Bill welcomed Peter Boyer of the Weekly Standard, who has been following the very strained relationship between the White House and the national media. "The press pretty much declared itself last year," Boyer said, "when the New York Times media reporter wrote a column saying that when you have a demagogue like Donald Trump, you can't cover him like you cover other politicians. The editors of the Times took that column and printed it on the front page! The coverage of President Trump has been overwhelming negative and the press has decided to cover this president in a fundamentally different way. 75% of the coverage is focused not on his policies, but on his tweets and his personality. The president was right when he said very early on that the press is the opposition party."
Boyer explained why all this matters to ordinary American citizens. "If you're in the mainstream press reporting on tweets and rumors instead of policies, you might not know that the president said last night that he has rolled back more regulations than any other president has done in his entire tenure. I haven't fact-checked that yet, but if it's true it's a big deal and it should be on the front page. It gets crowded out by the latest rumor from the latest disgruntled person inside the government." Bill concluded the conversation with a personal observation, saying, "The press lies about me every single day." |