Tag: Hogan Gidley

White House: Would Be Nice If Trump Had ‘Complicit, Compliant Media’ As Democrats Do

White House principal deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley claimed Democrats receive “complicit” and “compliant” media treatment, as he discussed President Donald Trump’s decision to walk out of a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).

“It’s amazing how the media cover what he does and what he says in a slant that makes everything negative no matter how positive the subject matter may be,” Gidley told Fox News’ Howie Kurtz in an interview that aired Sunday. 

The spokesman went on to accuse the press of mischaracterizing Trump’s behavior after he abruptly ended his Wednesday meeting with Democrats during which they were supposed to negotiate a bipartisan infrastructure deal.

Rather than talking about the topic at hand, Trump reportedly entered the room and spoke for just three minutes before taking off, declaring that he wouldn’t work with Democrats on infrastructure unless they stopped investigating his administration now that special counsel Robert Mueller’s report has been completed. He then held a news conference in the Rose Garden to criticize his opponents.

In a letter to her congressional colleagues that evening, Pelosi called the president’s behavior “a temper tantrum.”

“Democrats are here for the country,” she said. “Sadly, the only job the President seems to be concerned with is his own.” 

Frustrated by reports on the matter, Gidley claimed that journalists “take whatever [Pelosi] says lock, stock and barrel.”

“I mean, it would be so nice if we had a complicit, compliant media the way the Democrats do but we don’t and that’s the game and we understand that,” he added. 

Shortly before the meeting, Pelosi told reporters that she believed Trump “is engaged in a cover-up,” a remark that reportedly infuriated the president, according to The Washington Post.

“I don’t do cover-ups,” Trump said during the Rose Garden news conference. “Get these phony investigations over with.”

[Huffington Post]

Media

White House Aide Hogan Gidley Vouched For Trump’s Composure During Pelosi Meeting Despite Not Attending

White House deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley vouched for President Donald Trump‘s composure during a meeting with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi this week where the president stormed out, despite the fact that Gidley did not attend the meeting.

During an event in the Roosevelt Room yesterday, Trump tried to prove that he was calm during the meeting by asking the staffers that attended “what was my attitude yesterday at the meeting?”

White House counselor Kellyanne Conway insisted there was “no temper tantrum” and White House chief economic advisor Larry Kudlow claimed there was that the president was “very calm,” while Gidley also insisted the president was level-headed Pelosi even though he was not among the president’s staff included in the meeting.

“Were you there, Hogan? You know about it,” Trump went on to ask.

“I’ve seen the first one, Mr. President. That accusation that you pounded your fists — and I’ll be honest, you have every right to do that. We face a crisis on the southern border and they’ve done nothing,” Gidley replied. “You laid out the case to them, and they refused to work with you.”

However, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday that Gidley was not in the room for the meeting.

The Roosevelt Room event was supposed to focus on trade deals and the impacts they are having on American farmers, but the president used the opportunity to rant about Democrats’ continued interest in Trump’s obstruction of the Mueller probe.

“They’re a do-nothing group of people. The Democrats have done nothing other than to obstruct. They’re obstructing this country,” Trump said. “The Democrats have done nothing in the House, they’ve done absolutely nothing — I mean other than investigate. They want to investigate.”

Yesterday, Pelosi told reporters during her weekly presser that “the president’s behavior, as far as his obstruction of justice, the things that he is doing, it’s in plain sight, it cannot be denied — ignoring subpoenas, obstruction of justice.”

She also called Trump’s abrupt exit from their White House meeting on Wednesday a “stunt,” adding that he “stormed out” and threw “another temper tantrum.”

“I pray for the president of the United States,” Pelosi said. “I wish that his family or his administration or his staff would have an intervention for the good of the country.”

[Mediaite]

Trump Makes All His Senior Officials Take Turns Swearing He Didn’t Throw Tantrum With Pelosi

President Donald Trump has spent much of the past day insisting he’s definitely not mad about the derailed infrastructure meeting with Democratic leaders Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, which lasted just minutes before the president walked out over Pelosi’s claim he’s engaged in a cover-up on the Russia investigation.

The House Speaker has since been engaged in a very public trolling campaign, telling reporters that Trump had a temper tantrum at the meeting. Pelosi has said that she’s keeping Trump in her prayers and suggested his family stage an intervention.

It’s clearly working. During his speech at the White House to discuss a $16 billion aid package to farmers hurt by the escalating trade war with China, the president raged about Pelosi while insisting he was totally fine.

He also, at one point, asked his top aides what his “temperament” was in the meeting with Pelosi and Schumer.

“Very calm, no temper tantrum,” Kellyanne Conway said dutifully.

Trump then went back to talking about his announcement, briefly, before turning back to Pelosi, calling her “a mess.”

After less than a minute, he turned back to another aide, Mercedes Schlapp, and asked her what his “attitude” was in the meeting.

“You were very calm and you were very direct,” Schlapp said. “You sent a very firm message to the Speaker and to the Democrats. And it’s very discouraging and disgraceful to see that the Speaker would decide an hour before coming to the White House to make those comments, call it — that there’s a cover-up, and then come to the White House and expect it to be a constructive meeting.”

Conway, not to be upstaged, interjected at one point to praise the president’s poise once more.

Trump — and this is not a joke, watch the video above — then proceeded to make Larry Kudlow, his director of the National Economic Council, Sarah Sanders, his press secretary, and Hogan Gidley, his deputy press secretary, all insist that he did not have a melt down at the meeting with Pelosi and Schumer.

[Mediaite]

Media

White House Spox: Claim That Families Are Being Separated at Border Is ‘Completely False’

In a truly stunning show of outright lying Monday morning, White House Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley told Fox & Friends that the claim the Trump administration is separating children from their families at the border is “completely false.”

“Do you think that the message from the media is correct, that your administration is separating parents, moms and kids?” Fox & Friendshost Brian Kilmeade asked.

“It is completely false,” Gidley replied.

“This is all the Democrats’ doing,” he continued. “Democrats are saying ‘you can’t deport them, you can’t detain them, you can’t prosecute them,’” Gidley said. “The only thing you can do, per a Democrat, is release them into the Interior without any ramification for what they’ve done by breaking our laws.”

“There are only one of two things that can happen when [immigrants] come here [illegally],” Gidley claimed. “You either have to release them into the Interior of the United States as a family unit, or you have to separate the families. That’s what the law says.”

“The Democrats’ policies put drug cartels in business… and also the child smuggling industry,” he later added. “International child smuggling is up because Democrats create incentives by not closing these loopholes.”

Um, holy crap, that’s a glaring lie. There is clear evidence from the DHS that nearly 2000 children have been separated from their families at the border in six weeks’ time as a direct result of the “zero tolerance” policy instated by Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Despite Trump’s attempts to blame the other party for the policy in an effort to draw out immigration concessions, separating families at the border has nothing to do with Democrats.

[Mediaite]