On Friday’s “PBS NewsHour,” New York Times columnist David Brooks stated that he isn’t super harsh on the Trump White House for barring the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One because “I lived through the end of the Biden administration, where there was almost no press access to the guy. And so, administrations manipulate the press. That’s part of the job. And if they don’t want to talk to the AP, fine. The AP can do its own reporting.”
Brooks said, “I’m a little less harsh on the Trump administration. Listen, I lived through the end of the Biden administration, where there was almost no press access to the guy. And so, administrations manipulate the press. That’s part of the job. And if they don’t want to talk to the AP, fine. The AP can do its own reporting. And so, I have lived through all these administrations.”
He continued, “And I think the deeper problem here — and this is our business, I hate to comment on the media, because I’ve spent my life in it. But we have not represented enough Trump voices over the last 40 years, enough working-class voices over the last 40 years. And so, if we had done that, maybe some of the hostility that’s come our way wouldn’t be there. And so, I’m appalled by what Trump is doing, but I understand sort of why he’s doing it.”
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