WH fucks up softball press-conference with friendly right-wing journalists.

[DetlefK]

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/330356-conservative-media-disappointed-with-trump-meeting

Reporters were asked to surrender their cell phones before entering the Roosevelt Room, a meeting room in the West Wing across from the Oval Office.
...
After the briefing with the president, reporters were told that the conversation had actually been on the record and that they were free to attribute quotes to Trump and Commerce secretary Wilbur Ross, who was also in attendance.

...

“This is what happens when Never Trump, low-energy, Jeb Bush staffers infiltrate Donald Trump’s White House,” one person present said of Ferr, a Bush campaign veteran. “The incompetence by the White House press staff does not serve the president’s interests well.”

...

They said reporters at the gathering grilled Trump on a handful of sticky political issues important to his conservative base, but that no stories will come of it because there is no recording or transcript of the on-the-record meeting.

...

“They packed us in a room and made us fight for scraps,” one source said. “It’s not exclusive if you give it to 40 journalists and then make us fight over it. Did (New York Times reporters) Maggie Haberman or Glenn Thrush have to surrender their cell phones for their interview? The White House would be better served if they called on us one by one like he does with them.”




------

The WH gave an exclusive interview to 30 journalists at the same time.

The meeting was on-the-record, except that no recording was allowed.

The WH staff's incompetence is the fault of Jeb Bush.

[Tanuki]

1. Somehow, generations of journalists managed to report the news

without benefit of cell phones or tape recorders. What a bunch of whiny prima donnas. And yes, it is pretty rich to blame the White House press problems on "low energy Jeb Bush"!

[tanyev]

2. LOL.

Is there anything Trump's misadministration can't fuck up?