White House Correspondents Insider

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

TMZ’s Harvey Levin Meets President Trump in Oval Office

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President Donald Trump met with TMZ founder Harvey Levin in the Oval Office last week for about an hour. The meeting was not on the president’s public schedule.

This was not the first meeting between the president and the head of TMZ. Last fall, Levin interviewed Trump for the special “Objectified: Donald Trump,” which aired on Fox News. White House spokeswoman Hope Hicks emailed reporters suggesting this meeting was along the same vein.

“The show was a huge success, and the two were discussing future opportunities,” Hicks stated.

Levin’s stop at the White House included a tour of the presidential residence, including a visit of the Lincoln Bedroom.

President Trump Again Calls Media “Fake News”

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Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

President Donald Trump again pushed back against highly-reported stories in the mainstream media about West Wing infighting and turmoil.  Trump said his administration is “getting along great, and getting major things done.”

Posting on Twitter, the president said “Don’t let the FAKE NEWS tell you that there is big infighting in the Trump Admin. We are getting along great, and getting major things done!”

Several media outlets, including the Washington Post and POLITICO, have recently written that the White House has been operating in a chaotic state of uncertainty since Trump was inaugurated, with several aides and insider factions struggling to gain the president’s attention.

On Sunday, POLITICO reported that White House chief of staff Reince Prebius is receiving most of the blame for the administration’s missteps so far.  Several stories emerged last week discussing the president’s anger at Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ desicion to recuse himself from any investigations related to the 2016 election.

President Trump’s Address to Congress Draws Over 40 Million Viewers

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Photo courtesy likedavid / Pixabay.

According to data provided by Nielsen, President Donald Trump’s initial address to a joint session of Congress reached approximately 43 million television viewers.

Networks such as ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox aired the address live, as did cable news channels including CNN, MSNBC and Fox News.

Comparatively, President George W. Bush’s first address to Congress in 2001 was watched by approximately 39 million viewers, while President Barack Obama’s initial Congressional speech in 2009 averaged approximately 52 million.

More people watched this week’s joint address than President Trump’s inauguration speech, which drew an average of 30.6 million viewers. The inauguration speech was conducted at noon on a Friday, while his address to the joint session was conducted during prime time on Tuesday evening.

The channel C-SPAN is not included in Nielsen measurements, nor does the firm measure viewers that streamed the speech online.

President Trump Will Not Attend Correspondents’ Dinner

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Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.

President Donald Trump announced Saturday on Twitter that he will not attend the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner this April.

Every president since 1924 has attended at least one association dinner during his term in office. The last time a sitting president did not attend was 1981 when President Ronald Reagan was recovering from an assassination attempt.

Proceeds from the annual event contribute toward scholarships for future journalists.

Major Media Banned from Friday’s White House Q&A

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James Brady Press Briefing Room, 2007. Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s Friday question-and-answer session will occur without major news outlets such as Politico, CNN, the New York Times, BuzzFeed and the Los Angeles Times.

Instead of the standard on-camera briefing in the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room, Spicer instead held an off-camera “gaggle” inside his West Wing office.  Attendees were welcomed to the session by invitation only.

Some major news organizations were also let in, such as ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox, Reuters and Bloomberg.

Jeff Mason, the White House Correspondents’ Association president, blasted the situation.

“The WHCA board is protesting strongly against how today’s gaggle is being handled by the White House.  We encourage the organizations that were allowed in to share the material with others in the press corps who were not.  The board will be discussing this further with White House staff.”

The White House has not commented on the situation.

White House Chief Strategist Continues Chiding the Media

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Photo Courtesy of Haddad MediaAppearing at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside of Washington, DC, White House chief strategist Steve Bannon continued the administration’s attack on the media as the “opposition party.”

According to transcripts of his speech, Bannon said that:

“If you look at the opposition party, how they portrayed the campaign, how they portrayed the transition, how they portray the administration, it’s always wrong. If you remember, the campaign, by the media’s description, was the most chaotic, the most disorganized, most unprofessional, had no idea what they were doing. And then you saw [the media] all crying and weeping”

Bannon is the former head of Breitbart News and has long embraced the position of vocal media antagonist.

President Trump Asks April Ryan, a Veteran White House Correspondent Who Is African American, to Set Up Meeting with Congressional Black Caucus

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Kevin Liles, Amy Ryan, Hilary Rosen. Photo courtesy Haddad Media.

During yesterday’s Q&A with the media, President Donald J. Trump responded to a question from April Ryan, long-time White House correspondent and author of At Mama’s Knee: Mothers and Race in Black and White by asking her to arrange a meeting for him with the Congressional Black Caucus.

Late in a news conference that lasted over an hour, Ryan – who is African American – asked the president about a campaign pledge to revitalize American urban centers, often referred to by Trump as “inner-cities.”

The president’s response started with him stating that her question was “very professional and very good,” then followed up by Trump stating he received “a much higher percentage of the African American vote than a lot of people thought” due to his focus on this issue.

Ryan then followed up by asking the president if he was going to include the CBC” the Congressional Black Caucus, an organization of African-American Members of Congress, in discussions.

“I’ll tell you what, do you want to set up the meeting? Are they friends of yours?” the president responded.

“No,” Ryan replied, saying she was “just a reporter.”

Trump continued, saying “set up the meeting. Let’s go, set up a meeting. I would love to meet with the black caucus. I think it’s great. The Congressional Black Caucus.”

CBC spokeswoman Kamara Jones said the CBC sent the president a letter on January 19 inviting him to address the caucus, but has not yet received a response.  In a reply on Twitter, the CBC stated:

In a follow-up interview on CNN, Ryan said she would be happy to report on a meeting between the president and the CBC. “But as far as facilitating that meeting or convening that meeting, that is not my place. Every White House has someone to deal with this kind of meeting or this kind of bringing together of people. It’s up to that person in this White House to do that.”

Ryan has been the White House correspondent for American Urban Radio Networks since January 1997 and is also the author of best-selling My Up Close View of Three Presidents and Race in America.

President Trump Ignores Mainstream Media at White House Press Conferences

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Photo courtesy Wikipedia.

At the three most recent press conferences held by President Donald Trump, he has exclusively called on conservative-leaning firms and sites for questions.

On February 10, during a joint conference with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, Trump called on the New York Post and Fox Business News.  Three days later when taking questions alongside Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Trump picked Sinclair-Broadcasting-owned WJLA and the Daily Caller to ask questions.  And on Wednesday when appearing with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump chose the Christian Broadcasting News and Townhall.com.

Neither CBN nor Townhall.com asked President Trump about national security advisor Michael Flynn’s resignation or the slew of reports about contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian intelligence agents.

Mainstream media journalists have been locked out from directly asking Trump any questions at all.  CNN’s Jim Acosta voiced a question about Russia, which the president ignored.

Reporters have been blasting the president and Spicer both for avoiding difficult questions by cherry-picking only favorable, conservative sites.

Typically, past presidents have traditionally called on the Associated Press for the first question in a press conference, followed by major news organizations.

Spicer himself has taken questions from some mainstream outlets such as USA TODAY, ABC News and Reuters, although he has called on right-leaning media such as Breitbart, the Daily Mail and the Washington Times, far more frequently.

Major Garrett: If the Press Skips the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, We’d Prove Trump’s Point

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Photo courtesy of Pixabay / Geralt.

Major Garrett, CBS Chief White House Correspondent, wrote an op ed in the Post Friday to reaffirm his commitment to the Correspondents’ Association and their annual dinner.  He urged the media and celebs to appear in order to celebrate the important work of covering the White House and use the dinner to shine a spotlight on educating young journalists, something we need now more than ever.

The Correspondents’ Association sponsors over $100,000 in scholarships awarded at the annual dinner.  In 2016, the association began a mentoring program pairing students with members of the WHCA for career advice and counsel.

Garrett argues that journalists that regularly attend the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, but won’t this year because of President Trump, are applying a double-standard.

[N]o self-respecting White House reporter has ever been a president’s prom date, and the dinner isn’t a date at all. It’s a cease-fire with bad wine and crowded tables. And if we, the media, stand Trump up at the proverbial dance because we’re pining for another “date,” we make it that much easier for him to say we’re playing favorites. And in this case, at least, he’d be right.

He makes the point that several media outlets have ignored the dinner for several years.  Dean Baquet of The New York Times said in 2011 that his organization has stopped attending because “it just feels like it sends the wrong signal to our readers and viewers, like we are all in it together and it is all a game. It feels uncomfortable.”

However, for those outlets that regularly have attended, avoiding this year’s dinner because of President Trump is hypocritical and sends the wrong message.  “If the dinner were canceled because (gasp!) a president made a few snide remarks about White House reporters, that act of self-regard would say that the First Amendment is negotiable and that emotional well-being takes precedence over professional responsibilities. For myself and for my colleagues on the beat, let me say unequivocally: never.”

Instead, Garrett concludes, media outlets should address the perceived challenges and threats of a new administration hostile to the press by renewing their commitment to the WHCA dinner and the First Amendment.

Garret is a former White House Correspondents’ Association board member.