He calls reporters the enemy at his rallies. He hasn’t held a press conference since July, and cancelled the one he scheduled for December. An off the record meeting with television news executives and reporters turned into “a fucking firing squad,” with the fire aimed at the TV people. But when Donald Trump deigns to talk to them, his press pool members grin and pose and gush on Twitter about how he was “relaxed and chatty:”
CNN’s Jeremy Diamond posted a photo from the inside of Mar-a-Lago on Instagram, writing, “President-elect Donald Trump & his wife Melania hosted reporters camped out in Palm Beach, Florida to cover his movements for an off the record gathering at his Mar-a-Lago residence Sunday night.”
Diamond shows up in a picture of a gleeful Trump with his smiling press pool. This is something beyond working the refs (as if the media has in any meaningful way been operating as a referee on Trump). This is Trump deploying the strategy of an an abuser, and reporters reacting in kind. He bullies and berates them in public, but when he comes calling in private, they—even knowing he might use it as an opportunity to yell and insult, then leak that he did so to show the world that he’s a tough guy—get all excited. And their reporter friends get aggressively and stupidly defensive on their behalf.
So this time Trump was “relaxed and chatty.” It’s because he has you where he wants you, guys. And going along with it this time doesn’t mean you won’t be public enemy No. 1 next time he has a rally crowd to whip up.