Liberal White House Reporters Already ‘Exhausted’ with Second Trump Term
White House reporters are already “exhausted” with President-elect Donald Trump’s second term before it even starts, members of the press corps told Vanity Fair on Wednesday.
In the article, titled “Reporters Brace for the Frenzy of a Second Trump White House,” New York Times White House correspondent Peter Baker said, “Anybody who went through it the last time remembers how nonstop it was.”
“It ends up kind of becoming all-consuming and taking over your life. It wears you down,” he lamented.
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“Everybody’s exhausted, and he hasn’t even taken office yet,” Baker added.
Julia Manchester, a national political reporter for the Hill , referred to the incoming president as “someone who thrives on unpredictability.”
Describing the aftermath of the November 5 election as something like “déjà vu” for the press corps, she said it was “right into the fire with this transition, with the Cabinet picks.”
“And I think overall, just outside of the press corps, the country itself was feeling burnt out,” Manchester added.
While Meredith McGraw of Politico said that “no matter where Trump goes, what he does, there’s behind-the-scenes drama and intrigue,” she predicted that news publications are not going to jump on every single social media post from Trump like the last time around.
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Instead, she said outlets will be focusing on being “bigger-picture about stories.”
Baker concurred, telling Vanity Fair that outlets will need to “recognize that we’re not going to jump on every single stray voltage that comes out of his phone.”
He did express concern that reporters who clash with Trump will be removed from the briefing room, however.
“If Trump kicks us out of the White House briefing room… then fine, we’ll still cover from the outside,” Baker said. “We’ll take on the challenge as it develops, but I don’t think we’re going to shrink from that.”
He also stressed the need to “recognize that [Trump] is a different, more experienced person at turning the levers of power than he was the first time around.”