Re: POTUS 45.33: ""We're rounding them up in a very humane way, in a very nice way."
Re: POTUS 45.33: ""We're rounding them up in a very humane way, in a very nice way."
So it's ok that his administration has barred the media from meetings that are supposed to be open to the general public, just as long as he hasn't arrested them?
The implication of your question is that the administration or Trump has violated some sort of open meeting or sunshine law. I'm pretty sure that hasn't happened because the media would be in court so fast it would make our heads spin, were that the case.
Regarding open meeting laws, personally I am strongly in favor of them and I think they should be aggressively enforced.
Notwithstanding the way you phrased your question, I assume you are asking about Trump's practice of trying to punish individual reporters or news institutions who Trump believes have been unfair to him. The punishment usually takes the form of "banning" them from a campaign rally, a news conference, etc... If that's not what you are talking about, then you'll have to be more specific.
With regard to Trump's attempts to "punish" these reporters/newspapers, I have three thoughts.
First, restricting access to those types of events is not illegal. If he wants to hold a press conference in his bathroom at 2 a.m. and invite only reporters from the
New York Post and
Der Spiegel, he's legally free to do so.
Second, his actions are incredibly naive and stupid, even by Trump standards. Pretty much anyone over the age of 8 would understand they won't work. Not only have his "bannings" failed to bring the press into line, they've almost certainly had the opposite effect.
Which leads me to my final point. His actions at trying to discipline reporters or newspapers has probably had a far more beneficial, rather than harmful, effect on this country than we realize. I'd rather have an angry pitbull of a press, beaten and disciplined by an unstable executive, than the collection of coddled, fat and lazy poodles we've been saddled with, happy to regurgitate everything the White House spoon feeds them.
I believe when historians look back on this time period a hundred years from now, part of what will be written is about the reawakening of the American Press. An unhinged presidency coupled with new and exciting forms of publishing and reporting provide pretty good ingredients for a new era of reporting.
