Yesterday, Donald Trump took a short ride along the streets surrounding the Walter Reed hospital complex to wave to supporters who have held a vigil outside the facility. The brief appearance might also have been designed to appease the media, which a day earlier complained that reports from the White House on the president’s condition were “contradictory” and “confusing.”
Trump drives by the press and supporters outside Walter Reed hospital. pic.twitter.com/3phtKthqTH
— Philip Crowther (@PhilipinDC) October 4, 2020
So did the press dutifully inform readers and viewers that the president seems to making a speedy recovery, and that all is well? Not in America in the year 2020! Many outlets carped that the “joyride” was irresponsible because it puts Secret Service members at risk. Never mind that members of the Secret Service members accompanied Trump to the hospital on Friday and have been close by ever since or that that is their job.
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CNN’s Brian Stelter cooked up a different — and frankly more hilarious — grievance. His beef was that the White House press pool was “not informed about this photo op ,,, which is a grievous breach of protocol.” Stelter said this with a totally straight face, as you can see by watching the video that follows.
The White House's photos and videos of the president at Walter Reed are propagandistic. We have to show and study the images with that mind pic.twitter.com/Tm9A6DQUJY
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 5, 2020
He goes on to quote Zeke Miller, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, as saying. “It is outrageous for the president to have left the hospital … without a protective[!] pool present to ensure that the American people know where their president is and how he is doing. … [T]he American public deserves independent coverage of the president so that they can be reliably informed about his health.”
And who is going to “reliably inform” the public? The same media that distorts or looks for hidden innuendoes in everything the president does, including this ride, which Stelter writes off as propagrandistic?
