White House Communications Director Anthony Scaramucci can be forgiven for succumbing to the same illusion that enchants almost every conservative with a moment in the media spotlight: that journalists might really like you.
Whatever agreement he may have had with Ryan Lizza of the New Yorker, there was no way a liberal reporter was going to sit on an explosive story like the new communications director trashing the president’s top aides. Lizza told CNN on Thursday night that he would not have published the interview if Scaramucci had told him explicitly that it was off the record. Perhaps not, but he would have found another way to release the same information.
.. There is no reason to trust any reporter, and especially a mainstream media reporter, and particularly a mainstream media reporter from a left-wing publication that has compared your boss to Hitler.
.. How many on the right — President Donald Trump included — have been done in by the big interview with the New York Times, the hope of favorable treatment by CNN, the flattery of BuzzFeed? It always ends the same way — with Lucy swiping the football away from Charlie Brown. And for some reason, Charlie Brown is always surprised.
.. Jake Tapper is a case in point. A left-wing journalist who once wrote for Salon, he ingratiated himself with the right while he was at ABC News because he was the only reporter who dared to ask the Obama administration remotely challenging questions. Breitbart News, of all sites, cheered for Tapper when he moved to CNN and was given his own shows — first The Lead, then the State of the Union gig. And then he turned on us, viciously and emotionally.
.. It is generally good to be cordial to mainstream media journalists. It is almost impossible to be friends with them. They live to destroy conservatives, and they hate this president with a bloodthirsty passion. They obey no rules. There is no quarter asked and none given.
Scaramucci said it best: “What I don’t like about Washington is people do not let you know how they feel. They’re very nice to your face, and then they take a shiv or a machete and they stab it in your back.”
All Joking Aside, Here’s How Sean Spicer Is Shaking Up the White House Press Briefing
In the past, White House press secretaries tended to prioritize the reporters sitting in the first two rows.
They would give the first question to The Associated Press (after decades of starting with Helen Thomas, long known as the dean of the White House press corps). Then it was on to the major networks, newspapers and other wire services.
Mr. Spicer has bypassed this convention.
As he goes around the room, Mr. Spicer typically calls on media organizations outside of the mainstream before getting to more traditional news outlets.
.. The first briefing question of Mr. Spicer’s tenure went to a New York Post reporter who wrote a book that was critical of Bill and Hillary Clinton. LifeZette, a website founded by the radio host Laura Ingraham, was first in the second briefing.
Reporters from conservative outlets like Breitbart, One America News Network and Newsmax are regularly tapped for questions.
..Raghubir Goyal, who says he is affiliated with a news organization called India Globe and whose tendency to veer off topic has been used by previous secretaries to defuse tense moments, has been called on twice.
In Deposition, Donald Trump Says Illegal Immigration Led to Nomination
“I’ve tapped into illegal immigration,” he said. “I’ve tapped into other things, also. But, you know, when you get more votes than anybody in the history of the party, history of the party by far — more than Ronald Reagan, more than Richard Nixon, more than Dwight D. Eisenhower who won the Second World War — you know, that’s pretty mainstream, when you think about it.”