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Trump Press Relations Tag

I don't go to conferences very often. It's a blog conference phobia:
As longtime readers know, I don’t do blog conferences. There are a variety of reasons for that, but mostly it’s me, not them.
Since I wrote that in June 2012, I have attended a couple of conferences, mostly because I was invited. I'll also go if I'm a featured speaker. I don't generally go to stuff just to listen. I'd probably go to more stuff if I'd get more invitations.

One of the things that I most enjoy about President Trump is his canny trolling of the media; he holds up hoops, they jump.  He whispers, "look! Squirrel!," they scurry off chasing squirrels.  It's highly entertaining. In perhaps the best example of his expert trolling yet, the president has announced that he will be holding an event in Pennsylvania at the exact same time as the White House Correspondents Dinner.

Trump promised to deviate from the Beltway status quo. Forget taking a salary or spending all of his time in Washington, Trump announced months ago he'd do neither. In his first interview with 60 Minutes, Trump said:
“Well, I’ve never commented on this, but the answer is no,” Trump said. “I think I have to by law take $1, so I’ll take $1 a year. But it’s a -- I don’t even know what it is.” Stahl reminded the president-elect, “[That’s] $400,000 you’re giving up.” Again, Trump answered, “No, I’m not gonna take the salary. I’m not taking it.”

Donald Trump's accusation that the Obama administration "wiretapped" his phones and/or Trump Tower, continues to reverberate. The accusations have refocused the argument over Trump's alleged Russia ties, which amount at this point only to innuendo, into a discussion of Obama surveillance practices. As discussed in my prior post, which is getting a lot of attention, the focus on the term "wiretap" and whether Obama "ordered" surveillance under FISA, may be a distraction, Some curious language in both Trump’s “wiretap” accusation and Obama’s defense. The media, however, is being dragged into another direction, one focusing on Obama administration surveillance practices. This morning Donald Trump, through Sean Spicer, called for a congressional investigation of Obama administration election surveillance.

The White House has drawn a significant amount of criticism for poor communication. In an interview with Fox and Friends, Trump took responsibility for the communication problems.
Trump, in an interview with “Fox & Friends,” specifically cited his immigration policy, and said that perhaps the rollout of his plan to keep out and remove criminal illegals hadn’t been communicated effectively. “And maybe that’s my fault,” Trump said. He later awarded himself a grade of a “C” or “C-plus” on communicating, straightforwardly saying, “My messaging isn’t good.” He clarified that he would give himself an "A" for achievement and "A-plus" for effort.

The White House Correspondents Association annual dinner is referred to by the members as "Nerd Prom." Is there possibly a more annoying title in the world? They are not nerds. But they do think of themselves as being smarter than their readers and viewers. It's a disgusting spectacle of insiders patting insiders on the back, and the in-the-know crowd rubbing of self-important elbows. Inevitably, "conservative" correspondents hoping to be accepted into the fold attend. Philip Bump of WaPo nailed it with this 2015 post, ‘Nerd Prom’ is a gross, self-congratulatory name for the White House Correspondents’ Dinner. Stop.: