TACO Thursday
Regular customers won't be too surprised by Thursday morning's No. 8 story at the Fair 'n' Balanced homepage (right). Putting those meddling reporters in their place, after all, is the sort of signature Trump Dance move that keeps the audience coming back. But it might be entertaining to tune up the old press-presidency time machine and see how things looked a couple years ago.
First up -- now that the ketchup has been scraped from the walls -- is the debut of "TACO trade" on the Fox pages:
President Donald Trump ripped a reporter in the Oval Office Wednesday for asking a "nasty question" about his tariff deals.
"Mr. President, Wall Street analysts have coined a new term called the TACO trade. They’re saying, ‘Trump Always Chickens Out’ - on your tariff threats. And that’s why markets are higher this week. What’s your response to that?" CNBC White House correspondent Megan Casella asked during a brief gaggle.
"Oh, isn’t that nice. ‘Chicken out.’ I’ve never heard that," Trump responded. "You mean because I reduced China from 145% that I set down to 100 and then down to another number? I said, ‘You have to open your whole country.’"
Got it. "Another number." But let's go ahead and wander around the playroom with "one of the 'most accessible' presidents in modern history" for a while.
He went on, "And because I gave the European Union a 50% tariff? And they called up, and they said, ‘Please, let’s meet right now.’ And I said, ‘Okay, I’ll give you until June.’ I actually asked them, I said, 'What's the date?' Because they weren't willing to meet. And after I did what I did, they said, ‘We'll meet anytime you want.’ And we have an end date of July 9. You call that chickening out? Because we have $14 trillion now invested, committed to investing when Biden didn't have practically anything."
Trump contrasted the situation with the Biden administration, saying the U.S. was "stone-cold dead" six months ago.
"We had a dead country. We had a country people didn't think was going to survive. And you ask a nasty question like that? It's called negotiation," Trump said.
Well, that ought to show them. But bear with us a moment while we return to the days of his "largely hidden" predecessor -- say, the evening's top story of June 16, 2023:
President Biden appeared to laugh off a question from a reporter Tuesday when asked about the potential audio recordings of his conversations with a Burisma executive who alleges he bribed Biden during his time as vice president.
"Are there tapes that you accepted bribes, President Biden? Is that true?" New York Post reporter Steven Nelson asked the president as he departed the White House East Room following an event.
Biden seemingly found the question amusing. As he made his way down the White House hallway, the president abruptly stopped before turning around to face the reporter. Biden was visibly grinning and laughing to himself, but remained notably silent. He then shook his head, turned back around and continued down the hallway.
Let's set the telepathy aside for a moment and get to the nut graf:
The question was prompted by allegations exposed by Sen. Chuck Grassley, who revealed Monday that a Burisma executive who allegedly paid Joe Biden and Hunter Biden kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations with them as an "insurance policy," citing the FBI FD-1023 form that the bureau briefed congressional lawmakers on.
Biden's exchange with the Post reporter didn't sit well with online critics who tore into the president for shirking off a question about the alleged bribery scandal with a laugh.
First up -- now that the ketchup has been scraped from the walls -- is the debut of "TACO trade" on the Fox pages:
President Donald Trump ripped a reporter in the Oval Office Wednesday for asking a "nasty question" about his tariff deals.
"Mr. President, Wall Street analysts have coined a new term called the TACO trade. They’re saying, ‘Trump Always Chickens Out’ - on your tariff threats. And that’s why markets are higher this week. What’s your response to that?" CNBC White House correspondent Megan Casella asked during a brief gaggle.
"Oh, isn’t that nice. ‘Chicken out.’ I’ve never heard that," Trump responded. "You mean because I reduced China from 145% that I set down to 100 and then down to another number? I said, ‘You have to open your whole country.’"
Got it. "Another number." But let's go ahead and wander around the playroom with "one of the 'most accessible' presidents in modern history" for a while.
He went on, "And because I gave the European Union a 50% tariff? And they called up, and they said, ‘Please, let’s meet right now.’ And I said, ‘Okay, I’ll give you until June.’ I actually asked them, I said, 'What's the date?' Because they weren't willing to meet. And after I did what I did, they said, ‘We'll meet anytime you want.’ And we have an end date of July 9. You call that chickening out? Because we have $14 trillion now invested, committed to investing when Biden didn't have practically anything."
Trump contrasted the situation with the Biden administration, saying the U.S. was "stone-cold dead" six months ago.
"We had a dead country. We had a country people didn't think was going to survive. And you ask a nasty question like that? It's called negotiation," Trump said.
Well, that ought to show them. But bear with us a moment while we return to the days of his "largely hidden" predecessor -- say, the evening's top story of June 16, 2023:
President Biden appeared to laugh off a question from a reporter Tuesday when asked about the potential audio recordings of his conversations with a Burisma executive who alleges he bribed Biden during his time as vice president.
"Are there tapes that you accepted bribes, President Biden? Is that true?" New York Post reporter Steven Nelson asked the president as he departed the White House East Room following an event.
Biden seemingly found the question amusing. As he made his way down the White House hallway, the president abruptly stopped before turning around to face the reporter. Biden was visibly grinning and laughing to himself, but remained notably silent. He then shook his head, turned back around and continued down the hallway.
Let's set the telepathy aside for a moment and get to the nut graf:
The question was prompted by allegations exposed by Sen. Chuck Grassley, who revealed Monday that a Burisma executive who allegedly paid Joe Biden and Hunter Biden kept 17 audio recordings of his conversations with them as an "insurance policy," citing the FBI FD-1023 form that the bureau briefed congressional lawmakers on.
Biden's exchange with the Post reporter didn't sit well with online critics who tore into the president for shirking off a question about the alleged bribery scandal with a laugh.
Not sure where our writer got "shirking off," but at this point the story has legs. To push it forward, Fox can draw on a stable of several dozen reliable voices* on right-wing Twitter: here, Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist, Miranda Devine of the New York Post ("He laughs in your face, America") and the comedian TimRunsHisMouth (all quote-tweeting the original Post reporter). And while the original story was good enough to carry over to June 15, the miracle of injured right-wing feelings was able to generate a new story, this one by an associate editor, the following day:
Prominent conservative Twitter users tore into President Joe Biden on Thursday after he trashed a reporter for asking a question about his alleged corruption.
Different lineup of commenters, but drawn from the same stable: PJ Media, the Federalist, the Spectator and the Washington Free Beacon (along with, yes, the Hodge Twins). And, unlike with Trump, evidence of a pattern is presented:
Reporter Charlie Spiering brought up Biden’s history of trashing reporters asking him questions he didn’t like, writing, "Previously Biden snapped at @JacquiHeinrich, for asking a ‘stupid question,’ @KaitlanCollins, for being ‘in the wrong business’ and called Peter Doocy a ‘stupid son of a bitch.’"
I don't want the fawning over Trump's purported openness to get lost in the weeds of comparison; the Daily Caller, quoted above, got its numbers -- and its tone -- from Wednesday's Politico:
THE SOUND OF SILENCE: By lunchtime today it will have been 48 hours since Donald Trump stepped in front of a TV camera for a speech or Q&A — the first time that’s happened (outside of the weekends) since he returned to the White House on Jan. 20. Whatever your politics, that’s a remarkable record of public availability, especially when compared to his famously sheltered predecessor. And look how that turned out.
By the numbers: A quick trawl through the archives suggests Trump 2.0 has done media on 111 of his 138 days back in office — an 80 percent hit rate that includes weekends and must put him on course to being just about the most-accessible president in modern history. And aside from the lamentable attempt to ban AP, he’s basically taken questions from all-comers. It’s impressive stuff.
And it matters: In case anyone still needs this hammering home for them, the Joe Biden experience shows just how important it is that leaders are held up to regular scrutiny. Trump’s answers may sometimes be rambling, erratic — or even downright unpleasant — but every American voter can see where he’s at.
You really have to wonder whether some reporters should be allowed to cross the street by themselves. The belief here seems to be that there's some measurable (objectivity!) thing called a "hit rate" that's entirely uncoupled from the sorts of words and ideas that are transmitted in the course of an "availability." Somehow, the sheer torrent of words in Trump's Thursday night attack on the Federalist Society, or his announcement of a joint press conference with Elon Musk on Friday, provides the public with all the information it needs to make well-reasoned decisions on policy issues. That breathless naivete may not be entirely why journalism has a bad name these days, but it's certainly one reason journalism continues to earn it.
* Only a few of them actually known to be on the Kremlin payroll. Let's be fair here.
Different lineup of commenters, but drawn from the same stable: PJ Media, the Federalist, the Spectator and the Washington Free Beacon (along with, yes, the Hodge Twins). And, unlike with Trump, evidence of a pattern is presented:
Reporter Charlie Spiering brought up Biden’s history of trashing reporters asking him questions he didn’t like, writing, "Previously Biden snapped at @JacquiHeinrich, for asking a ‘stupid question,’ @KaitlanCollins, for being ‘in the wrong business’ and called Peter Doocy a ‘stupid son of a bitch.’"
I don't want the fawning over Trump's purported openness to get lost in the weeds of comparison; the Daily Caller, quoted above, got its numbers -- and its tone -- from Wednesday's Politico:
THE SOUND OF SILENCE: By lunchtime today it will have been 48 hours since Donald Trump stepped in front of a TV camera for a speech or Q&A — the first time that’s happened (outside of the weekends) since he returned to the White House on Jan. 20. Whatever your politics, that’s a remarkable record of public availability, especially when compared to his famously sheltered predecessor. And look how that turned out.
By the numbers: A quick trawl through the archives suggests Trump 2.0 has done media on 111 of his 138 days back in office — an 80 percent hit rate that includes weekends and must put him on course to being just about the most-accessible president in modern history. And aside from the lamentable attempt to ban AP, he’s basically taken questions from all-comers. It’s impressive stuff.
And it matters: In case anyone still needs this hammering home for them, the Joe Biden experience shows just how important it is that leaders are held up to regular scrutiny. Trump’s answers may sometimes be rambling, erratic — or even downright unpleasant — but every American voter can see where he’s at.
You really have to wonder whether some reporters should be allowed to cross the street by themselves. The belief here seems to be that there's some measurable (objectivity!) thing called a "hit rate" that's entirely uncoupled from the sorts of words and ideas that are transmitted in the course of an "availability." Somehow, the sheer torrent of words in Trump's Thursday night attack on the Federalist Society, or his announcement of a joint press conference with Elon Musk on Friday, provides the public with all the information it needs to make well-reasoned decisions on policy issues. That breathless naivete may not be entirely why journalism has a bad name these days, but it's certainly one reason journalism continues to earn it.
* Only a few of them actually known to be on the Kremlin payroll. Let's be fair here.
posted by fev at 9:28 PM
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