Trump’s Outrageous Press Conference
By Thomas O. Melia, PEN America Washington Director
President Trump’s April 13 White House briefing provided yet another entry in the continuing spectacle of the president’s unabashed lying and prevaricating, this time with a shockingly blatant detour into rather open campaigning.
Monday’s raucous back-and-forth session with professional journalists of the White House Correspondents Association went on for more than two hours and twenty-three minutes. The president began by showing a three-minute campaign-like video that sought to rebut reports about the widely known failures of his administration to take timely steps recommended by medical authorities in the U.S. government, as reported Sunday in The New York Times.
The video included out-of-context clips of Democratic governors expressing appreciation for some actions taken by the president. Trump confirmed during the briefing that the video was produced in-house by his social media director, Dan Scavino, and others at taxpayer expense.
The president went on to falsely claim that the U.S. Constitution gives him “total authority” to override the social distancing and shutdown orders adopted by most states and localities across the country. Only after an hour and forty-five minutes did the president leave the room and allow a fact-based update to be presented.
These lengthy pity parties, in which the president of the United States provides virtually no useful information to the public about how they can protect their families from COVID-19, have become increasingly counter-factual. Mr. Trump’s breathtaking ignorance about the Constitution and how our government works at any level means that he constantly presents false information live on national television.
His determination to rewrite the narrative of the past four months is an assault on truth and fact no less serious than his well-established resistance to science and competent advice. While Donald J. Trump certainly has his First Amendment right to express himself in this mendacious, campaign-like manner, when he crowds out serious discussion of the global pandemic, it becomes a matter of life and death. While some news organizations have been criticized for broadcasting the President’s false narratives unfiltered, many are also becoming better at providing real-time fact-checking, and many reporters are doing remarkable work, ensuring the attentive public is apprised of the truth.
Thomas O. Melia is Washington director of PEN America. He’s served multiple roles at the State Department and various non-governmental organizations.
