tell us 100 times: ‘Now listen, I’m going to tell you something, but it didn’t come from me.’”
Mr. Trump, who taunted his blind-quoted critics on Friday — “Let ’em say it to my face!” — hid his own identity to push self-promoting stories in the 1980s, posing as his own public-relations man under the fake names John Miller and John Barron.
^^Emphasis mine.
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There's been semi-serious speculation that Trump might resign before his term is up. He may just get bored or frustrated with all the work. And he's now subject to all kinds of rules that he would never tolerate in his private business, and it's showing.
Also, there was a good discussion of Trump's past and present relationships with the press in today's NY Times. He himself used to be the leaker when he was promoting himself to the New York tabloids (I loved the part about the fake accents, which I quoted in bold below)
I wouldn't doubt for one second that some of the leaks are authorized by him or are members of his own staff.
There could be multiple reasons for this: Bannon told him to do it, so people would lose faith in the federal government, which he has said that he wants to dismantle.
Trump is creating a noise cloud, either to get constant media attention, or to create a witch hunt in an effort to scrub out people disloyal to him, or to put new rules in place or get rid of whistle-blower protections.
Or he's starting a war with the media, potentially to help Breitbart or other conservative media. They might feel that some of their supporters are influenceable and they only want them watching conservative media, which is notorious for being less than factual. What was the story with Fox news the other day? (I don't even understand the whole narrative, other than Trump screwed up and said Sweden and they're trying to make him look like he didn't.) They interviewed a security advisor "From Sweden," who nobody in Sweden knows…?
Remember: most people rarely watch the news unless something shocking is happening and very few people actually attempt to read the same story from multiple viewpoints. Which I highly suggest everyone do, since then you can easily separate the opinions from the facts, especially if you fact check the details. From personal experience, the media which Trump is calling "Fake News" is typically only filtered or opinionated. I've never really caught any of those media companies pushing news that was actually fake.
Unlike Breitbart, which has been caught completely fabricating critical details multiple times, but it's not as bad as thegatewaypundit, which is a vomiting troll doll dressed up to be a "News Website."
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Bob Woodward said it best yesterday. The mainstream media get their hair on fire about every fake story that comes along no matter how trivial it is. If and when they actually come up with a real story, no one will listen or care. As he said, the media have done this to themselves.
The only people that attend this event are the media and lobbyists. Both are enemies of Trump and his agenda, so why bother?