White House Correspondents Insider

Behind the scenes of one of the most powerful clubs in America.

NYT Haberman Says Trump Will Contact Reporters Directly in Post-Hope Hicks White House

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Maggie Haberman in front of Air Force One, Photo Courtesy Vanity Fair

Donald Trump stunned reporters in the White House briefing room on Thursday, March 8th with a surprise appearance, his first ever in front of the correspondents who usually grill Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders. The brief appearance acted as a teaser for his planned meeting with Kim Jong Un. President Trump is reportedly angry at Sanders for her comments about his legal case with the porn star Stormy Daniels.

Washington’s favorite White House columnist, New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, says that this move is indicative of a post-Hope Hicks White House and for Trump’s interactions with the press a sign of things to come.

Donna Shalala, Favorite of Both Parties, Running for Congress

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Donna Shalala and Sally Quinn at the Alfalfa Club afterparty at Cafe Milano, Photo Courtesy Haddad Media

Donna Shalala, the former President of the University of Miami and Health and Human Services secretary under Bill Clinton, has announced her plans to run for Congress in Florida’s 27th district. The news comes nearly one year after incumbent Ileana Ros-Lehtinen announced her plans to retire from Congress.

Despite being a longtime Clinton ally, serving as head of the Clinton Foundation after a 14-year stint as University of Miami’s President,Shalala has a storied history of bipartisanship in Washington, working for both Democrats and Republicans over the course of her career. In 2007, she was handpicked by George W. Bush to run the Commission on Care for Returning Wounded Warriors along with Senator Bob Dole. In 2008, President Bush awarded her with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Before joining the Bush administration, Shalala was appointed HHS Secretary by President Bill Clinton, staying in the position for 8 years, the longest tenure for an HHS Secretary in history.

Shalala released a video explaining why she’s throwing her hat in the ring saying, “Everything we fought for in our lives is under attack under the slogan, ‘Make America Great Again’,” and adding, “Running for Congress was never in my plans. But now I realize everything we fought for is at risk.”

The district, which encompasses the greater part of Miami and Coral Gables, is relatively Dem-friendly, going for Hillary Clinton over Donald Trump by nearly 20 points during the 2016 presidential election.

Shalala was in Washington for the annual Alfalfa Club Dinner shaking hands and greeting old friends including Sally Quinn. Here’s an interview with Shalailah and the Miami Herald after news of the announcement broke.

 

Sex and the City’s Cynthia Nixon Mulls Run for NY Governor

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Cynthia Nixon accepting this year’s HRC Visibility Award, Photo Courtesy AP

Another celebrity is seriously considering joining the ranks of actors-turned-politicians like Al Franken, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sonny Bono, and Frank Grandy. Cynthia Nixon, of HBO’s “Sex and the City” fame, is reportedly weighing her options in a potential primary showdown with Andrew Cuomo, who many see as a strong contender for a presidential run in 2020, for governor of New York. While she is yet to make any sort of official announcement, she “is in serious conversations about jumping in and has begun reaching out to potential campaign staffers,” according to a new report in Politico.

Nixon has been vocal in her criticism of both Donald Trump and Governor Cuomo. In an op-ed published by CNN in January, she wrote, “President Trump’s first year in office has been a dark year for many in America. For those of us who value equal rights for all, or economic and racial justice, or want to combat climate change, we’ve taken huge steps backwards.”

Governor Cuomo, who many see as a strong contender for a presidential run in 2020, and his team were reportedly caught off guard by the news. Politico claims that the reelection campaign has not done any polling on Nixon or any other potential primary opponent.

You can read Politico’s full report on Nixon here.

Kellyanne Conway Cited for Multiple Hatch Act Violations

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White House Special Advisor Kellyanne Conway, Photo Courtesy Getty Images

White House Senior Advisor Kellyanne Conway has been hit with two ethics violations from the US Office of Special Counsel (not to be confused with the ongoing Robert Mueller investigation, which is overseen by the Department of Justice) on Tuesday, March 6th.

The violations stem from a “Fox and Friends” interview she gave on November 20th, and a CNN interview on December 6th. In each interview, Kellyanne either discouraged voters in Alabama from supporting Doug Jones, or suggested that Alabamians support Roy Moore, respectively.

According to the Special Counsel’s report, “While the Hatch Act allows federal employees to express their views about candidates and political issues as private citizens, it restricts employees from using their official government positions for partisan political purposes, including by trying to influence partisan elections.”

The report concludes that Conway “impermissibly mixed official government business with political views about candidates.” It also suggests that Kellyanne ignored multiple requests to explain herself in the face of these allegations.

While Kellyanne does not face criminal charges for the violation, the Special Counsel’s office, the report was sent to the Trump White House for disciplinary action.

 

Don’t miss Jim VandeHei’s Five-Parter on Jared Kushner’s Fall

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Jim VandeHei, Jenny Licht and Mike Allen, Photo Courtesy Haddad Media.

Jared Kushner is on thin ice according to Axios’ Jim VandeHei, who writes in an epic story out Friday, March 2nd that President Trump’s son-in-law is facing a “slit-by-slit slow bleed”.

VandeHei mentions a series of embarrassments suffered by Kushner over the past week including losing his interim security clearance, losing his top communications staffer Josh Raffel, a bombshell Washington Post report suggesting that four foreign countries are discussing strategies to manipulate him, a New York Times front page detailing loans that his business has received after high-level meetings with the CEOs of Apollo and Citigroup, and last but not least a Maggie Haberman story detailing Trump’s frustrations with Kushner in recent days. VandeHei is quick to point out the fact that both Trump and Kushner both read Haberman’s stories.

You can read VandeHei’s full report here.

CNN vs FOX: Washington Post Says Networks Are the Hatfields and McCoys of Cable News

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Matt Drudge, Tammy Haddad, Howard Kurtz, Tucker Carlson, Sheri Annis, and Barbara Comstock at the Washington Correspondents’ Garden Brunch in 2004

CNN and Fox are at war when it comes to President Trump, the Parkland school shooting survivors, and even each other’s Winter Olympics coverage, the Washington Post’s Paul Farhi reports in a piece published on Thursday, March 1st.

The inter-network squabbling, writes Farhi, “has taken on new intensity in the Trump era. Hosts at CNN and Fox now trade blows almost daily about whose coverage or commentary about President Trump is more distorted or unfair.”

According to Farhi, “In many ways, the Hatfields-and-McCoys act has become a proxy for the news media’s drift into more polarized camps, especially when it comes to covering Trump. The president has certainly stoked the perception that there are pro- and anti-Trump factions in the news media, singling out CNN and Fox in particular.”

Farhi asked both networks’ respective media correspondents what all the bad blood was about.

Brian Stelter, host of CNN’s “Reliable Sources” said that “Fox influences the president of the United States in a way not seen by any other network. Fox affects society in more ways than it did even three years ago. . . . If you only looked at CNN, MSNBC or CBS and you didn’t acknowledge Fox’s influence on the president, then you’d be missing the story.”

FOX media analyst Howard Kurtz says that, “Sniping by rival cable news hosts is a more polarizing sport in the Trump era and that now includes CNN, which fairly or unfairly is often at odds with the president over its coverage. I get why anti-Trump voices at other outlets try to lump Fox’s opinion hosts in with its news division to make it appear there’s one company line, which is clearly not true.”

Kurtz adds, “I make it my business to report fairly on CNN, criticizing or defending as the situation warrants. I treat Fox the same way, which is the ultimate test of fair media reporting.”

You can read the full Washington Post piece here.

Trump to Make Gridiron Appearance

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Donald and Melania Trump attending the 2015 White House Correspondents Dinner, Photo Courtesy Getty Images

Donald Trump announced plans to attend this year’s annual Gridiron Party on Tuesday, February 20th, which is set to take place in March. The decision to participate in this year’s event comes at a point when coverage of the President is combative at best. Last year, the administration decided to attend the off-the-record Gridiron Party in lieu of the more illustrious White House Correspondents’ Dinner.

David Lightman, a national correspondent for McClatchy and president of the Gridiron Club, stated that the president’s attendance at the dinner is simply keeping with tradition. “He’s the president of the United States, and we always invite the president.”

It is also worth noting that Trump has not ruled out attending the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said, “no decision has been made regarding the WHCA dinner,” in response to the Daily Mail article stating that Trump plans on attending the Correspondents’ Dinner, which is set to happen this April.

NYU’s Mitchell Moss: Scorn from NYC’s Elites Fueled Donald Trump’s Presidential Ambitions

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Mitchell Moss, NYU’s Henry Hart Rice Professor of Urban Policy & Planning, Director of Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management, Photo Courtesy of NYU

 

In an op-ed for Zocalo Public Square on February 6th, Mitchell Moss, the head of New York University’s Director of Rudin Center for Transportation Policy & Management, writes that Donald Trump’s political ambitions were fueled by the resentment and disdain he received from elite New York social circles.

Moss claims that Trump, the son of a Queens real estate developer, was met with derision due to his harsh style and lack of credentials or business acumen as he began developing real estate properties in Manhattan. Moss writes, “His failure to make it into the upper echelon of New York’s business community is what drove him to run for president, and that, “Trump didn’t care about being right or smart or ethical, only about being known.”

This contempt on behalf of New York’s business and philanthropic communities, Moss claims, led Trump to seek attention in the city’s tabloid papers. According to Moss, New York papers “Loved to feature Trump, in stories about his three marriages and his calls for proof of President Obama’s birth. The front page of the New York Post is the equivalent of a daily billboard, which the local radio and television news programs treat as raw material for their evening programs. Trump was a master at getting the New York Post to cover his words, his wives, and his fights with Ed Koch and Barack Obama. He became famous as someone New Yorkers loved to ridicule.”

Now that Trump’s political ambitions have paid off, “News reports now have him marveling that New Yorkers who once wouldn’t give him the time of day—like the former Goldman Sachs chieftain Gary Cohn—now work for him.”

 

Trump Fails To Make State of the Union Ratings Great Again

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Media Post’s  

Donald Trump has been called the “ratings” President, because of his propensity to use the TV industry term to refer to his Presidential performance, and because he’s an ex-reality TV personality and producer. But based on Nielsen’s official ratings, the performance of his first State of the Union Address wasn’t exactly huge.

While it’s true that the ratings of Presidential State of the Union addresses have been trending downward in recent years, Trump’s first SOTU ranks only eighth in terms of viewers among the last 25 to be aired on the major broadcast and cable networks carrying it live, according to an analysis of Nielsen data.

Daniel Lippman Exclusive: Media Banned from Trump’s DC Hotel

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Daniel Lippman at AMC’s Turn event, Photo Courtesy Haddad Media


According to Politico’s Daniel Lippman, the Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC is barring the press from entering the hotel during inauguration week. A Politico reporter attempting to enter the hotel for a previously scheduled meeting was stopped at the door and told that media was not allowed in.

Per Daniel, “The hotel’s decision to ban media from property owned by the federal government and from a hotel controlled by the president-elect comes amid a broader debate over media access to the incoming administration. Trump has resisted forming a protective pool around him, instead opting for a “semi-protective pool” that afford the media less access than previous presidents allowed.”

Politico reached out to Patricia Tang, director of sales and marketing for the hotel, who said, “Media is not allowed in this week in respect of the privacy of our guests.”

You can read Lippman’s full report here.