Hillary Clinton would be open to doing more press conferences if reporters can agree to treat her fairly, a campaign surrogate suggested this week.
“Grand bargain: straight coverage & more pressers?” Center for American Progress president Neera Tanden said Tuesday evening on social media.
Her comments came after members of the press pointed out Clinton hasn’t done a media briefing in quite some time.
CNN’s Jake Tapper noted in an phone interview with Clinton Tuesday evening that it has been several months since she last hosted a press conference.
“Is that something you’re going to remedy soon?” Tapper asked.
“Oh, I’m sure we will. Look, I was shocked myself that I’ve done nearly 300 interviews just in 2016,” she answered, failing to give any sort of concrete commitment. “But I believe that we do and we should answer questions. Of course I’m going to, in many, many different kinds of settings.”
Earlier that day, GOP nominee Donald Trump held a press conference to announce donations to veterans groups. As he spoke, Clinton’s campaign press secretary, Jesse Ferguson, criticized the Republican candidate for attacking an ABC News reporter as a “sleaze.”
“EVERYONE STOP,” he tweeted. “Close your eyes for a moment. Think about the press conference you just watched. Now try to imagine him as President. Thanks.”
Though Clinton has participated in hundreds of soft focus-interviews this year, the last time that she agreed to a press conference was on Dec. 4, 2015.
Reporters didn’t shy away from noting this Tuesday.
“Now close your eyes and imagine a Hillary Clinton press conference,” the New York Times’ Binyamin Appelbaum said on social media.
His colleague Amy Chozick added, “This would be an excellent time to contrast it to a Hillary Clinton press conference.”
Tanden was not thrilled with their remarks.
“You know, there’s a great article in NY Mag on how press treats Hillary,” she said, referring to an upcoming feature story on the former secretary of state.
In response to Tanden’s suggestion that Clinton might consider doing more press conferences if reporters treated her more fairly, the Times’ Maggie Haberman interjected, “on the other hand, Trump clearly doesn’t think he’s treated fairly and does them anyway.”
“Not sure we really know the answer to that question,” said Tanden.
Haberman responded, “Impossible to do an emotional MRI, but saying ‘treat me fairly and I’ll do a presser’ is Trump argument too.”
“Apparently not, since you say he does them all the time,” Tanden replied.
“It’s his same argument. He just doesn’t never do them. She hasn’t had one this year,” the Times reporter insisted.
“Does he really feel he’s not treated fairly or is it a strategy to undermine what reporters find w/ his supporters?” the Center for American Progress president persisted.
“[H]e really believes he’s treated unfairly. It might have another purpose. But [people] could say same [about Clinton’s] complaints,” Haberman said.
The conversation went on like that for some time until Tanden eventually disengaged by saying simply they’d have to “agree to disagree” over the press’ treatment of Clinton’s candidacy.
