I could fix these Trump press briefings in a heartbeat
Donald Trump, cooped up by the coronavirus lockdown and unable to hold campaign rallies or play golf, and clearly feeling the pressure of being on track to lose the election, has been using his daily press briefings as a way of getting his rocks off. He beats his chest. He dishonestly attacks his political adversaries. He bullies the reporters in the room.
These daily press briefings have become a farce, and a harmful one, as Trump continues to hand out dangerously misleading information about coronavirus drug treatments. They shouldn’t be on the air. CNN and MSNBC have been trying to split the difference by periodically cutting away from the briefings and fact checking Trump’s lies, but that still doesn’t fix the problem. I could fix this in a heartbeat.
It’s simple. I know that the reporters in the room are working for competing news outlets, and that they’re competing with each other to get called on for a question. But the next time Donald Trump begins berating a reporter for asking a question he doesn’t like, they all need to walk out in unison.
They’d only have to do it once, because Donald Trump would see that he’s no longer going to be able to get away with berating the reporters, or else his favorite toy will be taken away entirely. Trump will back down like the tepid coward that he is. The reporters in the room will then collectively have all the leverage over him when it comes to being able to ask the tough questions they’d like to ask. They likely won’t do it, but they really should.
