Trump Summons TV Figures for Private Meeting, and Lets Them Have It

[Bricker]

@BobLibDem

I side more with Grant. To me, prevention of an evil candidate winning is more important than moral consistency.

Would your answer change if you learned that Grant and Fred are Log Cabin Republicans, and the “wrong” candidate Grant is discussing is the Democrat?

In other words, now I return to the question I asked above: does your ethical rule differ in any substantial way in application from the rule, “Help the Democrats; hurt the Republicans?”

[Evan_Drake]

If one of The Twelve Labours of Trump is to clean out the filth of the Augean Stables of Journalism he won’t have time for much else.

[wolfpup]

@HeweyLogan

If you didn’t bitch about that why bitch about this?

Because Obama’s off-the-record meetings had a specific and constructive purpose, namely to provide more candid background to forthcoming policy announcements than would otherwise be possible, which journalists could use without attribution.

Trump’s purpose was apparently to warn journalists, in secret, to stop being mean to him.

[running_coach]

@Evan_Drake

If one of The Twelve Labours of Trump is to clean out the filth of the Augean Stables of Journalism he won’t have time for much else.

Good, less damage to the country that way.

[Bridget_Burke]

@GIGObuster

John Oliver put it better by comparing the Democrat with a cookie with some raisins, with the raisins representing the lies. You do not like them; however, you have to deal with just a few with Obama or Clinton. Trump is like getting a shower of raisins while you eat a cookie stuffed with them.

i don’t mind raisins. They work well in oatmeal cookies. But I once bit into a raisin cookie, expecting it to be chocolate chip. Quite a disappointment. Which I’m sure many Trump fans will be feeling…

More from the Washington Post on That Meeting:

But he made no mention of the enormous amount of airtime that the networks, especially on cable, devoted to his campaign. A number of analyses have noted that Trump’s presidential effort was boosted by the news media’s fascination with him.

In a sign of another battle with the media to come, Trump also shrugged off the need for a constant press pool covering him, the people said, though he did not delve into specifics. Trump has repeatedly shirked his pool, upending a long-standing tradition of the president and president-elect.

A protective pool, as it is known, is considered necessary for disclosure of what the president is doing and transparency when big news breaks. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, for example, drew criticism when she left a September 11 memorial ceremony after falling ill without alerting pool reporters.

So, if the media get less direct contact President Trump, how will they fill that time? “We have faith that Our Fearless Leader is working hard to Make America Great Again”? Or “Let’s analyze President Trump’s Infrastructure Plan”?

As the White House official responsible for overseeing implementation of President Obama’s massive infrastructure initiative, the 2009 Recovery Act, I’ve got a simple message for Democrats who are embracing President-elect Donald Trump’s infrastructure plan: Don’t do it. It’s a trap. Backing Trump’s plan is a mistake in policy and political judgment they will regret, as did their Democratic predecessors who voted for Ronald Reagan’s tax cuts in 1981 and George W. Bush’s cuts in 2001.

First, Trump’s plan is not really an infrastructure plan. It’s a tax-cut plan for utility-industry and construction-sector investors, and a massive corporate welfare plan for contractors. The Trump plan doesn’t directly fund new roads, bridges, water systems or airports, as did Hillary Clinton’s 2016 infrastructure proposal. Instead, Trump’s plan provides tax breaks to private-sector investors who back profitable construction projects. These projects (such as electrical grid modernization or energy pipeline expansion) might already be planned or even underway. There’s no requirement that the tax breaks be used for incremental or otherwise expanded construction efforts; they could all go just to fatten the pockets of investors in previously planned projects.

Moreover, as others have noted, desperately needed infrastructure projects that are not attractive to private investors — municipal water-system overhauls, repairs of existing roads, replacement of bridges that do not charge tolls — get no help from Trump’s plan. And contractors? Well, they get a “10 percent pretax profit margin,” according to the plan. Combined with Trump’s sweeping business tax break, this would represent a stunning $85 billion after-tax profit for contractors — underwritten by the taxpayers.

[Czarcasm]

@wolfpup

Trump’s purpose was apparently to warn journalists, in secret, to stop being mean to him.

On the other hand it did serve a good secondary purpose: The lesson has been taught that one should never, ever go “off-the-record” with that back-stabbing S.O.B.

[BobLibDem]

@Bricker

Would your answer change if you learned that Grant and Fred are Log Cabin Republicans, and the “wrong” candidate Grant is discussing is the Democrat?

In other words, now I return to the question I asked above: does your ethical rule differ in any substantial way in application from the rule, “Help the Democrats; hurt the Republicans?”

I guess if Grant and Fred are log cabin Republicans (with those names, I should’ve guessed) then their moral compasses would dictate that they not hurt the candidate that is running against one that they consider to be evil.

[octopus]

@Amateur_Barbarian

Jokes aside… maybe an energized, truly hostile press is exactly what we need.

(Envisions NYT taking off fancy velvet gloves to reveal Andre-like fists of granite…)

It’s not like he made new enemies.

[Bricker]

@BobLibDem

I guess if Grant and Fred are log cabin Republicans (with those names, I should’ve guessed) then their moral compasses would dictate that they not hurt the candidate that is running against one that they consider to be evil.

Grant feels it’s their moral duty to hurt the Democrat; Fred feels their duty is to release the truth, come what may.

[BobLibDem]

@Bricker

Grant feels it’s their moral duty to hurt the Democrat; Fred feels their duty is to release the truth, come what may.

I think doing what you think is your moral duty should control your actions, even if your moral duty is, in my opinion, immoral.

[Euphonious_Polemic]

@Wesley_Clark

I do wonder if he will pressure the FCC to get revenge on media outlets that are hostile to him. Hostile = anything other than fawning. Which in this case probably even includes Fox news. Imagine that, Fox news isn’t fawning enough to the republican president and he seeks revenge. Ironic.
.

I fully expect that he will. The FCC, along with the IRS, the FBI, the Justice Dept, will all be tasked with punishing anyone who speaks in anything less than glowing terms about Leader Trump. Trump has bragged about how vindictive he is, and how he never forgets a slight. He takes pride in getting revenge, and has bragged about this in the past.

He’s not going to change his personality now that he has the ultimate power to exact revenge on whoever he chooses.

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@octopus

It’s not like he made new enemies.

No. But he had a chance to start with a level playing field, and before he even takes office he stupidly attacks the press for, basically, doing their job, under the First Amendment.

His sheer depth of cluelessness terrifies me more than any overt stand or opinion. He doesn’t know how *anything *actually works outside of his fantasy career.

[voltaire]

Op-Ed Wedding?

[Kent_Clark]

@Pearl_Clutching_Provocateur

George Stephanopoulos literally worked for the Clinton administration and somehow is considered a journalist?

Diane Sawyer literally worked for the Nixon administration (press aide)

John Chancellor literally worked for the LBJ administration (director of Voice of America)

Edward R. Murrow literally worked for the Kennedy administration (director of USIA)

Bernard Kalb literally worked for the Reagan administration (assistant Secretary of State)

Andrea Mitchell is literally married to Alan Greenspan, who literally worked in the Nixon and Ford administrations, and was first appointed Federal Reserve Board chairman by Ronald Reagan.

Your point is?

[gytalf2000]

@Wesley_Clark

I don’t have much hope of this happening. When he threatened to sue everyone who accused him of sex crimes, I think the public lost their credibility on caring about a president not being crazy or dangerous. This election isn’t about Trump, it is about how indifferent to incompetence and danger the US public are in our elected officials. We will still be this way after Trump leaves office. The worst part about this election is what it says about the American people. We are a very cruel, bigoted, gullible, mean, inept bunch and we get the democracy we deserve.

I do wonder if he will pressure the FCC to get revenge on media outlets that are hostile to him. Hostile = anything other than fawning. Which in this case probably even includes Fox news. Imagine that, Fox news isn’t fawning enough to the republican president and he seeks revenge. Ironic.

Also the media spent a disproportionate amount of time trying to be ‘fair and balanced’, so they treated Hillary’s emails like it was the equivalent of anything Trump did. Also the media never even reported on the suspected rape of a 13 year old.

Sadly, you are probably correct about this.

[ThelmaLou]

@Euphonious_Polemic

I fully expect that he will. The FCC, along with the IRS, the FBI, the Justice Dept, will all be tasked with punishing anyone who speaks in anything less than glowing terms about Leader Trump. Trump has bragged about how vindictive he is, and how he never forgets a slight. He takes pride in getting revenge, and has bragged about this in the past.

He’s not going to change his personality now that he has the ultimate power to exact revenge on whoever he chooses.

This. He has told us over and over again who he is.

@Amateur_Barbarian

No. But he had a chance to start with a level playing field, and before he even takes office he stupidly attacks the press for, basically, doing their job, under the First Amendment.

His sheer depth of cluelessness terrifies me more than any overt stand or opinion. He doesn’t know how *anything *actually works outside of his fantasy career.

He doesn’t WANT a level playing field.

Ask yourselves, what was his goal for this meeting? To get the press to treat him differently? Of course not. It was to send the clear message that he now has the upper hand. Anyone who doesn’t see that is the clueless one. And the fucker hasn’t even been sworn in yet!! :smack:

[Amateur_Barbarian]

@ThelmaLou

He doesn’t WANT a level playing field.

I know that. I just keep hoping for one story, one ray of light that shows he’s willing to be something… more? less? than what we know he is.

But Pantera’s Box is empty, I guess.

[BlankSlate]

So just tv talking heads (never really thought of them as journalists, except Charlie Rose) and no print journalists? Why? Is it because Trump doesn’t read? That isn’t a bash…lots of people get their news solely from tv.

What exactly did the tv folks get wrong?

[Half_Man_Half_Wit]

@Amateur_Barbarian

But Pantera’s Box is empty, I guess.

Fitting, since all Trump is, is basically a vulgar display of power.

[Bridget_Burke]

@BlankSlate

So just tv talking heads (never really thought of them as journalists, except Charlie Rose) and no print journalists? Why? Is it because Trump doesn’t read? That isn’t a bash…lots of people get their news solely from tv.

What exactly did the tv folks get wrong?

What the TV folks did wrong was give him so much free air time at the beginning of campaign season. “Look at this amusing goof playing at running for President! How droll!”

Trump told the media folk exactly what had angered him–but we are not allowed to know the details.

Next, print journalism:

The strained relationship between Donald J. Trump and The New York Times took an odd path on Tuesday when a planned meeting between the president-elect and the newspaper was abruptly canceled by Mr. Trump and then quickly rescheduled.

After a morning of back-and-forth statements and Twitter posts, Mr. Trump arrived at midday for a meeting with Times representatives at the paper’s Midtown headquarters. Seated next to the publisher, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., in the paper’s Churchill Room, he said he had great respect for the paper but thought its treatment of him had been “very rough.’’…

A spokeswoman for The Times, Eileen Murphy, responded that the paper had not changed the arrangements for the meeting and was not aware it had been canceled until reading Mr. Trump’s Twitter posts. The company said that Mr. Trump’s team had asked on Monday to change the ground rules, but that the paper had declined.

“We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to,’’ she said. “They tried to yesterday — asking for only a private meeting and no on-the-record segment, which we refused to agree to.”

She added: “In the end, we concluded with them that we would go back to the original plan of a small off-the-record session and a larger on-the-record session with reporters and columnists.”

Of course, The Donald is still in a snit with the* Washington Post. *