The New York Times touted the massive scoop with this headline: “The Latest: Report Says Trump Called White House a ‘Dump.’ ”
“President Donald Trump has told members of his New Jersey golf club that he spends so much time away from Washington because the White House is a ‘real dump.’ ”
No source, just a declarative statement: “Trump has….”
“The White House,” the Times said, “did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the account, which appeared in a lengthy article posted on the website golf.com.”
So, America’s paper of record cribbed a line from a golf magazine and stated it as fact?
Here’s what the magazine’s writer, Alan Shipnuck, wrote in that lengthy piece: “Chatting with some members before a recent round of golf, [Trump] explained his frequent appearances: ‘That White House is a real dump.’ (A White House spokesperson denies this occurred.)”
Well, there you go — it happened! One guy says so, and of course the White House is going to deny it, so let’s run with it, said the Times’ editors.
Now, let’s debunk it all real fast.
No. 1: Trump said this last night:
I love the White House, one of the most beautiful buildings (homes) I have ever seen. But Fake News said I called it a dump – TOTALLY UNTRUE
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 3, 2017
Now, this did come after Trump had said he recently talked by phone to the Boy Scouts and the president of Mexico, which didn’t happen at all. But still, I’m giving the president the edge here. Why? He’s the president.
No. 2: Is it remotely possible that Trump was kidding? THE BOYS: “Hey, why you here all the time?” TRUMP (as Rodney Dangerfield): “That White House is a dump, I tell you, a real dump. Ba dum tss.”
Or did Trump really just spit venom to a bunch of strangers, at a golf course, on a beautiful day — well aware that anyone of them could be recording or, at the very least, more than willing to pass on the president’s words to the media?
Here’s what Shipnuck said on a podcast on Wednesday: “The president said this in front of eight or nine members and staffers at [Trump] Bedminster. It was his first visit to the club after he had been residing in the White House. It was a moment of candor. Someone who was a part of that conversation relayed it to me. I found this person to be an extremely credible source on any number of topics.”
Huh. A credible source on what, the state of the sand in the bunkers? What the greens measured on the Stimpmeter?
Shipnuck said Hope Hicks, a White House aide, had called, but he complained about the “confrontational and rude tone of the phone call.” He said Hicks told him, “That’s a lie and needs to be retracted.”
“It might be inconvenient for her boss and she might wish he didn’t say it, but it’s not a lie. It was a little insight into how the Trump media operation works coming out of the White House. As a courtesy to the office of the president, we did put in the digital version a parenthetical statement that says, ‘a White House spokesperson denies this incident ever took place.’ I forget the exact wording.”
“Of course it did take place but we were just being nice by offering in their two cents. I got a similar nasty phone call. It’s a little insight into how the modern media works. This is a highly-nuanced, deeply reported, 7,000-word story and there’s been a lot of play about one sentence in it,” Shipnuck said.
“Of course it did take place.” And you don’t have to believe a golf writer, because The New York Times said it — so you know it’s gotta’ be true!
Yes, Trump thinks America’s most famous house — his home — with 132 rooms, 35 bathrooms, 147 windows and 28 fireplaces, worth a half a billion dollars, is “a real dump.”
Man, the mainstream media will buy anything these days. And so will their readers.
VIA The Daily Wire