This should be a clarifying lesson: most of the establishment press will reflexively credit Trump for things he has nothing to do with. We’ve seen that with the repeated claims of credit for saving or creating jobs which were usually announced months before. It’s classic Lucy’s football. There’s always news a day or two later about how it’s not true. But they run with it each time. Now we see the same with the House GOP caving and CNN, WaPo, Politico, AP and all the bigs saying they gave in when Trump tweeted his equivocal disapproval. That is pretty clearly not the case.
This story blew up last night. This morning congressional offices were deluged with constituent calls. And the press coverage was universally negative. Trump was clearly reacting to those realities, not driving them. But when the House GOP announced they were killing the proposal, the bigs said it was Trump’s intervention that did it. It may have mildly added to the momentum. But when the train is already rushing down the hill at 120 miles an hour, it can’t get that much faster.
Politico at least already seems to have somewhat de-Trumped its story. We’ll see what the others do.
Are these folks pro-Trump? No, not precisely. The opposite if anything. But power is a magnet. That’s how this works.
