3538

Not sure where this goes, but it’s amusing:

3539

For those of us wondering who Bill Mitchell is and why M.Oberly thinks we should care:

“A lot of Trump people conflate being lucky with understanding politics, and he certainly is one of those people,” Republican strategist Rick Wilson told the Observer.

Last fall GOP pollster Kristen Soltis Anderson told Buzzfeed that Mitchell fits the “post-fact environment.”

3540
3541

So much winning. Giving up fights with the media plays well with Trump’s base, right?

3542

Draining the swamp!

3543

You know he needs Acosta there. He could, of course, just refuse to call on him - but my prediction is that he will not do that. He feels he gets tons of airtime and base-points every time he gets pissy with CNN.

3544

3545

But her emails…

3546

Lock. Her. Up.

3547

She claimed she didn’t know she couldn’t use her personal email.

3548

Just in time for the new Democratic House!

I look forward to all the investigations! This is gonna be fun! :)

3549


3550

@ErikWemple:

To sum up: WH revoked pass; doubled down on revocation after CNN sued; tripled down after judge ruled in favor of CNN TRO request; and now appears to have bailed on the whole thing, with the condition that people comply with new press-conference rules. Businesses often tell their congressional reps and Cabinet officials that what they need most is a stable regulatory environment. This is the exact opposite.
[…]
Not much change here. After all, there’s long been a discretionary second question at briefings. Sometimes – many times – @PressSec grants them, sometimes she does not.

3551

They can’t even figure out how to write non-arbitrary rules when told by a judge what’s required. There’s no due process when the Press Secretary has sole discretion about giving you a second question and you won’t know if you are denied permission until you’re told you’re losing your press pass.

This would not stand up to judicial scrutiny, again.

3552

The press corps needs to coordinate amongst themselves, and just have a communal set of questions and follow ups. The initial answers are entirely predicable.

3553

I don’t know enough Constitutional law in theory or in practice to know exactly what the best response to this is, but I feel pretty hesitant about just letting the “new rules” and attendant/implicit threats by the White House stand unopposed. I don’t know if this is the kind of thing the WHCA could seek a preliminary injunction on, but if possible I think they really need to push hard on this. It seems to me the one big win from a standpoint of legal precedent is that this case establishes (reinforces) the rule that the courts can intervene in this type of situation. Just taking that win and sitting quietly seems to me to just invite a massive chilling effect. My non-expert thoughts on this are it makes sense for the media to push just as hard as they can, forcing more litigation, seeking injunctions, etc, with two goals in mind: 1)the substantive goal of protecting first amendment access and opposing the petty tyranny of the Donald, plus 2)the legal/tactical goal of keeping the courts involvement in these issues active, and also serving as a “shot across the bow” of further efforts at Trump’s Mini-Me style of dictatorship.

I fear that despite the solid Constitutional win, allowing the Donald to get away with the ridiculous intimidation tactics implicit in this “new rules we can revoke your pass ANY TIME” BS would result in a death by a thousand cuts to press access.

I defer to folks with more knowledge of Con Law, First Amendment litigation, etc., but those are my thoughts.

3554

Aren’t all press conferences voluntary? Are there any other required events besides the State of the Union?

3555

Geez, what would even happen if he blew that off? The ghost of Jeff Flake would say he was concerned. But there’s no law requiring it so far as I know, and indeed it wasn’t even given in person by the president during the 19th century since Jefferson decided it was too monarchical,

3556

Hmmm… before the caravan has arrived?

3557

There’s no requirement that the President address Congress for the SotU. For many years, the President used to just send them a report. No reason he couldn’t go back to that. There have only been 83 in-person addresses.