Josh Earnest, the White House press secretary under President Barack Obama, says the media is overly sensitive and allows itself to be manipulated by President Donald Trump.
"Journalism, for an institution that is focused on critiquing people in power, is remarkably thin-skinned," Earnest said Tuesday at a Harvard University forum titled "The Press & the Presidency."
"And we've seen President Trump cynically use the tendency of the press to defend itself, and to bristle at criticism, to try to distract from the tough questions that the media is asking him."
He added that Trump doesn't really hate the press, but just uses it to his advantage.
"I don't think President Trump has a grand ambition to erase the First Amendment from the copy of the Constitution in the National Archives. I just think he often finds the First Amendment to be really, really inconvenient," Earnest said.
"He'd rather pretend it doesn't exist or that it's not that important or that it's somehow malleable."
Of Melissa McCarthy's outrageous impression of Trump's press secretary Sean Spicer on "Saturday Night Live," Earnest said: "When you're in a position that visible, taking some lumps and being the butt of a joke or two is part of the territory."
© 2026 Newsmax. All rights reserved.