After Finding CNN On in Air Force One, Trump Issues Official Fox News Orders
President Donald Trump hasn’t been shy about sharing his feelings on CNN, arguably the worst offender of what he calls the “fake news media” that dedicates an overwhelming amount of airtime to negative coverage of everything he says or does.
He has also made it abundantly clear that he prefers Fox News to all other mainstream media outlets, as they provide more balanced and fair coverage of him and his administration.
Thus, it was quite believable when The New York Times claimed there was “a bit of a stir” on Air Force One over what news channel would play on the plane’s TV.
The Times alleged that at the start of Trump’s recent trip to Europe, the president “raged at his staff” when he discovered a TV on the plane was tuned to CNN.
The Times claimed that they had obtained a leaked internal email between the White House Military Office and White House Communications Agency that reminded staff of an informal rule that all TVs on Air Force One should be tuned to Fox News at the start of a trip.
The email chain supposedly set that practice as the standard operating procedure for any future trips on the presidential plane.
There is perhaps a potential problem with that rule, however, which The Times was only too happy to focus in on and play for all it is worth: The TV in question was that of first lady Melania Trump.
In response to the story from The Times about the CNN vs. Fox dust-up, the first lady’s spokeswoman informed the media that the first lady would watch “any channel she wants” whenever she wanted, a remark which was seized upon by those who are committed to driving a wedge between the president and his wife.
A separate article from The Times about this contrived issue tried to drive home the point that the first lady is “independent” of her husband, a stance that was signified in part by the fact that she retains a “freedom” over her own remote control.
The article cited a tweet from CNN reporter Kate Bennett, who spoke with the first lady’s communications director Stephanie Grisham and asked her about if she’d heard about the leaked Trump/Cohen taped and whether the first lady had actually been watching CNN aboard Air Force One as had been initially reported.
The statement sent to Bennett from Grisham chastised the reporter for focusing on trivial issues and asked why she wasn’t asking about babies born addicted to narcotics, or about the hundreds of thousands of children who are bullied or physically attacked at schools, which are key issues for the first lady.
With regard to the channel controversy and the Trump/Cohen tape, Grisham said, “Seems kind of silly to worry about what channel she watches on TV (any channel she wants btw) or if she heard some recording on the news.”
As for the alleged order that all TVs on Air Force One must be tuned to Fox News at the beginning of a trip, that sounds exactly like something Trump would do, if only to display his great displeasure with the excessively negative coverage he consistently receives from the other networks.
Unlike virtually every other Republican president or politician to come before him, Trump has faced the biased liberal media head on and calls them out publicly for their lopsided narratives and devoted adherence to the liberal agenda … and for that, his supporters absolutely love him.
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