Kellyanne Conway, counselor to President Trump, said in January that the new White House and the national media were going to have to approach their relationship like two parents overseeing their child, America.
“This White House and the media are going to share joint custody of this nation for eight years, and we ought to be able to figure out how to co-parent,” she said.
It was probably no accident that she couched her point in a metaphor about bitter divorce, for it was already clear that the two parents heartedly detested each other.
It has been just over 50 days since Trump was sworn in, and his contentious view of the press has heightened and bled through his White House.
It’s become personal for many in the news media and as journalists and commentators overtly seek to antagonize the administration.
Their differences look irreconcilable.
After Trump this month accused former President Barack Obama of spying on him, Mika Brzezinski of MSNBC, formerly something of an admirer of the president, went off.
“I had hope and an open mind, and I have lost hope completely and my mind is closed. This presidency is fake and failed,” she said on “Morning Joe,” the show she co-hosts, which is popular among journalists and, until recently, had been with the president.
Brzezinski and her co-host, Joe Scarborough, who was also once friendly with Trump, have repeatedly said they will no longer book Conway.
“I won’t do it, because I don’t believe in fake news or information that is not true,” Brzezinski told The Washington Post in February. “And that is — every time I’ve ever seen her on television, something’s askew, off or incorrect.”
Brzezinski was referring to a spate of TV appearances wherein Conway would assert one thing and the White House would do another, leading many to believe that she wasn’t fully informed on official decision making.
Morning Joe’s clash with Conway is one of many instances in which a growing resentment between the White House and the media is apparent.
There are dozens of other signs of festering hostility.
Appearing on CBS’s “The Late Show” on March 6, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper said he has “muted” Trump on Twitter, which means he no longer sees the president’s messages on the platform.
“Yeah, you know, when you get annoying people tweeting you, you don’t want to delete [them] because then that tells them you’ve deleted them,” Cooper said. “So, if you just mute them, they think you’re still following them and you don’t actually see their tweets.”
The contentious relationship is most visible, however, when Sean Spicer makes impromptu adjustments to the White House daily press briefing, which he had said during the transition period he would likely do.
He drew ire from Washington journalists when he replaced one of the briefings with a semi-exclusive gathering in his office, keeping out some mainstream outlets, and when he went for about a week hosting his briefings off camera.
The White House Correspondents’ Association, representing many mainstream outlets covering the administration, complained that access and transparency were being wrongfully limited.
The White House said critics were overreacting and that the changes were always intended to create more dialogue between the press and the administration.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Sanders stood by that and said if there is animosity between the press and the administration, it lies with the media.
“I think it’s better for us to be able to work together and present the American people with the news, which to me, doesn’t include the bias of the personal opinions of a reporter,” she said. “If you can read a story and not know what side a reporter is personally on, they’ve done their jobs. And I don’t think that’s done very often these days. I’m not trying to generalize. But as a whole, the majority of stories you read, you can see which side the reporter is on. Facts should be presented without bias, and I think that’s missing today.”
Many journalists believe the Trump White House’s communications arm is uncooperative and often unnecessarily hostile.
After liberal MSNBC host Rachel Maddow broke the news of Trump’s 2005 federal tax return, which was remarkable primarily for being dull and containing no bombshell, the White House reacted with a combative statement.
“You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago,” it said.
An MSNBC producer told the Washington Examiner that the statement represented a pattern in which the White House raises the temperature of debate.
“A White House statement that attacks the press is nothing new, but the words being utilized are definitely much more pointed,” the producer said. “And [that] statement was really harsh.”
Another reporter who works for a national newspaper and covers the White House said the White House staff’s lack of experience in elected office may be affecting its understanding of the media’s role.
“You’ve got a whole White House of people who never have been in government,” the reporter said. “That includes the press office. Some of this is just learning.”
The reporter continued that Spicer’s staff “don’t understand that the stories will get covered. Conflicts of interests will get covered. That’s not an ax to grind; it’s a story. And that would be true under any administration.”
It’s true that the leadership in the White House press office isn’t stacked with government veterans.
Sean Spicer previously handled communications for the Republican National Committee and is also a reserve public affairs officer for the Navy. Sanders has mostly worked on campaigns, but completed a stint at the Education Department under former President George W. Bush. Director of Strategic Communications Hope Hicks worked as the press secretary on Trump’s campaign, her first major job in politics.
But that’s largely in keeping with Trump’s outsider image, which he has bolstered by continuing broadsides against the press, a target he frequently labels “dishonest,” “unfair” and “fake news.”
“Trump always needs a villain, an enemy,” a TV news producer told the Washington Examiner. “The press is his. Especially without candidates running against him.”
If there were only one opportunity for the White House and the press to show that there were no real hard feelings, that this is just business as the Constitution framed it, it would have been the annual White House Correspondents’ Association dinner.
The lavish event, an opportunity for reporters and media figures to party with the government officials they’re supposed to hold accountable, is scheduled for the end of April but will be missing its most important guest.
In late February, Trump said he was not coming. “I will not be attending the White House Correspondents’ Association Dinner this year,” he wrote on Twitter. “Please wish everyone well and have a great evening!”
His decision not to attend did, however, came after some news outlets had already indicated they also wouldn’t be celebrating in their usual way this year.
Both Vanity Fair and New Yorker magazine said they would not be hosting parties that both magazines usually throw during the week of the dinner.
Bloomberg also said it won’t host its usual after-dinner party, and a source at MSNBC said the cable channel may also scale back its role in this year’s celebration.
CNN said it wouldn’t be inviting celebrities as its guests at the dinner, but would instead bring aspiring young journalists.
But if the White House and the press can’t attend a party together, there may still be hope for peaceful cohabitation — at least as long as they have to live in the same town.
A TV news producer suggested that the president could help heal any wounds by reaching out to the media personally, as he has done with private meetings with news anchors and executives.
“He should try more off-the-record meetings with journalists to explain his positions and get them to understand his point of view,” the producer said.
For the White House’s part, Sanders, the deputy press secretary, said the press needs to demonstrate more goodwill.
“Reporters are now looking for the negative instead of the positive,” she said. She referred to inaccurate information spread on Inauguration Day, in which a Time magazine reporter wrongly tweeted that Trump had removed a bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office.
“Not to pick on Zeke Miller, but he came in looking for something wrong and to find ways to pick the president apart,” Sanders said. “There’s always a complaint, ‘Why didn’t we do XYZ?’ It’s never like, ‘Oh, this was great, thank you.’ Everyone comes in with a negative perception on the front end and nothing positive they can talk about.”
It’s possible the two ends can’t ever meet. A struggling married couple can always try therapy, but it comes with no guarantee.
“I think everybody needs kind of a reset,” a reporter who covers the White House told the Washington Examiner. “I think that it’s been a culture shock for Trump in the difference between New York media and Washington, D.C., media. Even non-business media. Trump is used to like, ‘Here, I’ll call a tabloid and give them something.’ It’s just not the same.”
