On Wednesday’s Morning Joe, as the usual cast of characters were discussing the ongoing Trump transition team's economic appointments, co-host Willie Geist invited and asked New York Times journalist David Leonhardt: “So, do you do you read anything into these appointments in the last 24 hours, to Commerce Secretary Wilber Ross or Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin?”
In response, Leonardt stated that:
“I think it's really hard to tell right at this point. Those of us in the media should have a lot of humility about making predictions about Donald Trump so I'm trying to have that humility.”
This conversation was in the context of how the two billionare businessmen bankers with ties to Wall Street will resonate with Trump’s populist message on economic policies.
Earlier in the show, co-host Mika Brzezinski discussed the tense relationship between the media and Donald Trump, noting that he was the only major candidate to regularly call into news talk shows the likes of Morning Joe (which he had a laughably love and hate relationship with). In discussing the topic on how unique Trump’s relationship has been with the press, Geist stated:
“Presidents always complain about the press. Whether it's the Obama administration, George W. Bush's administration, or before that the Clinton administration, you always get complaints. The difference now is they're aired publicly. They're put out on Twitter and Donald Trump two nights ago go on a long four tweet rant about CNN's coverage of them. That's the difference. You don't see it play out in front of the public.”
The rest of the discussion focused on the media’s speculation of Trump throughout the campaign and into the transition, under the byline “Bypassing the Media & Reshaping the Country.” In a way, this shows that journalists are more likely to admit their errors albiet reluctantly. The statement from Leonhardt that he will attempt to be more humble in characterizations of what the Trump administration will accomplish, proves this trend.
Also, more and more of the press has realized that in order to maintain its relevance to viewers, they actually have to face the truth. The truth is, whether the media likes it or not, Trump has outmanuvered the mainstream media by taking his message publically in an alternative way through social media also while effectively engaging the liberal press in a rather contemptous manner.
Here is the excerpt from the November 30th discussion on Morning Joe:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
11/30/2016
8:38:59 AM
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: We're going to take a quick break. Everyone stay here. When we come back, you know -- you know how Trump always called in during the campaign, his interaction with the press was a lot of friction but very apparent. There was not a lot of hiding from the press. Some people really kind of were very critical of that, but some others think there's echoes of Reagan there.
(....)
8:43:14 AM
BRZEZINSKI: We have a couple of historians with us. We thought we'd take look back at how Donald Trump's -- that's you, Meachem…tense relationship with the media. Let's just say it's very tense and how it compares with President Ronald Regan's interaction with the press…
(....)
8:47:38 AM
WILLIE GEIST: Presidents always complain about the press. Whether it's the Obama administration, George W. Bush's administration, or before that the Clinton administration, you always get complaints. The difference now is they're aired publicly. They're put out on Twitter and Donald Trump two nights ago go on a long four tweet rant about CNN's coverage of them. That's the difference. You don't see it play out in front of the public.
(....)
8:56:43 AM
WILLIE GEIST: So do you do you read anything into these appointments in the last 24 hours, to Commerce Secretary Wilber Ross or Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin?
DAVID LEONARD: I think it's really hard to tell right at this point. Those of us in the media should have a lot of humility about making predictions about Donald Trump so I'm trying to have that humility. I think most of the early signs do not point toward a fundamentally different kind of conservative economics.
