Are These Friends of Yours?

“Are These Friends of Yours?”

           

            As we progress through the second month of the Trump presidency, the use of “confusing logic” and “alternate truths” have increased.  And, as this practice is used nearly every day, the role of the press is further weakened.  As the press responds with greater alarm, more of the Trump core are supporting the view that the press is the enemy of the state.

            But in a democracy, the press has always been the voice of the people, especially the oppressed and downtrodden. So, what is going wrong and what went wrong?  Well, now the truth has been made unclear, and we now have different types of press.  In fact, there are at least three-a fact based content or traditional press, an entertainment press, and a contradictory press, and apparently, each uses different types of rules to govern their behavior.

            This was never more evident than when President Trump tweeted that President Obama "wiretapped" Trump Tower.  Since then, each of the presses has taken a role in explaining what the president said, what he meant, and how he is either correct or incorrect.  And, to no one’s surprise, President Trump’s team, which is emerging as an alternative press, has played a pivotal role in shaping the type of media coverage. 

            The Trump team has played the role of interpreters of the press. While the president’s private agenda operates on the Internet, his public agenda is presented on television.  Trump does not like the print media and often charges that the traditional print media is the promoter of false news.

Using television gives the Trump advocates a large audience. Television, like Twitter, provides instant access to that audience.  Through the use of this medium, Trump and his team suggested that the word “wiretap” can also mean surveillance and that the use of quotation marks around the word wiretap makes it a broader rather than a narrower interpretation. Of course, this use of quotations is grammatically false, but no one is testing the administration for writing proficiency.

            In what has become a routine practice, the surrogates went to work.  However, this time the results were less than satisfactory. In her ignorance, Kellyanne Conway’s attempt to discuss the role of household technology, like microwaves, turning into listening devices discredited herself and the administration. She gaffed in trying to demonstrate that it was easy for the Obama administration to get into Trump Tower.  It was obvious that Conway, unlike most younger Americans, had just learned that smart televisions, smart phones, computers and video game consoles could be programmed to hear and see conversations in a reverse manner.  Sean Spicer, to his credit, made his usual confusing and angry statements in several White House press conferences to refine the president’s tweets and their meanings, but he was not convincing to the reporters of the Times or Wall Street Journal (the traditional press). 

Acting almost on cue, the contradictory press, in this case Fox News, provided context for the president’s team to explore the range of surveillance techniques and actors of espionage to support the president’s claims. Retired Judge Andrew Napolitano is not a known expert of espionage techniques and procedural relationships, yet he appeared on several Fox shows to lend his support to the president’s claims.  In the span of three appearances he uttered a rumor that was enhanced in each ensuing appearance.  Within four days the rumor became a fact.  He credited sources that claimed that President Trump was spied on by the British government.  And that the British did this as a favor for President Obama.  This led to the inference that President Obama commissioned the British to assist him so that he could not be accused of breaking American laws. 

Shortly after learning about Judge Napolitano’s assertions, Sean Spicer advanced the claim into a “reliable fact.”  However, the “fact” was actually second hand information that the judge obtained from reading some materials that had come from a network of former American government analysts.  When pressed on details, the judge pointed to Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA agent, as his source.  Yet, Johnson’s ties to the CIA are a bit old as he has been out of government service for several decades.  And when he appeared on CNN, in this case the fact-based press, Johnson revealed that he had not spoken to the judge.  Under direct questioning, Johnson evaded the “fact” that he did not have proof for the claim but rather had heard chatter from colleagues.  Johnson, not willing to take the blame for Napolitano’s exaggerations, was quick to point out that Judge Napolitano did not "get it correct" and that he could not say that British GCHQ was bugging Trump Tower.  Johnson, however, did posit another rumor as a fact.  He alleged that numerous European countries were monitoring Trump and the election and that they could have easily shared information with American counterparts.  Before his CNN segment ended, Johnson did assist Trump by saying that there was no proof that the Russians aided Trump in the election. Later in the day, the entertainment sections of CNN pointed out that Johnson was famous for spreading rumors and incorrect information when he worked for Fox News, and that he also spoke about the 2016 election on RT, the Russian television network.

So, in attempt to defend the president’s bold assertion, four persons bungled bits of “news information.”  None of it applied to the situation at hand, but it could be used as circumstantial evidence that the president was bugged.  Tragically, rather than checking in private with the Justice Department about the president’s claims, the White House allowed the president’s tweets to create a very public domestic and international controversy.  The White House staff took rumors from an ex-CIA agent, whose reputation has been smeared for passing other rumors without evidence, and equally used an associate and sometimes tenant of the president (he stays in the International Trump Hotel in Manhattan) to use his “legal knowledge credentials” to make a claim suggesting that the president had “in fact” been bugged by the Obama administration.
In the process of these revelations, they created an international scandal with the British who demanded a retraction of this story.  Less than 24 hours after Spicer shared this news, the White House was forced to apologize.  And, then hours later, Press Secretary Spicer un-apologized and claiming that all the administration did was to quote the words of a legal authority.

As the dust cleared, Fox News also released a statement that Judge Napolitano was speaking for himself, and not Fox News.  That his claims were made on an entertainment part of the network and not in the news division. (Fox quietly suspended Judge Napolitano and he has been removed from his typical television appearances)

Today, more than two weeks after the initial tweets, Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, and James Comey, director of the FBI, were forced to come before Congress and publicly address President Trump’s charges.  Admiral Rogers stated that neither the NSA nor any American agency asked the British to spy on candidate or President-Elect Trump.  Similarly, Director Comey said that no president could authorize wiretaps or electronic surveillance, and there was no information that supports President Trump’s tweets about the wiretapping. 

Despite the desired outcome of the hearing, it is unlikely that it will lead to a resolution of the pattern of false claims and lies.  Trump apologists will refuse to believe that the president lacked credible evidence for his charges, and that his tweets must have some basis in reality.  Meanwhile Trump’s critics will suggest that the president’s tweets are designed to deflect from current controversial issues, but this time he went too far. In this case, the traditional press won as defending the president’s words did more harm than good. Yet few expect an apology or greater restrictions on the president’s tweeting. 

What this crisis demonstrated was the president’s inability to lead.  The scandal proved that the president lied and that others lied to support his false claims. In the process, the president alienated two world leaders and escalated public opinion at home.  He embarrassed the nation by recklessly slandering the previous president.  While the conversation on Trump and a Russian connection are far from over, this diversion did little to assist the president. More likely than not, it weakened Trump’s overall credibility, furthering the need for more contradictory press spokesmen and interviews.

 Every day presents the opportunity for another type of Trump-based self-inflicted crisis. Sadly, President Trump will continue to divide those who support and oppose him.