March 1, 2017

CNN White House correspondent Sara Murray told "Inside Politics" that officials confirmed they spread bogus happy talk on an immigration compromise during a private White House luncheon with television news anchors to garner favorable press coverage before Trump delivered his speech to the Joint Sessions.

And it worked magnificently.

Yesterday, Fox News' Shepard Smith mocked Chris Wallace for being used as a puppet to pass on information from a White House anonymous source that Trump approved of.

Towards the end of the CNN broadcast, host John King anchored the "empty your notebooks" segment and CNN's Sara Murray had a big scoop. The TV anchors got played like fools during the White House luncheon.

Murray said, "Let’s just change gears entirely and talk about the bait and switch that the president pulled when it came to immigration yesterday. He had this meeting with the anchors, he talked about a path to legal status."

She continued, “Basically they fed us things that they thought these anchors would like, that they thought would give them positive press coverage for the next few hours. A senior administration official admitted that it was a misdirection play. And you will note that when the president was actually out there speaking to the American public, he didn’t talk about a path to legal status."

Before Trump began his speech, all the talk on the TV air waves was about the White House luncheon and who Trump was softening on immigration. This became a very positive story for the media to report on leading right up until the moment Trump entered the chamber.

She continued, "He talked about reforming the legal immigration system so it’s merit-based. That means fewer low-skilled workers, fewer people coming on family ties, more people coming on high-skilled visas. That is still closer to a Stephen Miller and Steve Bannon framework of the world than Gang of Eight, who pushed comprehensive immigration reform.”

Wow, just wow.

How was involved in this propaganda effort?

White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer confirmed Monday that Trump will sit down with representatives from the “big five” networks ― presumably ABC, CBS, NBC, Fox and CNN.

In addition, Spicer said, the White House has invited Telemundo, Univision, the Christian Broadcasting Network, C-SPAN, PBS, TV One, One America News Network and the Catholic network EWTN.

Trump always needs his extremists pals around with him. I'm shocked that they didn't hook up those gigantic 1984 style monitors Spicer uses during his pressers so other wingnuts could sit in during the meal.

Trump must have dressed up as "John Miller" and "John Barron" again and shoveled more crap down their gullets about offering paths to legalization that they were more than willing to swallow.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon