When Trump Pits Journalists Against Each Other, He’s Won
In a rambling press conference, he offered lame answers on his business conflicts of interest and alleged Russian hacking.
By Joan WalshTwitter
Yesterday 4:12 pm
Facebook
Twitter
Email
Print
Donald Trump
President-elect Donald Trump calls on a reporter during a news conference in the lobby of Trump Tower in New York on Wednesday, January 11, 2017. (AP Photo / Evan Vucci)
What a farce.
Donald Trump’s first press conference in almost six months showed that the narcissistic bully is still the media’s master. Like a lounge act, the press conference opened with warm-up talent: Press secretary Sean Spicer attacked the media, particularly CNN and BuzzFeed, for their Monday night stories reporting that the intelligence community warned Trump and President Obama that the Russian government has damaging information on the president-elect. Vice President-elect Mike Pence whipped up the crowd’s excitement, reminding viewers that there are only nine days before Trump can “make America great again.”
Yes, there was a crowd. In addition to more than dozens of reporters, there was an audience consisting of Trump staffers, who cheered for their boss at bizarre times—like when he went after the media, who were the ostensible reason for the odd Wednesday morning pep rally.
Trump appeared rattled by the late-night disclosure of alleged Russian “kompromat” known to intelligence agencies, and again seemed to compare the intelligence community to players in “Nazi Germany.” (My colleague D.D. Guttenplan has a sober take on the revelations here.) Like Guttenplan, I think the allegations of specific contacts between Trump, and his campaign, and Russian government sources are the most important charges; the sexual details are irrelevant. But it must be said that there’s never been a presidential moment as bizarre as Trump insisting he couldn’t have taken part in the sexual activities described in the dossier because “I’m also very much of a germaphobe, by the way, believe me.”
https://www.thenation.com/article/when-trump-pits-journalists-against-each-other-hes-won/
