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There are career changes and then there are career changes. When Debra Saunders repositioned from conservative columnist to White House correspondent, she might have assumed it would be something like the former. But Donald Trump has a tendency of altering expectations.
Unmarred by the self-serving character typical of accounts by those deorbited from Trump’s gravity, her story involves the highs of cadging a ride on Air Force One to the lows of cramped work spaces, waiting in the rain and vying for a question from the back of the James S. Brady Press Briefing Room.
With it all in hindsight, Deb recounts her four years(!) covering the biggest news story. Let’s begin.
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Here’s the correct link to Debra J Saunders’ Twitter account:
https://twitter.com/debrajsaunders/
Debra voted Gary Johnson in 2016, but Trump in 2020. She seems to have no doubts about the 2020 election. She believes January 6 was a “riot” with blame falling on Trump. This is a mixed bag at best.
Weird. For some reason it won’t work in the host widget.
Edit: Aha! Figured it out.
First, thank you for this conversation and coverage of president Donald J. Trump, and hopefully more content about his policies and positive results for America. It DID become Great Again! And then we saw how easy and fast it was for the democrats to flush all of that ‘winning’ down the toilet.
However … “Welcome to Trumpworld”?! Seems that your bias is showing right at the start. Why does it have to be treated (or inferred) as a circus or a ‘cult of personality’. Yes, Trump has a big personality and ego to go with it. What President doesn’t? So what? The most important thing is the vision that he has for America and his success in implementing the policies to achieve that vision. Yet, this discussion seems to want to go to the soap opera format (how Debra ‘survived’ four years (!) in this “orbit” of Trump; OMG!) rather than an intellectual approach to the vision and policies proposed by this mercurial President.
How about going in a different direction, ala It’s A Wonderful Life. Imagine an America in which Donald Trump did not become President in 2016. Pottersville would have replaced Bedford Falls and America would be greatly the worse for it. Rather than President Donald Trump nominating 3 Supreme Court justices, it would have been Hillary Clinton. Can anyone say “Damage to Our Democracy”?!
Good grief.
Thanks for listening to Episode 1. I realize that many listeners want to hear only good or only bad about Trump.
Problem: There was good and there was bad. As a White House correspondent I encountered both. This podcast is an exercise in storytelling in a way that answers questions that people who care about politics might want to know. What was it like to be there? To deal with the Trump team?And Trump himself? What about the White House press corps? Why do reporters shout questions in the Oval Office?
Episode 2 is “The Battle for Access.” Covering the Trump White House was like two jobs — 1. Reporting. 2. Navigating through a newly formed bureaucracy. It was a learning experience I’d like to share. I hope you enjoy it.
Thought this was excellent (but possibly because it shows how smart and correct I was/am about DJT!).
Seriously, though, I appreciate your balanced presentation, acknowledging the good and bad. I can only imagine the day-to-day twists and turns that were the Trump trademark. Thanks again!
The wanna-be ‘kingmakers’ in the gOpE (pundits and office holders alike) ignored their base to their own peril. These are the same people that rejected President Reagan for Gerry Ford and George H.W. Bush and that have pushed Dole, McCain and Romney down the throats of their base one too many times. The base revolted after Romney rolled over for Obama in 2008. These arrogant ‘kingmakers’ rejected Newt and pushed Jeb! in 2016, thus they got President Trump good and hard, with all of his day-to-day twists and turns. It also exposed these same wanna-be’s as the frauds that they were. They cared nothing about winning, but only about keeping their power, roles and cash flow coming in.
So, to this day they are still focused on President Trump as the enemy and they collaborated with the democrats to punish him for exposing their weak and dishonest Kabuki Theater. Sad. The Base has been awakened though. Defending America against the socialism and tyranny of the democrat party is the cause and the ‘solutions’ proposed by gOpE are rejected out of hand from this point on. Give us the ‘day-to-day twists and turns’, the good and the bad (how bad does it look compared to Joe Biden?! Hmmmmmmm?!), because we want the Fighter!!!
Thank you Debra. Could you highlight the ‘good’ for me? Either it was too subtle, or I was too dense in pulling it out?
We should ask, cui bono. Who benefited from the January 6 disorders.
The obvious answer is: the Democratic Party.
Next year, if the Republicans win control of the House, we may find out the extent to which Democrat agents provocateurs lured an assortment of yokels and cretins to do exactly what the Democrats wanted.
Bottom line: she says she voted for Trump in 2020.