For years, Donald Trump used television and tabloids to build his personal brand. He leveraged Twitter to propel his run to the White House and, for his first four years in office, to maintain the country’s attention. But he won a second term by taking his message straight to podcasts and online influencers — and for much of his transition, he’s simply iced the press out.
Last week showed that for all the ways that Trump’s approach to the media has evolved, some of the old rules still apply.
With Washington suddenly up in arms over the sudden prospect of a government shutdown, the president-elect called four journalists, all from major news networks. Speaking to reporters from NBC, ABC, CBS and Fox News — on the record — in a single morning would not have been considered unusual given Trump’s obsessive focus on media coverage that characterized his first term.
The Thursday talk-a-thon showed that, while an emboldened Trump may be more determined than ever to punish more independent members of the press in this second term, he still needs the mainstream media, at least when he’s under pressure.
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