Trump claims TV anchors sent him private letters praising his ‘performance’ as president

"A lot of those anchors sent us letters saying that was one of the greatest meetings they've ever witnessed."

AARON RUPAR
JAN 10, 2018, 1:20 PM
UPDATED: JAN 10, 2018, 1:43 PM

On Tuesday, President Trump held a White House meeting with a bipartisan group of members of Congress that was praised by media outlets, rightly or wrongly, for its relative normalcy.

Trump’s restraint apparently didn’t carry over into Wednesday. Because during a portion of a cabinet meeting open to the press, the president bragged about his “performance” during the immigration meeting and the “great reviews” he received from the media — including letters he claimed to receive from news anchors praising him.

“It was a tremendous meeting. Actually, it was reported as incredibly good, and my performance — you know, some of them called it a performance, I consider it work — but it got great reviews by everybody, other than two networks who were phenomenal for about two hours,” Trump said. “Then after that they were called by their bosses that say, ‘Oh, wait a minute.’ And unfortunately, a lot of those anchors sent us letters saying that was one of the greatest meetings they’ve ever witnessed. And they were great for about two hours, they were phenomenal and then they went a little south on us, but not that bad, it was fine.”

While Trump’s relatively reasonable tone during Tuesday’s meeting and his attempt to engage with Democratic members of Congress received praised, the message he sent during the proceedings was incoherent. At one point, Trump indicated he would support a “clean DACA bill” that would provide legal protections for Dreamers without forcing Democrats to support a border wall or measures to curtail immigration, but the White House walked back Trump’s comments later in the day.

Nothing about Trump’s bipartisan DACA meeting indicates he will move on immigration reform.

On Wednesday, Trump didn’t detail what “anchors” sent the White House “letters” praising his “performance,” though there have been numerous reports about how administration staff presents the president with “special folders” each day filled “with screenshots of positive cable news chyrons (those lower-third headlines and crawls), admiring tweets, transcripts of fawning TV interviews, praise-filled news stories, and sometimes just pictures of Trump on TV looking powerful,” as Vice described the so-called “propaganda document” last August.

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https://thinkprogress.org/trump-immigration-meeting-tv-anchors-letters-74922d07c751/