How do Fascist regimes take power?
Well, there do seem to be some similarities. But there are differences. Hitler bad better hair and that Charlie Chaplain mustache thing going for him, and Trump wears a fiberglass “Davy Crockett” hat.
But their handling of the free media is strikingly similar. Today, The White House barred news outlets — including CNN, the New York Times, Politico and the Los Angeles Times — from attending an off-camera press briefing held by spokesman Sean Spicer.
(Do they even NEED writers anymore at Saturday Night Live?)
CNN’s Sara Murray went on air to describe what happened:
We lined up. We were told there was a list ahead of time, which is sort of abnormal, but we put our name on a list. And then when we went to enter, I was blocked by a White House staffer, who said we were not on the list for this gaggle today.
Now, normally, if you were going to do something like this — an extended gaggle, off camera — you would have one person from each news outlet. As you know, we have multiple people from CNN here every day. So, if you’re going to do something beyond a pool, which is sort of the smallest group of reporters that then disseminates the information, you would have one person from every news outlet.
That is not what the White House was doing today. What the White House was doing was handpicking the outlets they wanted in for this briefing. So Breitbart, the Washington Times, the One America News Network — news outlets that maybe the White House feels are more favorable were all allowed in, whereas I was blocked from entering, Politico was blocked from entering, the New York Times, the L.A. Times. All of these news outlets were blocked from going to a gaggle.
White House Correspondents’ Association President Jeff Mason called in to CNN to say the organization is “still getting information about” the decision, adding:
They clearly wanted to have a gaggle that was not on camera and was not the full press corps today. We don’t object to there being briefings like that that aren’t always on camera, but we have encouraged them when they want to do something like that … [to] still do it in the press room and do it in a place where all the reporters have a chance to ask questions.
So, we’ve made that clear, and we’re going to continue to have discussions with them about that. And we’re not happy about how this happened today.
This is really going to put a damper on the White House Correspondents Dinner and Annual Political Glory Hole Choad Festival.