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Trump’s Rashomon Press Conference
Donald Trump’s press conference Thursday was the worst political failure in presidential history. And the presser was the most deft performance by a President ever witnessed.
Wait … which of the above sentences is true? Depends who you ask. First, let’s look at the response of Trump’s detractors.
CNN:
Trump held court during a news conference that lasted an hour and fifteen minutes, carving out a stunning moment in modern American political history. He displayed a sense of anger and grievance rarely vented by a President in public — let alone one who has been in office for just four weeks.
President Trump on Thursday aired his grievances against the news media, the intelligence community and his detractors generally in a sprawling, stream-of-consciousness news conference that alternated between claims that he had “inherited a mess” and the assertion that his fledgling administration “is running like a fine-tuned machine.”
…Yet moments later, the president seemed to acknowledge the widespread reports of turbulence and upheaval emanating out of his West Wing, only to claim that his White House — which so far has been marred by staff infighting, a controversial travel ban, false statements and myriad leaks — was operating seamlessly.
[T]he session was marked by an extraordinarily raw and angry defense the likes of which has never been seen in a modern White House. At times abrupt, often rambling, characteristically boastful yet seemingly pained at the portrayals of him, Mr. Trump seemed intent on reproducing the energy and excitement of his campaign after a month of grinding governance. He returned repeatedly to his contest with Hillary Clinton and at one point plaintively pleaded for understanding.
From these reports, it appears that a petulant, dissembling Trump ranted and raved for more than an hour and caused incalculable damage to his presidency and his agenda. But not so fast. Despite these reports by the “objective” press, let’s see how reporters not as reflexively contemptuous of Trump reported the event.
President Trump Thursday abruptly revived the aggressive, freewheeling style he exhibited during the presidential campaign — boasting, attacking and complaining his way through an hour-long East Room news conference.
As he did during the campaign, Trump singled out reporters for particular scorn, touting them as embodying of everything that he saw wrong with Washington: elitism, dishonesty and insularity.
Townhall’s Guy Benson:
With the media loudly demanding that he take questions from traditional mainstream outlets following yesterday’s kerfuffle, President Trump gave the press what they wanted: A lengthy news conference at which reporters from virtually every outlet under the sun were able to pose questions, often with multiple follow-ups.
Trump began by reading with a lengthy statement from which he characteristically departed and ad libbed at some length. It felt like a choreographed effort to talk over the heads of the news media “gatekeepers,” and communicate directly with the American people. While he frequently oversimplifies and over-applies his frustrations (dismissing all news and polls he doesn’t like as “fake,” for instance), the president is understandably frustrated with a press corps that really has seemed determined to cover his administration in a relentlessly negative light, sometimes in hysterical and unfair terms, from day one.
The president spoke and took questions for more than an hour and 15 minutes, even joking with some reporters toward the end and saying he was having fun. In a bid to preempt negative coverage of his remarks, Trump insisted he was not “ranting and raving.” But he lamented that the “tone” of coverage of his administration is one of “such hatred.”
“The public doesn’t believe you people anymore,” he said.
I missed the press conference live and, according to a brief perusal of journalist Twitter, I assumed it was a train wreck. Then I saw Ricochet member @patrickb63’s post, which was filled with positive comments by Ricochet members. Only then did I watch the event via YouTube.
(Starts just at the 1:00:38 hour point, ends at about 2:18:00)
Trump concluded his press conference with a response to a question about crime. “This isn’t Donald Trump that divided a nation,” the President said. “We went eight years with President Obama and we went many years before President Obama. We lived in a divided nation. And I am going to try — I will do everything within my power to fix that.” Just so and Godspeed.
Rashomon, a 1950 film directed by Akira Kurosawa, focused on a murder retold by four characters. The versions were radically different, each flattering the teller and confirming their own biases. As with so much news about Trump, his press conference served as its own Rashomon.
So what did you see in today’s presser: A bravura performance by Trump holding the deceptive press corps’ feet to the fire, or a lying President devastated by truth-telling journalists?
Published in General
I honestly don’t know what point you’re trying to make. The election was over three months ago.
The clock doesn’t stop, sir. The election is over, for better or worse. I think it’s better, you appear to think it hasn’t happened yet.
You really need to see it. Was unlike any I’ve ever seen in 40 years.
If you think this, then you don’t understand how bad Obama was for our country.
The election is never over. The Jefferson-Adams election of 1800 isn’t even over yet.
Hear ye, hear ye.
Ret! I swear you and I are on the same brainwave sometimes. I was literally writing the same comment. Maybe I’ll turn it into an essay.
I read the various reports in the MSM, went to Scott Adams, then I watched the thing on YouTube.
Evidently, the MSM is unable to process what Trump is saying to them. But I didn’t have any problem.
They want him to answer questions about confidential, if not classified, matters, he tells them point blank that they don’t have any right to such information, that giving them that information can undercut his efforts to deal with complicated & dangerous situations, and it doesn’t seem to penetrate.
He tells them the simple truth that the majority of Americans no longer trust them, and they think he is ranting.
In the future, I won’t be bothering with what the MSM claims he said. If I want to know, I’ll watch YouTube & get direct from the source. (Or read Scott Adams, because it’s faster.)
Every single Republican I’ve talked to since that press conference has loved it. My best friend, the Democrat, thought it was disgraceful. Trump is currently enjoying a 90% approval with Republicans, so I guess that pretty much says it all.
In another thread we were discussing tv sports announcers degradation — this is a conversation I only have with Conservative friends and I have to believe this concept is related. When I tell Conservatives that I emulate my father in muting the Dodgers game and turning on Vin Scully’s radio-cast, they invariably have a similar experience. My liberal friends are completely uprooted by that idea.
Simlarly, I’ve been watching CSPAN for years now and haven’t been able to stand commentator’s blow-by-blow parsing of political speeches.
I mean, I can play that game too; you obviously love him. I’m deeply surprised you can’t catch the part where he’s lying, ignorant, and petulant at the press conference. OK.
The point is that conservatives should be responsible.
Alternate response: If it was over three months ago, why can’t the president stop talking about it?
I honestly, 100%-in-good-faith, do not understand this argument at all. I fully get that Trump is the President. I know that he will not be replaced, barring some massive impeachment-level event.
I just want conservatives to stand for conservatism, rationality, and what is morally right, and therefore hold him to account when he is none of these things. What does the election being over have to do with anything? Explain it to me like I’m five.
Don’t know anything about you Tzvi, where you’re coming from or what party you’re in. You say to pretend you’re five, so let’s start here: according to the latest poll, Trump currently has a 90% approval rating with Republicans. That should tell you that a huge majority of this party approves of him. You infer that he isn’t your idea of a conservative. I’ve been a conservative Republican for 50 years, and I can honestly say that his performance in office so far suits me just fine. His appointments are amazing, and I can’t image how a conservative could object. Let’s give him a few more months in office before we count him out, just as we have done with all our presidents, Republican or Democrat.
If you take away the conservatism, it sounds a lot like what the Bolsheviks wanted.
In all fairness, don’t you think it’s what almost all people want?
Sure, but that doesn’t mean they agree in the slightest about what they want.
Great piece and comment thread. It seems to me, however, that Trump has set up a game of ‘Celebrity death match’ with the MSM. I’m not sure how much I like his chances of emerging victorious. And what would a ‘victory’ look like anyhow?
At any rate, if this is a contest that DJT and his people want to win, they are going to need to play a cleverer game than simply shrieking ‘fake news’ every five minutes.
I’m not going to bother analyzing your pseudo-fisking of my comment, but merely note that he was smiling, looked like he was enjoying himself, and directly said he was. You may have set a new bar for projection. Anyway, @Goldwaterwoman said what I’d say as a general response to a five year old with above-average vocabulary, but typical emotional skills.
You don’t even know that you can enjoy being petulant.
I’ve been busy and unable to find time for Ricochet. It’s not just the press conference. I’ve been supporting Trump ever since he won the primary (what choice did I have?) but I’ve Been dismayed this first month. Not only has it been amateur hour but it’s been chaos. You can’t run a country with this level of anxiety. Every day one is at the edge of turmoil. Someone – and I don’t know if its Trump – has got to create a sense of stability.
Why ?
Trump is busy campaigning, and working up the next bodacious tweet that will fill the next news cycle. Real accomplishments are still waiting while the senior management team works through all the Democrat delays in the Senate confirmation process.
In the meantime, Leftist mass media is doing everything they can to create the impression that Trump is angry and out of control; they are fearmongering now just as much as they did back in the fall.
Since a sense of brinkmanship sort of seems to be consistent with Trump’s brand, I wouldn’t expect any impressions of measured calmness anytime soon.
Leftist mass media are so lame, the lead editorial is a long discourse on how bad and dangerous Michael Flynn is. Flynn was forced out of Team Trump two days ago; it is obvious that they put a lot of work into this hit piece, and they did not have anything else to run in the Sunday paper so they just did a quick re-write and ran this out anyhow.
What a poor excuse.
Sorry, been busy so this reply isn’t very timely, but if you’re still tuned in…
The manifold possibilities of what I could know or not know are infinite. What is finite is your understanding of some words’ plain usage. Trump was definitely not petulant, but, again, maybe projection rules. Been fun, bye.
Yup, it’s been almost a month, so why is life not perfect already? Methinks you’ve been absorbing too much “information” from the usual media sources. I hope for a lot more “chaos” myself! Cheers!
Why? Turn off the television, and you’ll have all the sense of stability and calmness you need. My own blood pressure readings have improved remarkably since the election. I haven’t watched television news since the early 80s, so I guess I can attribute this sense of stability and order to the Trump administration. (n=1, standard deviation = literally incalculable)
And to think I dreaded going to vote on election day, about as much as I dreaded going to the urologist to get the results of my cancer biopsy in 2001. The election day results have turned out better than that did.
It is an unfortunate irony, however, that the more Trump skewers the ‘failing’ New York Times (for example), the more they achieve new records in subscriber growth.
It’s to be expected though, I imagine. Obama had a similar effect on Fox News ratings.
Obama destroyed nuclear non proliferation, helped the Iranian butchers, opened the US borders, borrowed staggering amounts of money and gleefuly politicised the US civil service. And the Clinton plan was to do more of this. As far as I’m concerned Trump could dress up as the Easter bunny and hop around the dias at his press conferences and I wouldn’t care. We are blessed that Trump is where he is, that him and his team seem very clear eyed and we’re even more blessed that Hillary is not there. It’s Trump’s actions, what he actually does that is everything and so far I’m still feeling like a drowning man who’s been rescued.
It is possible to hold both of these opinions at the same time:
1) The press is awful.
2) Trump is awful.
Substitute Bush for Trump and that was my position 2001-2008.
Substitute any President other than Washington, Coolidge and Reagan and that’s usually my position.
Wow, you’re old.