Federalist Senior Editor Mollie Hemingway joined “Special Report with Bret Baier” Wednesday to discuss Donald Trump’s first press conference as president-elect.
“The big take away is that he took this bold stance against media shenanigans,” Hemingway said. “It wasn’t just that he said that BuzzFeed was a failing pile of garbage or that he called out another reporter and said he worked for a terrible news organization. It’s that he said that he alone was able to stand up to bullying media because he has a megaphone. I think this is a point that it’s really important for understanding the 2016 election.”
“A lot of people think that our media are just treating them, their views, their way of life, the things they care about, with utter disdain, and they see in Donald Trump someone who is willing to punch back,” Hemingway said. “They also notice that this is in a context of a lot of Republicans and conservative leaders who have failed to punch back against this media that is completely out of control.”
Although the public needs politicians to not cow to undue media pressure, the media also should perform a public function of checking politicians’ behavior, Hemingway said. Ideally the two would keep each other accountable.
“You need a media to really hold politicians accountable,” Hemingway said. “Our media are not in a good position to do that right now because they have such bad credibility, not just because of how they handled the 2016 election, also because of how they handled the last eight years, largely being sycophantic toward President Obama. That’s not good for us. We need a good, strong media. But they need to stop these temper tantrums, they need to grow up, stop behaving like children, and start working hard at regaining their credibility and trust with the American people.”
