CBS White House correspondent Major Garrett, who has covered several presidents for numerous outlets, dismissed criticism that President Donald Trump has curtailed media access, the Washington Examiner reported on Tuesday.
“There is more access to this president than there was to [Barack] Obama,” Garrett said. “We see him and interact with him and punch in questions with far more frequency than with Obama. Probably more so than for [George] W. Bush.”
Garrett also discounted the portrayal of Trump as against the media.
“As much as he hates us, he at some level is addicted to us and loves to see how what he bounces out there bounces back. He takes a measure of the media and in so doing he takes a measure of the country, because he does have a genuine sense, more than any previous president, of what it means to be a celebrity and what it means to be a celebrity now.”
Although Garrett respects Trump’s questioning of journalists, he disapproves of his attack that the media are “the enemy of the people” because, he said, it can erode trust in reporting.
Garrett said Trump’s style makes it more difficult to cover the White House, admitting that “it wears me out.”
While other presidents were more methodical, Trump’s impatience makes him more erratic and he can suddenly throw out policy that was developed through the normal channels, Garrett said.
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