The events which defined President Trump’s relationship with news media

By Catcher Kemmerer ‘24

This is the second segment in a three-article series. The third segment will be published in early April. The first segment was published in mid-January. 

The presidency of Joe Biden is settling into its second month. March 4, a date falsely believed by followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory to mark former President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, has passed uneventfully; though it caused the cancellation of the day’s House of Representatives legislative session. As Trump himself attempts to reemerge as a public figure, his eventful presidency continues to loom large, with ongoing impacts on Americans’ lives.

Jan. 20, 2021 heeded an end to his unusual presidency, and likewise one of the most fraught relationships between a president and prominent American news media in recent history.

“We’ve had so much, as a collective, to comprehend, that I think [understanding the Trump era has] been really hard for people,” said Eddy Binford-Ross, editor-in-chief of South Salem High School’s student newspaper, The Clypian.

The presidency of Donald Trump transitions into a (less) eventful second year

Following the Trump administration’s rollback of environmental regulations which marked the end of the 2017 calendar year, the administration largely remained out of news headlines for a series of weeks - which coincided with a Florida holiday vacation - with the exception of a pair of unprecedented remarks.

First, on Jan. 2, 2018, President Trump boasted in a Twitter post that his “nuclear button… is a much bigger and more powerful one than [North Korean Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un’s].” The tweet continued a complex relationship with the North Korean government that Trump’s Republican Party largely lauded as successful, but which Democratic politicians often vehemently criticized and high-profile journalists frequently discredited.

“Americans' increased reliance on social media as a primary form of newsgathering would… clearly alter the way that any president interacts with digital news spaces,” wrote local journalist Tuck Woodstock in an email to CatlinSpeak. “However, if you look at other American political leaders, as well as political leaders globally, it's clear that the existence of new types of news technology does not justify or necessitate the way that Trump and his administration have weaponized them.”

Journalists appeared shaken when Trump abruptly walked out of the second and final U.S.-North Korea summit of his presidency, which took place in Hanoi, Vietnam in early 2019. Some speculated whether Trump intended to give up on denuclearization in North Korea, an unrelenting high priority for U.S. intelligence and defense bureaus. Many have considered the Pacific Northwest, because of its vicinity to North Korea, a potential nuclear target. Recently, BBC News reported that Trump once offered Kim a return flight to North Korea on Air Force One upon the conclusion of that summit, per former aide John Bolton. Later that year, Trump would become the first sitting president to step into North Korea.

During the late June visit in which he did so, Trump appeared particularly worried over news headlines and attempted to discredit U.S. journalists with his characteristic cries of fake news.

“I hate to hear the media, you know, give false information to the public when they say, ‘Oh, what’s been done?’ What’s been done? A lot has been done,” Trump said on North Korean relations, at a news conference with South Korean President Moon Jae-in. It never became clear to journalists what progress had actually occurred between Trump’s Hanoi walkout and his return to North Korea.

Towards the end of 2019, Trump declared “peace” with North Korea, asserting that he had a quality “personal relationship” with Kim. Though many journalists at that time perceived the U.S. had not, in fact, deterred North Korea from becoming a nuclear power, even BBC News acknowledged a “bromance” between the two. In a 2018 Fox News interview, Trump joked that he envied Leader Kim’s ability to garner attention while speaking, something often accredited to his ability to stoke fear in his nation. Kim’s regime has proven particularly harmful to journalists, especially those resistant to government-sponsored propaganda.

The second of Trump’s early-year unprecedented remarks came during a meeting with lawmakers discussing immigration, in which he reportedly asked, “Why are we having all these people from shithole countries come here?” His wording caused global shockwaves, with a U.N. spokesperson condemning his words as “racist” and “shocking.” Some news media outlets even dubbed the event “‘S**thole’-gate.” This instance was referenced throughout the remainder of the Trump presidency, including in public forums, and often by journalists or politicians highlighting issues of race in the U.S.

Shortly thereafter, on Jan. 19, Senate Democrats - and five Senate Republicans - blocked a funding bill over immigration concerns; foremost the endangerment of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, which President Trump had rescinded in September, giving congressional lawmakers six months to replace it. This prompted what was then the first government shutdown in five years, furloughing 692,000 workers and delaying resources for various divisions, especially the Department of Housing and Urban Development, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Department of Education, and the Department of Commerce, among others. Public opinion polling found that a clear majority of Americans prioritized maintaining government functions over continued debate on immigration programs. DACA was never substantially replaced, but the program was resurrected by judicial means in Dec. 2020.

Throughout the shutdown, partisan blame abounded. White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders termed it “the Schumer Shutdown” while in response some of the president’s opponents argued it was a “Trump Shutdown.” Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) offered a short-term funding bill which would have prolonged the debate on immigration, though on Twitter, President Trump cast doubt on their ability to push forth a bill he would agree to sign.

By the third morning of the shutdown, journalists’ rhetoric turned to something resembling exasperation - as of that morning, enough Democratic senators continued to abstain from a deal that an end to the shutdown did not appear in sight. However, late that night, lawmakers reached a deal with a short-term funding bill which did not address immigration, and passed the Senate 81-18 - with the absence of the terminally ill Sen. John McCain (R-Az.) - before easily passing the House 266-150. Many Democratic politicians had agreed to pass the bill when then-Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) promised a vote on DACA in later weeks.

On Jan. 30, 2018, President Trump gave his first State of the Union address, which viewers positively received, according to a CBS News survey though along clearly partisan lines.

“After a long and divisive year, many Americans were yearning for the president to present a unifying vision for the country," said then-Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). “Unfortunately, his address tonight stoked the fires of division instead of bringing us closer together.” During Trump’s speech, he did not push any of his typical criticisms of the news media; though it received somewhat negative attention on cable news afterwards.

Trump’s State of the Union addresses, of which he gave three, became observably less well received over the course of his presidency. Prior to his 2019 speech - in which he planned to appeal for bipartisan unity - Trump had hosted a private lunch for cable television anchors. However, his remarks in that event soon became an oversight when some of the attending journalists told newspapers he reportedly called Schumer a “nasty son of a bi***” and set aside then-prospective presidential candidate Joe Biden as “dumb,” reflecting the largely negative media attention he had received throughout his first year in office. He also targeted Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and McCain, according to attendees of the event. His 2019 speech received mixed reviews from cable television pundits at large. McCain - who had in 2017 appeared to, though he later denied it, criticize Trump over allegations that he had draft dodged during the Vietnam War - later became a more frequent target of Trump’s insults, even posthumously; inspiring outrage from military families and a smattering of critical opinion editorials.

After Trump’s 2020 address - in which he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to conservative radio host Rush Limbaugh - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi ripped apart a written copy of his speech, prompting a set of whimsical and outraged headlines. Pelosi later explained in a statement that she did so because Trump’s speech was “a manifesto of mistruths”; her statement, too, received widespread media attention. The Washington Post rated the address “misleading,” though it did not appear to garner much journalistic commentary, especially amidst the aftermath of destructive brush fires in Australia and the global spread of COVID-19.

The afternoon of Feb. 14, 2018, a young gunman - shortly afterwards revealed to be 19-year old former student Nikolas Cruz - opened fire on Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, a suburban city said to be one of the safest communities in the nation. It was not the first, nor the final stunning mass shooting of the Trump presidency - in fact, it was the 18th school shooting of a young year - but it marked a turning point for gun control activism and the Trump-allied National Rifle Association (NRA). Several companies, including investing giant Blackstone Group, insurer MetLife and airliner Delta Airlines severed ties with the small lobbying association in the wake of the shooting, which particularly caught the attention of business journalists. The shooting received close media coverage for over a year, which was recently renewed when Cruz came up against an ongoing death penalty trial. Cruz’s lawyers have said he would plead guilty in exchange for a life jail sentence. Near the one-year anniversary of the shooting, the Columbia Journalism Review advised caution with prolonged media coverage of the shooting, with worries over it exacerbating survivors’ post traumatic stress.

In late March 2018, then-Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross made the decision to add a question of citizenship to the 2020 census, citing a need for enforcement of the remnants of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. A New York Times feature made a point of the decision “despite concerns” which formed into legal resistance, with then-California Attorney General Xavier Becerra stating plans to sue the administration over its decision. Several states, including Oregon, joined the lawsuit, which reached the Supreme Court - which had gutted the Voting Rights Act in 2013 - in late June 2019, where it won in a divided court which saw Chief Justice John Roberts joining the court’s four liberal justices. The administration ceded its efforts early the next month; Trump tweeted: “Can anyone really believe that as a great Country, we are not able the ask [sic] whether or not someone is a Citizen. [sic] Only in America!” Upon its downfall in the courts, some journalists called the citizenship question a “fiasco.” The Census Bureau persisted in adding the question in the subsequent few months, an effort which received much less widespread media attention; though it never made it onto the 2020 U.S. Census.

In May 2018, the Trump administration proceeded to endanger and then withdraw from the 2015 Iranian Nuclear Deal - which the Obama administration had helped orchestrate - so as to impose sanctions on Iran’s Supreme Leader, Ali Khamenei. Columnists complained a year later, after Iran predictably resumed marshaling resources for its nuclear weapons program, that the most optimal way to address an Iranian threat was, in fact, the reinstatement of the deal, which the Trump administration never announced an intention to do.

President Biden stated in early February 2021 that the U.S. would not lift the sanctions before Iran returned to the constraints of the deal, which the Biden administration had advocated. Iranian President Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has previously said Iran could return to compliance within hours of sanctions being lifted. Later that month, the Biden administration added that it was ready for talks with Iran. Rejoining the Iranian Nuclear Deal is not anticipated to be an easy task.

In April 2018, a high-profile federal criminal investigation into former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen was announced, prompting some journalists to host a small dialogue considering the “end stages” of the Trump presidency. A columnist with The New Yorker composed a popular editorial arguing that Cohen would ultimately cause the downfall of President Trump, while a column in The New Republic claimed that Cohen would likely not cause the Trump presidency much political harm. After all, journalists had continually predicted Trump’s undoing since the beginning of his successful presidential campaign, yet similarly questionable instances had not brought about such an undoing.

In early August 2018, federal investigators reached the final stages of their investigation; on Aug. 21, Cohen surrendered to the FBI and pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges, including one count of making an excessive campaign contribution at the request of President Trump for the “principal purpose of influencing [the 2016] election.” Trump said in an interview on Fox & Friends a day later that Cohen’s alleged hush money payments did not come out of the Trump campaign, though that statement did not entirely free him of culpability on the matter.

While Trump did appear abnormally vulnerable during Cohen’s trial, he ultimately evaded any issues resulting from Cohen’s implications that he had committed federal crimes. Cohen later pled guilty to other charges - including lying to Congress - in late November of the year. In late February 2019, he was disbarred for his felony convictions, the same week he testified before Congress again to give a “full and credible account” of his work for Trump. Since admitting to his criminal charges, Cohen has persistently attempted to bring about Trump’s downfall, to no measurable avail; he has advocated to boycott conservative media outlet The New York Post. Since Cohen was jailed, news media have often adopted the term “fixer” when referencing him.

In total, seven official Trump advisers have been jailed to the time of publication - six as a result of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into potential Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. elections - an unusually high number.

Trump puts forth controversial Supreme Court nominee

On June 27, 2018, moderately conservative U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Anthony Kennedy had announced his retirement, foreshadowing another Trump appointee to reach the high court. At that time, some journalists offered the possibility that Trump may have influenced Kennedy's retirement, though that now appears unlikely.

Democratic leaders, including Sen. Schumer, asked to postpone a vote on any Trump nominee until after the 2018 midterm elections, though McConnell refused. The Trump administration announced Trump’s nominee would be from a list of 25 names procured by the White House the previous November.

On July 9, Trump nominated then-Judge Brett Kavanaugh to take Kennedy’s seat on the high court, which journalists considered far more consequential than his nomination of the more conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch, who has voted similarly to his predecessor, Justice Antonin Scalia. Though Kavanaugh has indeed proven more moderate than Justice Gorsuch, he has proven considerably more conservative than Justice Kennedy.

Kavanaugh’s confirmation began in a complicated fashion, with the Cohen investigation prompting Democratic senators to plead to extend the timeline, met with rejection from Republican leadership. A series of substantial documents was released on Sept. 3, the day before Kavanaugh’s hearings were scheduled to begin; the morning of Sept. 4, at the commencement of the hearings, several Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee - including Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.), Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), Sen. Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) - repetitively interrupted Chairman Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), unsuccessfully asking to adjourn the hearing to examine the documents while protesters who had entered the committee room were loudly escorted out. After over ten minutes had passed, Grassley assured the senators of “plenty of opportunities to respond to the questions the minority has legitimately raised,” and proceeded into the hearing. Journalists described the opening events as “chaos”; CNN’s news ticker exemplified that chaos as its message altered rapidly, with up to four significant changes - acknowledging first the context of the hearing, then the protesters, then the Democrats’ amplifying calls to adjourn - in three minutes.

Kavanaugh’s nomination was thrown into further controversy and doubt when professor Christine Blasey Ford gradually came forth with accusations of sexual assault against the judicial nominee, first meeting with her Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) and proceeding to send a late July letter to her Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), reports of which surfaced in mid September. Ultimately, she publicly described her allegations in an interview with the Washington Post. Two other accusers later came forth in interviews with less prominent media outlets, prompting some Democratic senators to ask the Trump administration to rescind Kavanaugh’s nomination; Congress invited Ford to testify at a hearing on Sept. 27. However, due to the constraints of the hearing - only Ford and Kavanaugh spoke - journalists felt it left many questions unanswered, and some columnists even compared it to the hearing at which then-Supreme Court judicial nominee Clarence Thomas’ accuser, lawyer and professor Anita Hill, described sexual assault allegations of her own.

The following day, then-Senator Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) agreed with Democrats to a one-week FBI investigation into Ford’s allegations, which ultimately did not derail Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

The Senate confirmed Kavanaugh 50-48; Chief Justice Roberts and the departing Justice Kennedy swiftly swore him in on Oct. 6, amid ongoing protests outside numerous federal buildings at which police made hundreds of arrests and garnered widespread and persistent media coverage, largely from organizations which had previously drawn clear ire from the President, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, CNN, ABC News and the BBC. Moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) was the only senator to break with her party, voting “present,” though if it were not for an arrangement with Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.), who was attending his daughter’s wedding at the time of Kavanaugh’s confirmation, Murkowski likely would have voted against the judicial nominee. Her “present” vote spared Kavanaugh the prospect of having become the first judicial nominee in over a century to have been confirmed by only a singular vote.

“It's widely acknowledged that the public, regardless of political affiliation, has become more active during the Trump presidency,” noted Woodstock. “Left, liberal, and far-right activists have all taken to the streets regularly… The media has reacted by paying more attention to the demands of both left and right-wing activists and demonstrators.”

Trump commented on the confirmation via his favored social media website Twitter, writing: “Women, I feel, were in many ways stronger than the men in this fight. Women were outraged at what happened to Brett Kavanaugh. Outraged.”

A year later, The New York Times drew amplified criticism from both longtime Kavanaugh allies and opponents of his nomination, for its handling of a book by journalists Robin Pogrebin and Kate Kelly which investigated Kavanaugh’s education, the time period of his alleged sexual misconduct. Trump used Twitter to call for “the Resignation of everybody at The New York Times involved in the Kavanaugh SMEAR story.”

Upon the assassination and dismembering of Saudi Arabian Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul on Oct. 2, 2018, Trump immediately appeared to acknowledge the gravity of the situation, but went out of his way to acknowledge the economic benefits of maintaining a positive standing with the Saudi nation. Trump reportedly later bragged to journalist Robert Woodward that he helped Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman escape responsibility for his role in Khashoggi’s murder and continued to dismiss the significance of the instant well into the next year. Meanwhile, a widely bipartisan resolution to label bin Salman complicit in Khashoggi’s murder worked its way through Congress with opposition from just seven representatives - all Republicans. 

The Biden administration recently made public an intelligence report - withheld by the Trump administration - which found that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had approved the assassination; Trump has not, as of publication, released a statement on the report’s findings. However, a U.N. official who investigated the murder called President Biden’s passive response to the investigation’s findings “dangerous” and “shocking,” in an interview with Yahoo News. The U.S. has historically pandered to the Saudi Arabian regime, largely due to dependence on Saudi oil and energy production. The Trump administration consistently aided the Saudi government, in the name of united opposition to Iran and the export of U.S. weaponry.

Later that month, the U.S., Mexico and Canada negotiated a landmark trade agreement to replace the 1993 North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), in the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), often referred to as NAFTA 2.0. The agreement - helped along with substantial support from President Trump - would receive widespread, though mostly modest, acclaim, with the exceptions of some notable figures, including Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), passing the house 385-41 in mid December 2019, and the Senate 89-10 in mid January 2020; Trump signed the deal nearly two weeks later. Journalists were no exception; some acknowledged the all-consuming execution of the agreement, while others argued the USMCA served only as a starting point but took strides for the working class, and still others were happy to see a deal but were highly concerned about several details.

At the conclusion of that month, upon the decisive election of far-right Brazilian presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro, several journalistic organizations - including The New York Times, Business Insider and The Wire  - published columns which observed similarities between Trump and Bolsonaro, though the White House made a point of dismissing them. Bolsonaro, like Trump, has repeatedly attacked media organizations not distinguishably allied with him. Later in the Trump presidency, the election of conservative Boris Johnson to the position of British Prime Minister drew similar comparisons, though Johnson has not been known to disparage journalists to the extent of Trump and Bolsonaro.

Midterm elections strip Trump’s Republican Party of House majority

Shortly after the 2018 Brazilian elections came the 2018 U.S. midterm elections, in which a so-called “blue wave” helped Democrats retake a majority in the House of Representatives, and in which several now high-profile Democratic politicians - including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), soon to become widely known as the initial members of the so-called “Squad” - were elected. A Washington Post tracker - mentioned in the previous segment of this article - which took note of all President Trump’s “false or misleading claims” observed the President’s claims reached a new peak frequency near the midterms, especially on immigration. The Post’s reports of Trump’s false or misleading claims would generally only escalate throughout the Trump presidency, though the President extensively transcended his pre-midterms rate on a few later occasions, including the summer of 2020, when enduring racial justice protests sent shockwaves through the nation, and the leadup to and aftermath of the 2020 U.S. general elections, in which he repetitively decried nonexistent voter fraud and was impeached for inciting an insurrection on the basis of such claims.

During a campaign rally in Missoula, Mont., Trump appeared to acknowledge the Post’s main fact-checking system, which rates false or misleading claims on a scale of one to four “Pinocchios.”

“Democrats have become the party of crime,” he said. “It’s true. Who would believe you could say that and nobody even challenges it. Nobody’s ever challenged it,” he continued. “Maybe they have. Who knows? I have to always say that, because then they’ll say they did actually challenge it, and they’ll put like - then they’ll say he gets a Pinocchio. So maybe they did challenge it, but not very much.” The Post responded by adding that claim to their database.

The “Squad” would emerge primarily during the 2018 lame duck period and during the beginning of the 116th Congress, receiving heavy attention from news media. Journalists debated their potential long-term effect on the American political landscape, with The New York Times running an editorial arguing the congresswomen to be “the future of politics” while WHYY, a regional subset of NPR, ran one cautioning Democrats against letting the congresswomen become the face of the party, for electorally strategic purposes.

Notorious for hurling a multitude of insults throughout his presidency, Trump targeted frequent anger at the congresswomen. In a July 2019 tweet, Trump even urged the representatives to “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came,” though not explicitly writing their names. Several journalists perceived the words as racist; most others utilized allegations of racism as the focal point of their features. Trump shot back by, in turn, calling the congresswomen “a very racist group of troublemakers” during an Oval Office event with the prime minister of Pakistan. Trump also claimed on Twitter that he didn’t “believe [the congresswomen] capable of loving our Country.” Only one of the representatives  - Omar - was born outside the United States.

Likewise, the “Squad” became a popular subject at subsequent Trump campaign rallies. The President’s tweet telling the representatives to “go back” appeared to spark the unfolding of a so-called “send her back” chant - directed at Omar - at a North Carolina rally, which Trump disavowed in an Oval Office meeting with reporters.

Additionally, Trump’s largely pro-Israel foreign policy would often clash with Tlaib’s Palestinian ancestry. Former Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu even denied Tlaib and Omar entry to the nation for a humanitarian visit, under pressure from the President.

All four initial members of the “Squad,” unlike Trump, easily won second terms in the 2020 general elections, and the group was expanded to include freshman Reps. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) and Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.).

Similar to the previous December, Trump primarily attempted to remain out of the news spotlight he usually cherished. Unlike the previous December, however, outside events thrust him unwillingly back into that news spotlight. 

On Nov. 30, 2018, former President George H.W. Bush - a loyalist of former President Ronald Reagan and the father of former President George W. Bush - passed away, setting in motion a series of honorary proceedings, including a state funeral. Trump attended the funeral alongside his spouse, former Presidents Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, and their spouses - figures Trump had ruthlessly criticized - in what journalists and social media presences felt to be an awkward circumstance.

Government shuts down again over further immigration concerns

Although 2019 was arguably the most uneventful year of the Trump presidency; it continued ongoing storylines and controversies, and set the stage for a plethora of new ones the following year. However, it began chaotically, much like the previous year had, with a government shutdown over immigration concerns.

With a newly divided Congress, Trump found much of his agenda even further obstructed than it had with an uncertain Republican Congress, one that could not repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, for instance. Trump’s border wall, to which Democrats were nearly uniformly opposed, looked to meet considerable resistance in Congress, with a new Democratic House majority about to be sworn in.

In fact, the shutdown had begun during the holidays, on Dec. 22, 2018. Unlike the previous year, the new shutdown was partial, not full, due to the nature of the budget bill - required to maintain government functions - which reached an impasse. Also unlike the previous year, President Trump and Republican allies, not Democratic congresspeople, pushed for the shutdown.

Trump had demanded the budget bill include an additional $5 billion for border wall construction and threatened to let the government shut down without the provision. In a meeting with Pelosi and Schumer, Trump even remarked, “I will be the one to shut it down.”

Congressional Democrats did not allow for the massive additional border wall funding; the budget bill failed, setting in motion what ultimately became the longest government shutdown in history, furloughing 380,000 federal employees, and delaying the pay of 420,000 others. The shutdown set in motion a more patient series of news headlines - including some which clearly intended to inspire hope - likely as a result of its marathon length. However, journalists’ tone remained subdued; Quartz, an economic journal, complained the shutdown prevented its journalists from accessing resources they needed to execute professional tasks. 

Trump once suggested the shutdown could last for “years”; but after over a month, Trump ultimately agreed to end the shutdown without receiving additional border wall funds. By the end of the Trump presidency, 452 miles of new border wall were built, some of it over existing fencing, and mainly along the Texas-Mexico border. The U.S.-Mexico border is 1,954 miles long.

Trump retained a complicated stance on refugees throughout his presidency, but it was not limited to those immigrating through the southern border. Journalists particularly knocked Trump for his harsh stance on Syrian refugees, and he angered the U.S. military and veterans with his perplexing decision to withdraw vital aid from the Syrian Kurds, a longtime American military ally. Trump received fresh criticism when word became public he intended to host peace talks with the Taliban at presidential retreat Camp David. A 2019 Foreign Affairs article described the Trump administration’s foreign policy efforts as “united,” citing that Trump had effectively won a struggle between himself and his advisers on foreign issues.

In late February 2019, Trump announced plans for a controversial Fourth of July celebration - something he had intended to put forth in previous years but avoided, citing fiscal costs. He had reportedly also considered a Veteran’s Day extravaganza or a parade on Pennsylvania Avenue; additionally, he had previously expressed enthusiasm for a potential display of American military strength. Though at the time he announced the event it remained unclear whether or not the celebration would include such a display, the Department of the Interior later announced plans for several military demonstrations, the exhibition of military tanks and numerous flyovers, which ultimately became the focal point of the event’s controversy. Trump also planned to address the event’s attendees.

Critics, including journalists, cited not only the fiscal costs and legal feasibility which had prevented Trump from holding the event in previous years, but also accused him of politicizing and claiming responsibility for a traditional annual event presidents typically did not attend. Furthermore, some critics even described the event as “authoritarian-style.”

Despite coronavirus restrictions and pushback from local government, the White House hosted another, similar “Salute to America” event in 2020. The event received less prominent media attention, amid the coronavirus pandemic and ongoing racial justice protests.

Long-anticipated report on Russian interference in 2016 election partially released, to divergent reception

In March 2019, Special Counsel Robert Mueller submitted the long-awaited report on the findings of his probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election - most commonly known as the “Mueller report” - to newly appointed then-Attorney General William Barr. At the time of his submission, President Trump publicly backed the report’s release to the public view, claiming it exonerated him. Barr notified Congress that he had begun reviewing the report and anticipated advising them on its findings the weekend after Mueller’s submission.

Almost a year prior, Mueller had issued a statement claiming “many” of journalists’ stories discussing the investigation had been inaccurate. Mueller had previously advised several indictments related to his findings; upon submission, he told the Justice Department he did not intend to recommend any others. The investigation, to that point, had brought about 34 indictments, convictions or guilty pleas, including six of the seven close Trump aides jailed. Barr released a redacted version of the report the next month, but Mueller said it differed on several key points from the original, 381-page report.

As mentioned in the previous segment of this article, though the Mueller report ultimately concluded that no one from Trump’s campaign “conspired or coordinated” with Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election, the special counsel did refute Trump’s repeated claims that the report exonerated him. Nonetheless, news media reported with considerably divided rhetoric on the matter, as cable news outlets framed the report’s findings starkly divided. Fox News ran the headline: “Mueller probe finds no proof of collusion,” while CNN was quick to mention Barr’s heavy redactions of the report. The Boston Herald termed the resulting uncertainty “‘collusion’ confusion.”

In March 2020, a Republican-appointed federal judge said Attorney General Barr lacked credibility on the Mueller Report, and planned to review the report to decide whether or not to publicly release its redacted portions. Nothing appears to have resulted from that pursuit, but further sections of the report were uncovered following a successful lawsuit brought by BuzzFeed News. Ultimately, Trump suffered no consequences as a result of the report, which he claimed exonerated him, though Mueller, despite the report’s inconclusive nature, directly contradicted those claims.

After the report’s partial release, the New York Times defended their coverage of the report, writing that despite Trump’s claims they published “fake news,” investigative journalists there and at other organizations had already uncovered many of the redacted report’s highlights prior to Barr’s release of the findings, and writing that the Mueller Report even cited the findings of investigative journalists across organizations, especially those which already drew ire from the President. The Chicago Tribune reaffirmed the Times’ assertions.

The report also surfaced questions over Trump’s personal affairs, including his businesses and organizations, which he had left to his children - some of whom took roles in his administration - to partially avoid criticisms for conflicts of interest. The report did not appear to delve into Trump’s finances, one of Trump’s more significant fears which came to be partially realized in September 2020 when the New York Times released an embarrassing report on the President’s tax returns. Some journalists, during the Trump campaign and during the Trump presidency, questioned his motives for running, wondering if they entailed enhancing his businesses and other personal affairs.

Journalists and Barr - who had also served as Attorney General under former President George H.W. Bush - continually experienced a tense and ever-evolving relationship which formed along somewhat partisan lines. In February 2020, for instance, Barr claimed the “mainstream media” to be “monolithic in viewpoint” while speaking at a religious broadcasters convention. Barr was most often a frequent target of liberals and progressives; however, when Barr refused to promote Trump’s baseless election fraud theories, conservative media outlets hammered him as a “liar” and a “fool.”

As mentioned in the previous segment of this article, even beyond the Mueller report, the Trump administration has become a magnet for alleged scandals, some valid and others not. Peter Shulman, a humanities educator at Catlin Gabel School (CGS), frequently praised the investigative journalism of the Trump era.

“I think it’s been a great era for investigative journalism,” he noted. “To me, one of the real interesting questions is what’s going to happen when Trump is gone. I think things are going to be a bit more boring.”

That June, as the United States Women’s National (soccer) Team (USWNT) prepared to defend their title in the most prestigious global women’s soccer tournament, the Women’s World Cup, they amplified their ongoing calls for gender pay equality within their organization. Several journalists asked Trump to comment on their continuing success, as well as their calls for pay equity; when Trump gave ambiguous responses, various columnists admonished Trump for alleged evasiveness with which he spoke about the topic; Trump later blamed “economics” for the gender pay disparity, though he had regularly prided himself upon the state of the U.S. economy throughout his presidency, even through the economic collapse arising from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Then-presidential hopeful Joe Biden had tweeted support for the USWNT’s demands the previous May. The USWNT successfully defended their World Cup title the next month.

As noted in the previous segment of this article, liberals and progressives have long condemned Trump as dim-witted, though such criticisms grew especially louder later that  summer as he lightly - though seriously - publicly considered a U.S. purchase of the Danish territory of Greenland, which Denmark had not announced intentions to sell. These actions, similar to the summer of 2017 when Trump turned his naked eye on a solar eclipse, not only sparked amusement on social media, but also set the stage for additional, long-lived playful White House coverage from high-profile journalistic organizations.

“What has become one of the many overriding factors [in journalists’ choice of subject matter], unfortunately, is how many clicks you’re going to get,” said retired local journalist Peter Korn, in an interview with CatlinSpeak.

Mass shootings rock national debate on gun rights

In early August, discussions over gun rights and gun activism were renewed when back-to-back deadly mass shootings rattled the nation, one at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas, the other in front of a bar in Dayton, Ohio. The El Paso shooting, which was inspired by anti-immigrant sentiments, placed Trump under pressure over his escalating rhetoric directed at immigrants on the U.S.-Mexico border, while the Dayton shooting, which lasted just thirty-two seconds and killed 10 people including the shooter, called into question the legitimacy of semi-automatic rifles - such as the Colt AR-15 or some models of the AK-47 - as an item of civilian purchase.

For several hours, local journalists on the ground in Dayton found numerous bodies, but found answers to simple questions difficult to obtain. Journalists in El Paso observed “a time of great shift” after the Walmart shooting was linked to online discourse, similar to two other shootings earlier that year, including one which took place at a mosque in Christchurch, New Zealand.

“The President villainizing the media has hurt local media,” noted Binford-Ross. “Local media has been suffering for a while, due to waning support, and… the President’s actions accelerated that. If you have more people locally who distrust the news… they’re not going to support local news outlets, which is going to force them to downsize and cut valuable reporters… and it’s kind of this vicious cycle.”

President Trump, on Twitter, asked for bipartisan unity behind strengthening background checks for gun customers and passing new immigration reforms, though it never became clear what specifically he meant. Trump later blamed mental illness and the “glorification of violence” for the mass shootings, though people with mental illness are more likely to be the victims of violence than they are to be the perpetrators of it. Though Trump received considerable novel media attention for these words, some journalists noticed this simply as the continuation of a longstanding pattern. Less than a year later, journalists - as well as the Twitter company - would blame him for the glorification of violence during his response to massive racial justice protests; and during the Jan. 6, 2021 breach of the U.S. Capitol.

When President Trump visited the cities later in the week, the White House reportedly restricted press access and prohibited press photography, though it released a promotional video of its own. A New York Times reporter claimed Trump appeared annoyed at the lack of cameras, but Trump shot back on Twitter, hurling characteristic insults at her paper:

“Maggie Haberman of the Failing @nytimes reported that I was annoyed by the lack of cameras inside the hospitals in Dayton & El Paso,” Trump wrote. “When in fact I was the one who stated, very strongly, that I didn’t want the Fake News inside & told my people NOT to let them in. Fake reporting!”

“He is uniquely hostile to journalists,” wrote Betsy Hammond, an education reporter at The Oregonian, in an email to CatlinSpeak. “His willingness to say and repeat untruths is unprecedented among presidents.”

Local news media have generally not appreciated Trump either.

“The President villainizing the media has hurt local media,” noted Binford-Ross. “Local media has been suffering for a while, due to waning support, and… the President’s actions accelerated that. If you have more people locally who distrust the news… they’re not going to support local news outlets, which is going to force them to downsize and cut valuable reporters… and it’s kind of this vicious cycle.”

Come the end of the Trump presidency, the Times lauded Haberman for her “astonishing” and prolific run of White House journalism, during which she averaged the completion of over a story each day.

Trump ridicules Swedish climate activist on Twitter

The past year had also coincided with the rise of Swedish teenage activist Greta Thunberg, with whom President Trump sometimes engaged in bewildering online dialogues. Thunberg had come to public attention the previous winter as she rapidly consumed media attention for her unprecedented “Fridays for Future” walkouts, which had begun in August 2018 when she skipped school to protest in front of the climate action-stagnant Swedish parliament. World leaders, including French President Emmanuel Macron, as well as ambassadors at the U.N., had invited Thunberg to meet and speak on climate demands, though she oftentime dismissed the invitations as promotional. Trump’s history of climate denialism and his characteristic love for the news spotlight brought him to routinely critique Thunberg on Twitter and at rallies.

“There’s an old quote from the movies, back in the 1950s,” remarked Korn. “If you come out with a movie, it doesn’t matter if it’s good or bad as long as they’re talking about it. But that never applied to politics… but Trump seems to have defied that. He wants the attention, and he gets it. Every day, he’s in three different stories in the New York Times, for the last four years.”

Korn continued. “Is it the media’s responsibility… to print every little thing he says, to look into everything he or his children or his wife does?” Korn asked. “Or is there a point where the media should start saying, ‘It’s going to cost us readers, and cost us money, but we’re not just going to give him the publicity.’”

In August 2019, Thunberg sailed for two weeks to the U.S. on a zero-emissions water vehicle to appear at the U.N. Climate Action Summit, and on Sept. 20, 2019, from New York City, Thunberg led the largest ever global climate protest to date, followed by a week of continuous, smaller protests which drew far less media attention. When journalists asked if she had a message for President Trump, she remarked, “If no one has been able to convince him about the climate crisis - the urgency - then why should I be able to do that?”

Trump repeatedly cited Thunberg’s Asperger’s Syndrome in vicious attacks against the activist, which predictably received a hostile reception from most columnists. Trump was joined in his attacks - often labeled ableist - by several other conservative celebrities, including Limbaugh and, abroad, Bolsonaro, who attacked Thunberg during historic wildfires in the Amazon rainforest.

When Time Magazine selected Thunberg - instead of Trump, as they had in 2016 - as their 2019 Person of the Year, Trump resumed his criticisms of Thunberg, tweeting: “So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!”

Thunberg responded by changing her Twitter bio description to: “A teenager working on her anger management problem. Currently chilling and watching a good old fashioned movie with a friend.” She later completed similar Twitter bio edits upon subsequent Twitter insults of Trump’s.

Some journalists were quick to note First Lady Melania Trump’s spearheading of the “Be Best” initiative against online bullying, as well as the outrage the Trump family had previously expressed when a Stanford professor mentioned President Trump’s youngest son, Barron, in a congressional hearing a few weeks prior.

“A minor child deserves privacy and should be kept out of politics,” the First Lady had stated on the matter.

News media have generally critically portrayed Trump’s climate denialism - and that of his political allies - in recent years. Earlier in September 2019, Trump had appeared to alter a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) map’s projected trajectory of a hurricane using permanent marker, apparently in the hopes of validating an errant Tweet of his. A Vox columnist accused fellow journalists of having largely avoided more consequential stories - including significant developments with Brexit and the President’s border wall - to discuss at length what later became known in popular culture as “SharpieGate.” The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season stood among the most active on record, helped by a changing climate.

In light of massive California wildfires in recent summers, President Trump historically made questionable claims blaming the Democrat-controlled state for the wildfires - despite most forests in California lying on federal lands - and often threatened to withhold federal funding to mitigate the fires’ damage. Trump would later claim that raking forest floors could help prevent forest fires, per the Finnish government; and that Earth’s climate would soon begin cooling without human intervention; on the latter matter, when pressed, Trump remarked he didn’t “think science knows.” These comments received almost entirely negative news coverage; some journalists called his remarks “outrageous” or “bizarre”; others afforded them context but labeled them “misleading.”

Recent Trump ally Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) claimed the 2018 Camp Fire - the most deadly and destructive wildfire in California history - had begun as a result of “space lasers” fired by a corporate Jewish cabal. Some columnists argued Greene’s history of anti-Semitic comments could be electorally damaging for her Republican Party in the upcoming elections. 2020 was also a massive year for wildfires, including historic bushfires in Australia, another record-breaking wildfire season in California, and a series of massive September wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, spurred along by unusually high winds produced by an atypical early snowstorm at low elevations of the Rocky Mountains, also likely influenced by a changing climate.

The administration faces a test in Republican solidarity as House opens an impeachment investigation

The end of 2019 brought about another dramatic moment of the Trump presidency, in the form of a formal impeachment inquiry by six committees of the House of Representatives, upon a whistleblower’s report that Trump had reportedly betrayed his oath of office in a July phone call with Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky, threatening to withhold aid if President Zelensky did not tarnish then-presidential hopeful Joe Biden with an investigation into Biden’s son Hunter’s foreign business affairs in Ukraine. A month prior to the phone call, in an interview with NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Trump had stated an interest in facing Biden in the 2020 general elections, repeatedly calling Biden “sleepy” and suggesting Biden was “the weakest mentally.” Discrediting Joe Biden through his son Hunter would become a focal point of the 2020 Trump campaign’s strategy.

Prior to the release of the Mueller report, many had speculated whether Democrats would bring substantial impeachment resolutions to the House floor as a result of its findings, and though several Democrats did draft impeachment resolutions in the first years of the Trump presidency - some even prior to the Mueller report - none gained traction with House leadership.

The impeachment inquiry lasted nearly two months, with comprehensive hearings concluding in late November. After the House Thanksgiving recess, the House Intelligence Committee released a report to the public on the inquiry’s findings, which alleged that President Trump had “solicited the interference of a foreign government, Ukraine, to benefit his reelection.” On Dec. 3, the Intelligence Committee voted 13-9 - along party lines - to adopt the report and send it to the House Judiciary Committee, which voted 23-17 - also along party lines - to report the impeachment resolution favorably to the rest of the House. Republicans on other House committees had previously released a countering report which argued that the President had not committed “bribery, extortion or any high crime or misdemeanor.” Nonetheless, the House voted to impeach President Trump, 230-197 on a resolution alleging abuse of power, and 229-198 on a resolution alleging obstruction of Congress.

All Republicans presented united in opposition to both articles; two Democrats, Collin Peterson (D-Minn.) and Jefferson Van Drew (D-N.J.), subsequently switched their respective party affiliations as a result of their opposition to President Trump’s first impeachment; while one former Republican, Justin Amash, had switched his party affiliation prior to the vote, as a result of his support for President Trump’s first impeachment. Peterson and Amash both failed to win reelection in the 2020 general elections.

The articles of impeachment were transferred to the Senate in late January, after the House holiday recess where they met staunch Republican opposition. No witnesses were called, and on Feb. 5, 2020, the Senate voted 52-48 to acquit Trump on the article alleging abuse of power - with just Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) breaking from party lines - and 53-47 to acquit Trump on the article alleging obstruction of Congress. President Trump - who throughout the process denied any wrongdoing - saw his personal approval ratings hit a new high of 49% as the impeachment proceedings concluded.

Trump’s impeachment did not pass without journalistic controversy, either. During one contentious interview in which impeachment was discussed, then-Secretary of State Michael Pompeo dared veteran NPR foreign affairs reporter Mary Louise Kelly to find Ukraine on an unlabeled map, sparking outcry on social media and within media circles. Conservative news outlets dubbed the impeachment proceedings “a circus and a hoax,” while The Washington Post complained that “mainstream media” had equated “facts and lies” in “an unceasing effort to be seen as neutral.”

In December 2019, NBC News pointed out that news consumption equally affected the partisan divisions of the justness of Trump’s impeachment, citing an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll which found that 53% of Americans approved of the House impeachment inquiry; including 69% who consumed “liberal news” and 72%

Ultimately, the journalists and educators contacted by CatlinSpeak expressed mostly negative feelings about President Trump’s relationship with the news media. However, they appeared to have mostly expected these impressions.

“I think [the president’s relationship with the news media] is less surprising than disappointing,” Binford-Ross said. “We’ve seen even before Trump took office that freedom of the press has been severely limited.”

Shulman agreed. “I think it’s all gone exactly the way that it did when he was running,” he remarked. “I would say his attacks on media are exactly what he was doing before he became President… I don’t think any of it is surprising.”

Woodstock noted, however, that any analysis of news media should be produced cautiously.

“‘The news media’ should never be viewed homogeneously because it's made up of thousands of individuals making individual decisions about individual stories every day,” Woodstock wrote.

President Trump and Ukranian President Volodymyr Zelensky shake hands at a meeting. Image credit: https://commons.wikimedia.org

This is the second segment in a three-article series. The third segment will be published in early April. The first segment was published in mid-January.