A former communications staffer in Donald Trump's first administration mocked his complaints about the lack of coverage of his summit with Chinese leader Xi Jinping.
The 80-year-old president banned CNN, MS NOW and Politico from the White House, and the rest of press pool boycotted their own coverage in solidarity while a legal challenge played out, and Trump reportedly wondered where the cameras were Thursday when he and Xi arrived – which came hours before the media outlets were reinstated under court order.
"I think that the White House is pushing the envelope to see what they can get away with," said Sarah Matthews, who served as deputy press secretary in Trump's first presidency. "We've seen them before, defy court orders, so it doesn't surprise me that they were dragging their feet on this, and they didn't want to let these reporters back onto the White House campus. Eventually they did so, but they did so after reporters had to go multiple times to the White House campus and try to be let in."
"I just have to say that it's hilarious to see President Trump then complaining about the lack of media coverage surrounding his China summit and Xi's visit, but this is a completely unforced error on his part. The White House loves to say that President Trump is his own best messenger, but he's often his own worst enemy, too, and he picked the timing of when to impose this ban on MS NOW, on CNN and on Politico, and then complains about the lack of media coverage."
Trump's second presidency has been defined by unforced errors, Matthews said.
"This follows a pattern of unforced errors in this second administration," she said. "You look at his tariffs that he imposed and the effect that they've had on the economy, worsening an affordability crisis that we were already grappling with. You look at his war of choice with Iran and the effect that that's had. Now we're seeing record high gas and diesel prices as a result, and all of this heading into the midterm elections. It doesn't bode well for this administration and for Republicans when they have to answer for things like this kind of authoritarian behavior of Trump trying to restrict American outlets from coming in while simultaneously letting Chinese outlets in to cover the event, it just was kind of mind blowing."
- YouTube youtu.be
