The lesson Trump learned right away in his first term is that accountability gives permission to the media to cover the story as a scandal while stonewalling with lies and denials prompts the media to move on and say the story is over - ThreadSky

mtsw.bsky.social • 3 days ago

The lesson Trump learned right away in his first term is that accountability gives permission to the media to cover the story as a scandal while stonewalling with lies and denials prompts the media to move on and say the story is over

Reposted from The Atlantic

Donald Trump’s instructions to his team are to attack Jeffrey Goldberg and The Atlantic and not, as one source described it, to “produce a scalp” by firing any members of his Cabinet, Isaac Stanley-Becker and @jonlemire.bsky.social report: theatln.tc/tem2cpGG

Comments

oldohman.bsky.social•3 days ago

Deny everything. Attack the messenger relentlessly. Roy Cohn would be happy with his pupil.

ralphhhenson.bsky.social•3 days ago

Surprised Jeffrey Goldberg is still at large.

Would have assumed by now Trump's AG would have found a way to charge him.

Maybe tomorrow.

readingman.bsky.social•3 days ago

The incompetent and malicious must be protected at all costs in Trump's America

hippiefromthesouth.bsky.social•3 days ago

Because the media works for him

beefkazenzakis.bsky.social•3 days ago

Ooh yeahh

hippiefromthesouth.bsky.social•3 days ago

If they don't he will sue them and remove their resources to put out the news. Hello putin

beefkazenzakis.bsky.social•3 days ago

Mainly just a callout to @mtsw.bsky.social amazing Kool Aid man meme

jmidnight.bsky.social•3 days ago

The man has never owned up to a mistake once despite a lifetime of making mistakes

myrthe.bsky.social•3 days ago

and trying this used to be _fatal_ to those who tried it (decades ago).

Orgs didn't make someone take the fall cos they felt bad about stuffing up. They did it because otherwise a serious press would never give them a moment's rest or ever let them change the topic.

delbertgseasons.bsky.social•3 days ago

Bill Clinton exemplified what not to do in the early 90s, when his response to the Whitewater allegations was to ask for a special prosecutor to be appointed. Trump is stupid in most of the ways one can be stupid but he wouldn’t do anything that self-destructive. Fucking Democrats

mtsw.bsky.social•3 days ago

Trump, against his own instincts, followed the rules at first, and fired Michael Flynn then let Sessions appoint Mueller. Turned into a years-long headache. By contrast, firing Mueller then was treated by the media as "big win for Trump!"

grudgie.bsky.social•3 days ago

The Flynn thing was when he was sure his collusion with Russia would land him in jail forever

j-salvo.bsky.social•3 days ago

Did he fire Mueller?

passwordismiket.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yep. The media decided to present Trump stonewalling as Trump succeeding. So here we are.

veryrealbatman.bsky.social•3 days ago

He never fired Mueller, which is probably part of the reason it didn’t turn into a bigger scandal at the time. No echo of Archivald Cox

chrisfumo.bsky.social•3 days ago

hiring Barr - who was formerly responsibly for pardoning and covering up much of Iran Contra in the early 1990s and had publicly spent years saying that Mueller should be fired/completely disregarded - was virtually the same thing as firing him

chrisfumo.bsky.social•3 days ago

Barr wasn't very subtle in 2017 and 2018 LOL he explicitly wrote all of this stuff down

veryrealbatman.bsky.social•3 days ago

I agree hiring Barr and further downplaying the scandal through his interference while Mueller himself refused to make waves was the better call but don’t agree it was the same as firing. Showed more alacrity for dealing w/ media than Trump ordinarily allows and kept his nightmare presidency going.

veryrealbatman.bsky.social•3 days ago

Trump was saved from himself constantly and if media weren’t in his corner as much as they are now he’d be under far more pressure politically already.

veryrealbatman.bsky.social•3 days ago

And firing Comey set all of that in motion. If anything, it shows how much the media has been further cowed since that time

caveatruptur.bsky.social•3 days ago

do you think the international angle changes this one? our (soon to be former) allies are not letting this one go.

thisisbenphelps.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yup

thisisbenphelps.bsky.social•3 days ago

He’s right too. What possible incentive does he have to not stonewall and deny? (Other than lose in massive, unprecedented nuclear levels in special elections and the midterms)

dallas-taylor.bsky.social•3 days ago

Since the Business Plot there's been no accountability but sometimes they forget for a second

blucowdawg.bsky.social•3 days ago

…on one minute the jimmies and stevens will humorize the outrage and tomorrow morning the morning crews will feed us happy talk… and we’ll be on to the next thing in a day or three… and we’ll lose the signal or whatever it was…

mitchsolomon.bsky.social•3 days ago

You know what would change this? If journalists finally accept that they’re not the story, team up with the WH competitive reporters and batter Trump with follow ups to everyone’s questions until they get the answer

300ps.bsky.social•3 days ago

The moron has his finger on the moronic pulse of this country.

chutry.bsky.social•3 days ago

Yep, he’ll never apologize or acknowledge error. He will just wait for the media to move on. Then he’ll commit more crimes and atrocities and the media—and many of us—will forget about the other stuff.

brad-carpenter.bsky.social•2 days ago

It's also the one thing on offer from the GOP: the fact that if one can divorce themselves from empathy and shame, they'll almost never be held accountable for their actions.

Seems to be a big selling point for those still rocking the (R)