There’s no going
back to the GOP scaredy-cat model.
Did you watch “the press conference”? Did you ask yourself how
Donald Trump manages to get away with it? Were you asking yourself why other
Republican politicians don’t deal with the press the way Donald Trump does? Did
you hear the furor from the media and the D.C. establishment of both parties —
“Harumphff! You just don’t treat the press that way, harumphff…”
I’ve
been in the D.C. communications business for over 20 years. I’ve worked for and
advised some of the highest-profile politicians on Capitol Hill and in the
executive branch. I’ve never been so impressed with a politician as I have been
with Donald Trump. Since he announced he was running back in June 2015, he has
been teaching a master class in how to communicate with the American people in
the 21st century. Most importantly,
he understands that Democrats and their mainstream media allies wrote the rules
on how Republicans are supposed to deal with the media and that the purpose of
those rules is to destroy conservative Republicans and elect liberal Democrats.
He’s having none of it.
The
genius of Donald Trump is that he ignores their rules. He clearly doesn’t do
political suicide. He doesn’t assume that the press is even attempting to be
fair to him. So he doesn’t validate their credibility by trying to win them
over as so many Republican politicians have tried in the past only to fail and
wind up on the political carcass heap. Trump seems to understand he has no
obligation to kowtow to the D.C. establishment media out of fear they’ll
make trouble for his presidency. He knows they don’t accept the results of
the election and are going to do everything they can to delegitimize his
authority. Thus to CNN, “No, I’m not going to give you a question. You’re fake
news.” If the establishment has a temper tantrum, so be it. Trump is the
walking embodiment of what we say in the infantry when faced with discomfort: “Suck
it up and drive on, soldier.”
He
also seems to understand that certain quarters of the intelligence community
are driven by a leftist ideological fervor and are working with the
establishment media to undermine his presidency. How refreshing it was to watch
soon-to-be-President Trump take them all to the woodshed. This latest farce
with BuzzFeed and
CNN was purposefully given legitimacy by the IC in order to hurt Trump prior to
his inauguration and give the Democrats some ammunition to fire at his Cabinet
nominees during their confirmation hearings. Real reporters don’t move forward
with crazy, unsubstantiated stories unless someone in an official capacity
lends credence to the stories. CNN was a willing accomplice, which is not
surprising. What is surprising is that the New York Times and other mainstream media outlets
walked away from their sources in the IC who were peddling this total, utter
crap. Perhaps they are starting to realize that they can’t cow this president.
Perhaps they are taking note of the reasons Donald Trump won and that those
reasons are directly related to their increasing financial struggles.
From
what I’ve seen so far, my friend and soon to be White House Press Secretary
Sean Spicer got the memo and, true to his professionalism, has been boldly
going where few press secretaries have dared to go before. He isn’t taking any
crap. He isn’t bending the knee in obeisance to the MSM. He is cheerfully,
almost gleefully, doing his job with a level of freedom to speak seldom
witnessed for a political spokesman. The source of his élan is that he knows he
has the full faith and confidence of the President of the United States whose
authority under the Constitution derives from the ultimate boss — we the
people. That’s liberating. I hope that this attitude infects his Cabinet and
congressional Republicans.
The
national press corps is quickly learning that things are going to be different
going forward. The mutual lovefest that most of them had with the Obama White
House and the Clinton campaign (as detailed in the various leaks during the
campaign) is over. Now, while that’s always the case when a Republican
president takes office, this incoming president has turned the dynamic on its
head. Donald Trump and his people are not fighting the battle on the
establishment’s battlefield. There’s no underlying assumption that the press
corps is automatically worthy of respect, that they need to be won over, or
that the media hierarchy (the NY Times, Washington
Post, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN) should be treated with any deference.
So,
a word of unsolicited advice to the good people who will serve in the Trump
administration from someone who has been in the thick of it for a long time:
Learn from your Boss. Suck it up, and drive on — and don’t take any crap from
the establishment media. MAGA.