White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of the most powerful city in the world — Washington, D.C. — and those who cover it.

California Governor Vetoes Bill Requiring Presidential Candidates to Release Tax Reforms

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Photo courtesy Neon Tommy / Annenberg Digital News.

Late Sunday, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) vetoed pending legislation requiring presidential candidates appearing on California’s ballot releasing their federal tax returns to the public.

Although the bill passed the Democratic-controlled legislature, Brown warned the measure could eventually lead to requirements of candidates to release other private information, such as health records or birth certificates.

“While I recognize the political attractiveness — even the merits — of getting President Trump’s tax returns, I worry about the political perils of individual states seeking to regulate the presidential elections in this manner.  Will these requirements vary depending on which political party is in power?” the governor wrote in his veto message.

Sunday was the deadline for Brown to sign or veto this measure from the 2017 legislative session.  The measure’s prime sponsor, state Sen. Mike McGuire (D) did not comment on the veto message.

Bob Schieffer: Trump’s Attacks On Media Undermine “Foundations” of Democracy

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Photo courtesy Haddad Media

Legendary CBS News journalist Bob Schieffer appeared on CNN’s “Reliable Sources” Sunday, suggesting that President Trump’s attacks on the media and journalists are “undermining the foundations of our democracy.”

While Schieffer said he doesn’t give much credibility to Trump’s frequent criticisms about the media on Twitter, he did say that:

“What I do take seriously is when he tries to destroy the credibility of the media.  An independent press that can gather information that people can compare to the government’s versions of events – that is what we do.”

Prompted by host Brian Stelter on the president’s remarks, Schieffer explained that:

“It is as crucial to our democracy as the right to vote.  And when people try to undermine that, I think they are undermining the foundations of our democracy.”

During the past week, President Trump suggested on Twitter the FCC should review the broadcast licenses of “distorted and fake” networks, especially NBC.  He also said to reporters during an Oval Office meeting with the Canadian prime minister that it is “disgusting the press is able to write whatever it wants to write.”

President Trump Suggests Challenge to NBC’s Broadcast License

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Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

On Wednesday, President Donald Trump tweeted that NBC’s broadcast license should be “challenged” and the network is “[b]ad for country!”

There is no license granted by the federal government to NBC or any national network. However, individual stations and affiliates are registered with the FCC — including more than 200 NBC affiliates. This registration is for the broadcast license at local stations, and not associated with a network’s news division or non-news programming.  The purpose of these licenses is to prevent different stations from transmitting their signals on overlapping wavelengths, which would block individuals from tuning in.

The president’s comments come on the heels of a recent NBC News story citing three unnamed officials who were “in the room” of an executive briefing.  In the story, NBC News stated that Trump sought to increase the U.S. nuclear arsenal tenfold.

Asked about recent statements by the President about “fake” news, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders responded that “the president is an incredible advocate of the first amendment.”

New Poll: Public Confidence in News Media Rises, Trust in Trump Falls

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Photo courtesy Pixabay.

According to data released by Reuters / Ipos, the public is placing more trust in the news media, while also increasingly distrusting the administration of President Donald Trump.

The poll found that 48 percent of adults say they have either a “great deal” or “some confidence” in the press, an 11-point increase since November 2016.  Additionally, 45 percent say they have “hardly any” confidence in the press, measurably down six percent from a similar study in January.

“What you’re seeing now is a gradual recognition of the importance of the press,” said Martha Kumar, a political scientist at Towson University and director of the White House Transition Project.

Simultaneously, public confidence in President Trump has been declining across partisan lines since taking over the White House this year.  Forty-eight percent of adults say they have a “great deal” or “some” confidence in the Trump administration, down from 52 percent in January.  Republicans’ trust in the president has decreased six percent since January, and three percent among Democrats.

The Reuters / Ipsos opinion poll surveyed 14,328 adults from August 24 through September 5th.  This survey is the third so far this year on confidence in major public institutions.

Pew: News Media Focuses on Trump’s Character More than Policy

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Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

A new study released by Pew Research Center showed that nearly three-fourths of all stories on President Donald Trump during his first 100 days in office focused on his character and leadership skills instead of policy issues.

“Coverage was much more likely to be framed around Trump and the administration’s leadership and character than around policy,” Pew wrote.

Compared to past presidencies, policy-centered news accounted for 31 percent of all stories regarding Trump, with higher numbers during the starts of prior administrations Obama (50 percent), George W. Bush (65 percent) and Clinton (58 percent).  Stories were deemed “positive” if it had at least twice as many positive as negative statements, with the reverse true for negative stories.

“[T]he evaluations of Trump were far more negative and less positive than those of his predecessors,” the study notes.

The study pointed out five topics dominating coverage of the administration.  These topics ranged from the president’s political skills (17 percent of stories) to immigration (14 percent), presidential nominations and appointments (13 percent), Russia (13 percent) and health care (9 percent).

Articles and stories from right-leaning news outlets tended to be more sympathetic to the President, while left-leaning platforms leaned more negatively in their reporting perspective.  Left-leaning or neutral outlets also were more likely than right-leaning to “fact-check” or refute the President and administration, adding to their negative ratings in the study.

“Stories with a greater mix of voices were more likely to have an overall negative sense of the president’s actions or statements,” concluded Pew’s director of journalism research Amy Mitchell.

Additionally, Pew found that right-leaning news outlets “cite fewer source types – including fewer experts, issue groups and the administration.”  These news organizations “were roughly one-fourth as likely as outlets with a left-leaning audience to cite at least one outside expert in their stories (5% compared with 22%) and about one-third as likely to do so as outlets with a more mixed audience (16%).  Right-leaning media outlets also were half as likely as left-leaning or neutral groups to cite both Democratic and Republican politicians in the same story (7% versus 14%).

While some may read this study as evidence of media bias against the Trump administration, Mitchell warns against drawing any conclusion of the type from the study.  “It is speaking about, from the public’s perspective, what is the overall evaluation of the particular event that is being discussed in this news story related to Trump and the administration,” she said.

You may review the study by Pew Research Center by clicking here.

White House Lawyer Overheard Discussing Russia Probe at Restaurant in DC

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Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

Ty Cobb, a top attorney on President Donald Trump’s legal defense team, was overheard by reporters at a prominent Washington, DC steakhouse discussing White House strategy dealing with special prosecutor Robert Mueller in his investigation into Russian influence.

Cobb was brought in to oversee the White House’s legal and media response into the Russia probe last July, and was talking openly at BLT Steak with Washington lawyer John Dowd, who has experience in high-profile political cases.  Cobb and Dowd were sitting next to New York Times reporter Ken Vogel, who could clearly hear the conversation.

“The friction escalated in recent days after Mr. Cobb was overheard by a reporter for The New York Times discussing the dispute during a lunchtime conversation at a popular Washington steakhouse. Mr. Cobb was heard talking about a White House lawyer he deemed ‘a McGahn spy’ and saying Mr. McGahn had ‘a couple documents locked in a safe’ that he seemed to suggest he wanted access to,” reported the New York Times.

White House chief of staff John F. Kelly “erupted” and reprimanded Cobb for his indiscretion of discussing sensitive matters loudly in public, according to several people contacted by the New York Times following the incident.

“If you’re sitting, talking with someone at dinner, you need to be careful,” said Rep. Chris Collins, when asked on CNN about public officials audibly discussing official business in a public venue.

Hope Hicks Named White House Communications Director

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James S. Brady Press Briefing Room. Photo courtesy White House.

President Donald Trump announced Tuesday that longtime aide Hope Hicks will become the official White House communications director.

Currently the White House director of strategic communications, Hicks has been serving as interim communications director after the firing of Anthony Scaramucci in August.

Hicks has worked for Trump even before his campaign for president, starting as public relations and model for Ivanka Trump’s fashion label.  As Trump started his campaign for president, Hicks joined as campaign press secretary.

There has been significant turnover in the White House press team, with the first communications director, Mike Dubke, leaving last May, followed by Scaramucci serving 10 days in that role. Former White House press secretary Sean Spicer also resigned in July.

Top UN Human Rights Official: Freedom of Press Under Attack by Trump

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Photo courtesy John Gillespie.

The top human rights official at the United Nations stated that freedom of the press is under attack by U.S. President Donald Trump.

”It’s really quite amazing when you think that freedom of the press, not only sort of a cornerstone of the U.S. Constitution but very much something that the United States defended over the years is now itself under attack from the President,” said Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights.

He continued, “it’s sort of a stunning turnaround.  And ultimately the sequence is a dangerous one.”

President Trump has consistently attacked the mainstream media, even before his inauguration as a candidate.  His standard response to news stories that aren’t positive of him or the administration consists of him ripping the media as “fake news” and accusing journalists of being unpatriotic.

At a political rally in Phoenix last week, Trump claimed that journalists are “truly dishonest people” following criticisms of his response to a white supremacist rally in Virginia where he blamed “both sides” for the violence.  One woman was killed when a man attending the rally drove his car through a crowd of counter-protestors.

President Trump Blames Media for Racial Tensions

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Photo courtesy Wikimedia.

On Tuesday, President Donald Trump led crowds in his first campaign-style rally in Phoenix, the first since a white supremacist rally in Virginia resulted in the death of one counter-demonstrator and nearly two dozen others injured.  At the rally, Trump spent much of his time speaking blaming the media for the racial tensions highlighted since Charlottesville.

“Not only does the media give a platform to hate groups, but the media turns a blind eye to the gang violence on our streets, the failures of our public school, the destruction of our wealth at the hands of our terrible, terrible trade deals made by our politicians that should’ve never been politicians, and the hostility to our local police that work so hard and do an incredible job,” he said.

Turning specifically to criticisms he faced across the political spectrum following his initial response on Charlottesville, Trump misquoted and toned down his own statement, leaving out that he blamed people “on many sides” for the violence.

“This is me speaking. ‘We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry, and violence.’ That’s me speaking on Saturday, right after the event.”

He continued with blaming the media for the confusion stemming directly from his several days of contradictory statements following the violence: “Truly dishonest people in the media and the fake media, they make up sources.  They don’t report the facts, just like they don’t want to report that I spoke out against hatred and violence and strongly condemned the neo-Nazis, the white supremacists and the KKK.”

The president was playing to his base supporters at the rally, where he was interrupted frequently with chants of “drain the swamp” and “CNN sucks.”

Breitbart Says Trump’s Afghanistan Speech Was “Disappointment” to His Supporters

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Photo courtesy of Pixabay / Geralt.

On Monday evening, President Donald Trump addressed the nation on live television regarding the country’s mission in Afghanistan.  During the speech, Trump announced he will not pull out U.S. troops and that he is committed to a new strategy to win the longest war in the nation’s history.

The conservative online portal Breitbart News responded by attacking the president’s strategy, saying the approach was a “disappointment” to many of Trump’s supporters.

A piece published after the president’s broadcast stated that “President Trump unveiled his plan for Afghanistan after seven months of deliberation Monday evening, announcing tweaks around the edges of the current strategy instead of a different approach.”

The author went on to say that “the speech was a disappointment to many who had supported his calls during the campaign to end expensive foreign intervention and nation-building.”

On the campaign trail, Trump had frequently criticized military intervention and “nation-building,” and on Monday he acknowledged that his “original instinct was to pull out.”

The Breitbart article commented that “he acknowledged the frustration that Americans felt after 16 years of war without an end in sight.”

The piece follows former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon’s return to the helm at Breitbart, following his dismissal last week.  On leaving, Bannon said he would “go to war” for the president and his agenda.

In an interview with Bloomberg following his dismissal, Bannon stated “if there’s any confusion out there, let me clear it up: I’m leaving the White House and going to war for Trump against his opponents – on Capitol Hill, in the media and in corporate America.”