PBS’s regular Monday political conclave with Cook Political Report’s Amy Walter and NPR White House reporter Tamara Keith ran hotter than usual, with concerns about President Trump’s purported assault on the First Amendment fanning the fear flames, leading the panel to make ridiculous defenses of the non-partisan (!) Associated Press.
Co-anchor Geoff Bennett solemnly intoned:
Geoff Bennett: So, Amy, President Trump's tweet over the weekend, "He who saves his country does not violate any law," this wasn't some one-off statement by President Trump. It was emphasized by the White House's Twitter account -- X account -- making clear that this is now the official position of the administration, words that run counter to the way our system works, words that run counter to what our founders intended. What questions does this raise for you?
Walter thought internal GOP rebellion might serve as a guardrail against Trump. Liberals expect Republicans to rebel, and discourage any talk of rebellion within Democrat ranks.
The conversation turned to the press’s favorite subject -- itself -- with Keith saying the Associated Press was “straight down the line,” not “a partisan news outlet in any way.” (NewsBusters has years of evidence suggesting otherwise.)
Tamara Keith: The Associated Press is at the core of the pool -- that is, the group of reporters who have been following the president around wherever the president goes, going back to FDR. And the White House, by going after AP for an editorial choice, is going directly at the First Amendment. It is going directly at the freedom of the press.
And it is not coincidental that they are going after AP. AP is extremely influential. They're also kind of straight down the line. They are not a partisan news outlet in any way. They do have the AP Style Guide, which is used as a basis for news organizations all over the country and all over the world to determine which words to capitalize and whether to call it the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America….
Keith shrugged off capitalization decisions as a formality. But the AP style guide has made several shifts for ideological reasons. In the wake of 2020’s Black Lives Matter hysteria, it announced it would capitalize the word “black” when referring to black Americans (but not “white” when referring to white Americans). The reasoning: “AP’s style is now to capitalize Black in a racial, ethnic or cultural sense, conveying an essential and shared sense of history, identity and community among people who identify as Black, including those in the African diaspora and within Africa.” (Here's more on AP’s slanted Stylebook .)
Bennett whined on behalf of PBS’s liberal base.
Bennett: And there are viewers who will ask the question, why doesn't the press band together? Why don't they boycott press availabilities and really stick it to this White House and show them that the freedom of the press matters?
Keith responded that the White House would love such a move because it could then fill the space with social media influencers, before unleashing this ridiculous defense of AP.
Keith: And then the questions being asked will not be the tough questions that the American people deserve.
("Tough questions" like the softballs Keith served up to Joe Biden during his rare presidential press conferences?)
Bennett: And this is a fight that this White House would want, to paint the press as opponents, rather than the neutral observers that we are and that we're supposed to be.
“Neutral observers”? Cue up the laugh track!
One can’t have a “Trump versus the press” story without mentioning the potential for a “chilling effect,” and Keith provided.
Keith: They want this fight and they want the chilling effect that it could have on a press corps broadly.
Speaking of an actual “chilling effect,” PBS’s colleagues at CBS News clearly approved of the German way of squelching online citizen dissent: Raids, arrests, and heavy fines in an infuriating piece on Sunday’s 60 Minutes.
A transcript is available, click "Expand."
PBS News Hour
2/17/25
7:40:25 p.m. (ET)
Geoff Bennett: The Presidents' Day holiday marks nearly one month into President Donald Trump's second term, during which expanding executive power has emerged as a top priority of his.
For that and the other political headlines, we turn now to our Politics Monday duo. That's Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR. It's great to see you both.
Amy Walter, The Cook Political Report: Good to see you.
Geoff Bennett: So, Amy, President Trump's tweet over the weekend, "He who saves his country does not violate any law," this wasn't some one-off statement by President Trump. It was emphasized by the White House's Twitter account, X account, making clear that this is now the official position of the administration, words that run counter to the way our system works, words that run counter to what our founders intended.
What questions does this raise for you?
Amy Walter: Well, it definitely raises questions on, what guardrails are going to be standing when the president actually does something that is not OK, that is actually illegal?
And now we know much of the pushback is coming in the form of lawsuits. We have a ways to go before those make themselves clear, obviously one going to the Supreme Court more quickly. But I think at the end of the day, that looks like the most significant guardrail.
The question about whether members of his own pary are going to step up, clearly, that hasn't happened yet. And I think the story that you ran before this with the farmers, it really — the pipeline from individuals to their members of Congress is more important right now than ever, that it has to come from members, not that they're getting pressure just from the White House, but that they're getting pressure from people at home who say, these things are actually impacting us. This is having an impact on our communities.
Those calls coming in that pressure is the only other, besides the courts, guardrail that I can think of right now.
Geoff Bennett: And, Tam, weigh in, because you cover this White House, obviously, and it's worth exploring and reiterating how we got here and why Donald Trump enjoys such latitude among elected Republicans.
Tamara Keith, National Public Radio: Right.
So he really rose from the ashes. He is a phoenix who rose from the ashes and he survived two impeachments. He survived an assassination and he survived numerous criminal prosecutions that didn't ultimately go anywhere, except in one case, and that one is — the sentencing was essentially put on hold.
So he comes in also with the Supreme Court, a Supreme Court with a conservative supermajority that he is credited with putting there that has a more expansive view of presidential power than past courts. And President Trump and his administration in Trump 2.0 has a significantly more expansive view of executive power than they did the first time around.
If the theme of the first Trump administration was that Trump was pushing up against norms, this time, he's pushing up against laws and the Constitution, like changing the 14th Amendment or saying you could just use an executive order to do away with birthright citizenship. That is a dramatic escalation of some of the things that Trump did the first time around.
Geoff Bennett: He's clearly — he clearly feels emboldened.
Tamara Keith: And he is.
Amy Walter: Absolutely.
And, to Tam's point, it's not just that they have seen, Republicans have seen this president survive things that none of them in their political lifetimes they could have imagined being able to survive, but he outperformed so many of them in this last election, that they are thinking to themselves, well, if he's actually more popular in my district than I am, he makes me question whether my political instincts are incorrect. Let's go with where he is.
And the only — as I said, the only way that he believes that he does not have a mandate would be that either support for him among his own party starts to crater, support among the public gets much lower. Right now, we're not at that point, not even close to it.
Geoff Bennett: Meantime, the Trump White House has indefinitely banned the Associated Press from the Oval Office and Air Force One for refusing to accept President Trump's renaming the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America.
The AP makes the point that other countries don't recognize this change. The Associated Press has customers around the world, so it still uses the term Gulf of Mexico.
Tam, I want to draw on your experience as the former president of the White House Correspondents Association, because the Associated Press is so foundational to White House coverage. Unwrap that for us and give us a sense of the implications here.
Tamara Keith: Yes, the Associated Press is at the core of the pool, that is, the group of reporters who have been following the president around wherever the president goes going back to FDR.
And the White House, by going after AP for an editorial choice, is going directly at the First Amendment. It is going directly at the freedom of the press. And it is not coincidental that they are going after AP. AP is extremely influential. They're also kind of straight down the line. They are not a partisan news outlet in any way.
They do have the AP style guide, which is used as a basis for news organizations all over the country and all over the world to determine which words to capitalize and whether to call it the Gulf of Mexico or the Gulf of America. In the case of AP, they're saying Gulf of Mexico. But Trump changed it to the Gulf of America for Americans.
Geoff Bennett: Amy?
Amy Walter: Yes. And I think this is such an important point that Tam — basically outlining what it is the AP does. I don't think most people, even very well-informed people, understand this role. What they may be hearing is somebody from some news organization can't get into the White House Briefing Room. So what? There are 500 of them in there. Why does that matter?
He — you can get in fights with individual news outlets all the time. This is meant to send definitely a message. And we have already seen a number of news organizations who Trump has gone after legally decide to settle or to give over the, in the case of CBS, the footage.
So, it goes back to your point. He's getting everything that he wants. Why would he do something different?
Geoff Bennett: And there are viewers who will ask the question, why doesn't the press band together? Why don't they boycott press availabilities and really stick it to this White House and show them that the freedom of the press matters?
Tamara Keith: And maybe that could still happen. But, right now, if the press corps were to do that, the White House would say, thank you very much. We have people from Mike Lindell's network and from OAN and from other sort of Web-based…
Amy Walter: Social media influencers.
Tamara Keith: Social media influencers.
Amy Walter: Yes.
Tamara Keith: We have got 10,000 people who want to fill the Oval. And then the questions being asked will not be the tough questions that the American people deserve.
Geoff Bennett: And this is a fight that this White House would want…
Tamara Keith: They want…
Geoff Bennett: … to paint the press as opponents, rather than the neutral observers that we are and that we're supposed to be.
Tamara Keith: They want this fight and they want the chilling effect that it could have on a press corps broadly.
