CNN’s Jake Tapper responded with astonishment Thursday after President Donald Trump’s White House news conference — ostensibly called to announce his choice of labor secretary — turned into a sweeping attack on the press and defense of his administration.
Here are Tapper’s comments in full:
“It was a wild press conference. And I think that, first of all, purportedly the purpose of it was to introduce his new secretary of labor nominee, Alexander Acosta. He talked about (CNN correspondent) Jim Acosta more than he talked about Alexander Acosta. He talked about Hillary Clinton more than he talked about Alexander Acosta.
“He spent the first part of his remarks talking about accomplishments that he thought the media, the fake media, whatever he wants to call us, we’re not paying enough attention to. But then, instead of focusing on these accomplishments and offering an optimistic, positive view of what he’s doing for this country, it was an airing of grievances. It was Festivus. It was complaints about the media. At one point, he said the leaks were real, but the news is fake, which doesn’t make any sense whatsoever.
“He said things that were not true. Peter Alexander from NBC pointed out one of them when (Trump) said he had the biggest electoral victory win since Ronald Reagan. That’s not true. Clinton, Clinton, Obama, Obama, George H. W. Bush, all were bigger.
“But, moving on. If you are a soldier in harm’s way right now, if you are a hungry child in Appalachia or the inner city, if you are an unemployed worker in a hollow shell of a steel town, that’s not a President that seemed focused on your particular needs and wants.
“That’s a President focused on his bad press. It was unhinged, it was wild and I can’t believe that there are Republicans on Capitol Hill and in the White House who don’t understand that might play well with the 44% of the population that voted for the President, but a lot of Americans are going to watch that press conference and think ‘That guy isn’t focused on me.’ I don’t know even what he’s focused on.”
