The daily White House press briefing has often proven to be a contentious occasion, with both the administration’s first press secretary, Sean Spicer and its second, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, taking aim at the press with personal attacks and attacks on the credibility of the nation’s media as a whole.
In so doing, both Spicer and Sanders have taken the lead from their boss, President Donald Trump, who has gone as far as declaring the press to be the “enemy” of the American people.
On Thursday, those reporters at the White House press briefing were in for yet another surprise, although this time it didn’t consist of newfangled ways of undercutting their legitimacy. Instead, this time, the surprise simply left them scratching their heads.
The briefing began with a message from the president — via video. Trump did not actually walk into the briefing room, although as many noted in the aftermath of the oddity, the Oval Office is literally just a short walk away from the press briefing room.
In the video message, Trump touted the tax reform package that he recently signed into law, referencing the announcements from an array of companies that they would be passing on some sort of benefits to their workers in the face of the bill. The tax reform package, signed into law late last year, after a tense process of getting it through Congress, represents the president’s first major legislative accomplishment since taking office.
Trump said:
‘The historic tax cut I signed into law just two weeks ago, before Christmas, is already delivering major economic gains. Hundreds of thousands of Americans are seeing larger paychecks, bigger bonuses and higher pension contribution, and it’s all because of the tax cuts and the tax reform and I want to thank all of the companies that work so hard to do it.’
In the wake of Trump’s past policy decisions, there have been often a number of workers facing harsher job prospects for every number of workers that he’s touted as supposedly having odds tilted in their favor. For instance, there is a scandal going down at AT&T — a company mentioned specifically by the president in his video message — over their decision to enact massive layoffs after having claimed they would carry out a large investment because of the tax cut.
Check out the president’s Thursday video message below.
Many, as mentioned, were taken aback by the video message.
This whole debacle reinforces the concept that the president doesn’t take the press as seriously as he should as the president of the United States. He treats them like — in his own words — the enemy, instead of as the individuals seeking to disseminate truth that they are. They don’t just sit around making stuff up, no matter how many times Trump wants to assert otherwise, and yet the president continues to hold them at arm’s length anyway.
He prefers to look out for his interests and those of his buddies at least as much as he seeks to protect the freedoms that he’s supposed to be guarding as president. For instance, the tax reform plan he touted to reporters is at least as much a benefit to people like him as it is to lower income people.
Featured Image via Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
