White House reporter defies Trump: ‘We do not need his permission’
“That’s not how the White House works…”
Trump threw a temper tantrum over an impeachment-related story this weekend, but the reporter he attacked isn’t afraid of him.
“The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out,” Trump tweeted, referencing a New York Times report that Trump is in talks with attorney Emmet T. Flood, who represented President Bill Clinton during his impeachment process.
“Wrong. I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow. They are doing a great job and have shown conclusively that there was no Collusion with Russia..just excuse for losing,” Trump added. “The writer of the story, Maggie Haberman, a Hillary flunky, knows nothing about me and is not given access.”
On Monday morning, Haberman responded. “I think the basic concept is problematic, that he believes people need quote/unquote, access to report on the president of the United States,” she told CNN hosts Alisyn Camerota and Chris Cuomo. “We report on him regardless, but he has no idea who our sources are, or how many people around him are talking to us.”
“He says you have no access, you interviewed him 12 times at at least,” Camerota pointed out.
“We saw during the campaign that he has this habit of pointing to a table like this and saying ‘This is a sofa,’ and this is no exception,” Haberman continued. “We, again, do not need his permission to cover him.”
“That’s not how the White House works, that’s not how government works,” she added.
Trump’s despotic attitude toward the press has been evident since day one of his presidency, but Haberman nails the more likely cause of Trump’s attack: his sense of panic over the prospect of being impeached when the Democrats take back the House in November.
Far from being a “Hillary flunky,” Haberman’s obsessive coverage of Hillary Clinton’s emails during the 2016 election probably did as much to enable Trump’s victory as anything else. Now she’s being forced to explain the basic functions of democracy to Trump on cable news.
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