Hillary Clinton’s campaign team, which literally wrangled reporters during an event in July 2015, should have treated the press more like animals, according to one of her fiercest supporters and political operatives.
For David Brock, Democrats would do well to take a page from President-elect Donald Trump’s book.
“Look, this is a lesson learned,” Brock said in an interview with Politico’s Glenn Thrush. “Donald Trump intimidated the press and bullied the press. I’m not saying you have to intimidate and bully, but you have to be tough. The press are animals and they need to be treated that way.”
His remarks are odd for a few reasons.
First, one would be hard pressed to say with a straight face that Clinton and company played nice with the press. There were many in the media who sucked up to her campaign, sure, but that was pretty much a one-sided affair. It wasn’t reciprocal. Second, Clinton’s relationship with media was a lot of things during the 2016 election, but “warm” was not one of them.
There were little things, like when Clinton snubbed an MSNBC reporter at a campaign event in Denver after the former secretary of state recognized her as a member of the press.
What happens when @HillaryClinton realizes you’re a reporter instead of a voter pic.twitter.com/bbE3n3eGVh
— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) June 28, 2016
Then there were bigger things, like when newsrooms discovered her team kept close tabs on reporters at campaign events, regularly exchanging notes about their whereabouts. If Clinton wasn’t monitoring them, she was ignoring them altogether: She went more than half a year without holding a single press conference.
Brock’s suggestion that the press be treated like animals is curious considering Clinton’s campaign did exactly that when they wrangled a group of journalists into a roped-off pen during a Fourth of July Parade last year. This wasn’t even a first time for a Clinton.
Perhaps Clinton and her supporters are upset that Trump stole their thunder. Prior to his jumping into the circus as ringmaster, Clinton was actually doing a pretty good job of playing the press as a bunch of willing and useful tools.
Maybe they were hoping 2016 would be glossy burrito bowl coverage all the way down.
