Trump Snaps Back At Media After They Diss The Alaska Summit

The media was very hot and bothered after the Alaska Summit. And President Trump, who is no big fan of the mainstream media to begin with, is over it.

As we covered on the blog, President Trump was more reserved than usual after the summit. Neither he nor Vladimir Putin took any questions at the press conference, though Trump was a little more forthcoming with Sean Hannity afterward. But between that and his interview with Bret Baier on Air Force One on the way to Alaska, Fox News got the exclusive interviews, and the rest of the media was picking up the scraps.

For example, NPR got a hold of a packet of papers that were left behind in “the business center of an Alaskan hotel,” which detailed the order of events for the summit, confirmed that there was a cancelled luncheon, but also contained names and phone numbers of three “U.S. staff members.” Sloppy, yes, but apparently nothing earth-shattering or top secret. But this is what other media outlets were apparently left to do – comb through the rooms where the summit was held, or beg or possibly pay hotel staff to turn over anything interesting they found. But even this “discovery” was, at best, the smallest of potatoes.

This left the Sunday shows very anxious to get whatever they could out of the big guest of the day, Secretary of State Marco Rubio. Rubio, who has become wildly effective as Secretary of State, did 3/5ths of “the full Ginsburg” while Special Envoy Steve Witkoff took the other two shows, but gets extra credit for also appearing on “Sunday Morning Futures” on Fox News. But Rubio took on Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face The Nation,” Kristen Welker on NBC’s “Meet The Press,” and Martha Raddatz on “ABC News This Week.” All three anchors were doing two things. First, they were desperate to wheedle any kind of information they could out of Secretary Rubio about the summit. Second, they were not-so-subtly getting their digs in at President Trump for not walking away with a ceasefire, and for treating Putin nicely. Rubio, to his credit, absolutely shut all of them down.