White House reporters have begun pushing back when Trump-the-bully pushes them. It rattles Trump who today abruptly walked away from a press conference. A CBS correspondent, masked up, as all reporters, but not Trump, was, asked, actually a not-as-good-as-it-could have been question, why does Trump continually tout how much testing has been done in the U.S. as if "it's a global competition to you" when Americans are still dying and there are new cases daily. The camera then swung away from the masked up reporter, who also wears eye glasses, to Trump for his answer. Trump answered that the reporter should ask "China", and he put emphasis on the word both by intonation and by pausing afterwards. He then called on CNN's Kaitlan Collins and pointed at her. Camera pivot back to masked carpel tunnel afflicted wretches. At that instant the original questioner, CBS's Weija Jiang, unmasked. "Sir, why are you saying that to me specifically?" Trump flustered. I would say go ask China to anybody, it was a "nasty" question. "It wasn't a nasty question," Ms. Jiang correctly pushed. Trump had called on Ms. Collins and pointed directly at her. She was standing and now walking closer to the front of the scrum to be better heard. "I have two questions," Ms. Collins. All of a sudden Trump didn't want to take questions from Ms. Collins and pointed to "the young lady in the back." "But you pointed to me." Collins. "I did but you didn't respond" pointing to said young lady in the back. He then just walked away.
My read on those exchanges was that Trump didn't recognize the reporters with their masks on ("the young lady in the back"). I would not know Weija Jiang if she was the only person standing in front of me and had no mask on. I had never seen her before. I did not recognize that she was of Chinese descent with her mask and eyeglasses on until she lowered her mask for the follow up question. My read on that was that Trump didn't recognize her as of Chinese descent either. So he told a joke about black people to a group that unbeknownst to him included a black person within ear shot. Like that. I could be wrong of course. I frequently am. Trump's answer was a complete non sequitur. Why would any American reporter ask "China" why the American president is (misleadingly) boasting about Trump Virus testing? That particular non sequitur points compellingly to a deliberate, pointed ethnic remark. And now that I write that out, I think I was wrong, I frequently am, I now think Trump did recognize Ms. Jiang's "Chinese eyes" (as my friend Weimin Mo once said to me movingly). I think maybe Trump's eyes are bad. I don't think he recognized Ms. Collins as being with Enemy-in-Chief of the People CNN when he pointed at her. Not until she walked forward and was parallel to Ms. Jiang, so an equal distance away from Trump, did he decide to call on somebody else further back. And then decided not to. And then walked off. Flustered.
I don't know why I didn't just post the goddamned video rather than write two long paragraphs on what the video showed but the starting point of the post was that reporters are pushing back on Trump. You saw that in the exchanges today with Jiang and Collins, it does fluster Trumpie, and it was not always thus. In one of his earliest Trump Virus briefings a reporter, I think with NBC asked a very innocuous question, what does Trump say to Americans who are worried and fearful. "I say you're a very bad reporter." The reporter sat there stunned. He didn't respond at all. It was such an out-of-the-blue non sequitur that I bet many of us wouldn't know what to say. Those days of getting constantly pushed like a whack-a-mole and not pushing back are gone. You have to push back, it's the only way to deal with a bully, a coward, who when pushed back takes his ball and goes home. Now go watch the video.
My read on those exchanges was that Trump didn't recognize the reporters with their masks on ("the young lady in the back"). I would not know Weija Jiang if she was the only person standing in front of me and had no mask on. I had never seen her before. I did not recognize that she was of Chinese descent with her mask and eyeglasses on until she lowered her mask for the follow up question. My read on that was that Trump didn't recognize her as of Chinese descent either. So he told a joke about black people to a group that unbeknownst to him included a black person within ear shot. Like that. I could be wrong of course. I frequently am. Trump's answer was a complete non sequitur. Why would any American reporter ask "China" why the American president is (misleadingly) boasting about Trump Virus testing? That particular non sequitur points compellingly to a deliberate, pointed ethnic remark. And now that I write that out, I think I was wrong, I frequently am, I now think Trump did recognize Ms. Jiang's "Chinese eyes" (as my friend Weimin Mo once said to me movingly). I think maybe Trump's eyes are bad. I don't think he recognized Ms. Collins as being with Enemy-in-Chief of the People CNN when he pointed at her. Not until she walked forward and was parallel to Ms. Jiang, so an equal distance away from Trump, did he decide to call on somebody else further back. And then decided not to. And then walked off. Flustered.
I don't know why I didn't just post the goddamned video rather than write two long paragraphs on what the video showed but the starting point of the post was that reporters are pushing back on Trump. You saw that in the exchanges today with Jiang and Collins, it does fluster Trumpie, and it was not always thus. In one of his earliest Trump Virus briefings a reporter, I think with NBC asked a very innocuous question, what does Trump say to Americans who are worried and fearful. "I say you're a very bad reporter." The reporter sat there stunned. He didn't respond at all. It was such an out-of-the-blue non sequitur that I bet many of us wouldn't know what to say. Those days of getting constantly pushed like a whack-a-mole and not pushing back are gone. You have to push back, it's the only way to deal with a bully, a coward, who when pushed back takes his ball and goes home. Now go watch the video.
