Thread: Conservative Media Figures Disappointed With Trump Meeting

Conservative media figures disappointed with Trump meeting



Jonathan Easley

April 25, 2017



Some conservative media figures invited to an exclusive event with President Trump on Monday night left the White House frustrated and complaining that Trump's staff had intentionally sought to limit what they could report out of the meeting.


The White House invitation to about 30 conservative reporters, editors, columnists and radio personalities was originally billed as a background briefing with the president, meaning that they couldn't attribute quotes to individual sources in the room.


The gathering was instead meant to show the White House’s appreciation for outlets it believes are routinely ignored or marginalized by the mainstream press.


Representatives from Newsmax, Breitbart, Townhall, The Daily Caller and radio voices like Larry O’Connor and John Fredericks mingled with White House press secretary Sean Spicer, chief strategist Stephen Bannon, chief of staff Reince Priebus and the White House communications team.


Reporters were asked to surrender their cellphones before entering the Roosevelt Room, a meeting room in the West Wing across from the Oval Office. Their phones were stored in lockers outside the room.


One source said White House director of media affairs Helen Aguirre Ferre explained that phones had to be kept out because the Roosevelt Room is a SCIF, or a sensitive compartmented information facility, where officials view classified information.


After the briefing with the president, reporters were told that the conversation had actually been on the record and that they were free to attribute quotes to Trump and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, who was also in attendance.


That frustrated the reporters, who did not have their phones on hand to record the conversation.


Reporters rushed to retrieve their phones from outside the room to be the first to break the news over Twitter that Trump would institute new tariffs on softwood lumber entering the U.S. from Canada, sources said.


“This is what happens when Never Trump, low-energy, Jeb Bush staffers infiltrate Donald Trump’s White House,” one person present said of Ferre, a Bush campaign veteran. “The incompetence by the White House press staff does not serve the president’s interests well.”


A White House official told The Hill that CEOs, dignitaries and staff give up their phones before routine meetings in the Roosevelt Room. The room is equipped to be a SCIF, but Monday's affair was conducted with the doors open, and pool reporters are often allowed to bring video cameras and recording devices inside to cover a meeting between the president and a foreign official, for instance.


Reporters were routinely allowed to use mobile phones and laptops during Roosevelt Room briefings with Obama administration officials.


Two conservative media figures that were present at the gathering said reporters grilled Trump on a handful of sticky political issues important to his conservative base but that no stories will come of it because there is no recording or transcript of the on-the-record meeting.


Sources said Trump dodged on two thorny questions.


The Daily Caller’s Kaitlan Collins is said to have asked Trump about why he supports amnesty for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. She had asked White House press secretary Sean Spicer the same question earlier in the day.


And conservative radio host Laura Ingraham is said to have pressed Trump on why he backed away from labeling China a currency manipulator.


“There’s no tape, no transcript — I guess some people will be able to write what they remember or scribbled down notes, but you can’t really do it without a transcript or quotes from a recording,” one source said.


The frustrations with Monday night’s meeting point to broader complaints some in conservative media have with their treatment by the Trump administration.


Many conservative outlets have more access to the White House than they’ve ever had. Conservative media outlets were largely frozen out by the Obama administration, but now they're routinely called on at briefings or included in the press pool.


Still, some don’t feel as if they’re being treated as well as the mainstream press both they and Trump regularly rail against. They argue that Trump routinely gets on the phone with The New York Times or The Washington Post.


Of those in the room on Monday night, Trump has conducted interviews with Breitbart's Matthew Boyle and Christian Broadcasting Network's David Brody. Ingraham has flown as a guest of the president on Air Force One.


“They packed us in a room and made us fight for scraps,” one source said. “It’s not exclusive if you give it to 40 journalists and then make us fight over it. Did [New York Times reporters] Maggie Haberman or Glenn Thrush have to surrender their cellphones for their interview? The White House would be better served if they called on us one by one like he does with them.”


Not everyone at the meeting felt slighted.


John Fredericks, a conservative radio host from Virginia and an early Trump supporter, was outraged to hear that some were frustrated by the gathering.


“It’s sour grapes,” Fredericks said.


He argued that the briefing was originally meant to be solely on background, so it was a just nice bonus that the president went on the record to break news.


“I have a reporter's notebook, so I took it out of breast pocket and took notes like anyone does. What, if you don’t have cell phone, you can’t do your job? That’s whining," Fredericks said. "The president took 40 minutes of his time and answered every question. I was ecstatic with the meeting.”


Fredericks said that the Trump administration has gone out of its way to include emerging conservative media outlets that would have been frozen out by previous administrations.


This story was updated at 1:20 p.m.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administ...-trump-meeting

Sources said Trump dodged on two thorny questions.
The Daily Caller’s Kaitlan Collins is said to have asked Trump about why he supports amnesty for undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children. She had asked White House press secretary Sean Spicer the same question earlier in the day.

Thank you Kaitlan Collins! Donald Trump dodged that question because he knows he is in the wrong on Amnesty!

W

obama wont let trump deport dacas anyway - obama must be hitting the crack pipe again. He thinks he is the eternal ruler of America. Trump should deport dacas tomorrow unless he is afraid obama "will reengage"......

Obama Press Secretary: Former President Will ‘Reengage’ If Trump Crosses ‘Red Lines’

In the meantime Obama will take $400,000 from Wall St Bank for one speech

Steve Watson | Infowars.com - April 25, 2017 1504 Comments


Former Obama White house Press Secretary Josh Earnest has said that the former president will speak out against the current White House incumbent if he feels that Trump crosses “clear red lines”.

Earnest made the comments during an interview on MSNBC, when asked about Obama’s previous promise to get involved if he sees America’s “core values” as being under threat from the Trump administration.

“After the last eight years, the president doesn’t relish the prospect of getting back into the day-to-day fights that characterize governing the United States of America in the 21st century,” Earnest said, adding “He spent the last eight years doing it, it’s somebody else’s turn to do that now.”

“What would motivate President Obama to reengage in the political debate,” Earnest continued, “is if we saw the federal government start to cross some clear red lines in terms of long-observed norms and values that frankly I think that we started to take for granted.”

The former press secretary went on to suggest that the deportation of so called DREAMers may be one such red line, given that immigrants under that umbrella were promised by the Obama administration that information collected about them would not be used in such a way.

“It also would be a pretty stark departure from the values of this country,” Earnest said. “That signal that people who want an opportunity to succeed here and are willing to follow the law and make a substantial positive contribution their community should be given a chance.”

The use of the phrase ‘red lines’ by Earnest didn’t go unnoticed, given Obama’s previous usage of the term:
(lot of twitter talk at link on "red line" crossed etc)

In addition to thinking about what he can do to confront economic inequality, Obama will also be cashing a check for $400,000 to speak at Wall Street investment bank Cantor Fitzgerald’s healthcare conference this September, according to a new report.

https://www.infowars.com/obama-press-secretary-former-president-will-reengage-if-trump-crosses-red-lines/

( obama should prepare to pay severance $$$ for all the lives lost or damaged by his incompetence in allowing millions of illegals to roam our country freely either raping, child molesting or killing American citizens. Then he can give up all his money to pay for the overbreeding of millions of anchor babies and the costs involved. Pay for all the illegals sitting in our prisons - why should we be $$$burdened by his wrong actions? )

Obama worsened this whole situation of illegal immigration in a million varied and sundry ways.