Former deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews (Photo: Screen capture)
Former deputy White House press secretary Sarah Matthews recalled the first administration when "working for the guy" meant dealing with President Donald Trump's fire hose of comments and misinformation. She knows with absolute certainty that the more he can distract from the affordability crisis, the more he can also distract his own voters from their anger over his policy failures.
MS NOW's Peter Alexander on Friday read a post on X from the White House's rapid response team after a producer posted that CNN, MS NOW and Politico were allowed back into the White House.
"This is a pre-credentialed event. Contrary to what the Fake News wants you to believe, they don’t just get to have free rein into every part of the White House, every event and every press call," the account claimed.
It might be why Trump was reportedly asking where the press was during his event on Thursday evening, Joe Scarborough revealed on Friday's "Morning Joe." Alexander claimed that this appears to be a new rule that the White House is trying to institute.
"In close to 14 years covering the White House across three presidents, four administrations, I've never seen something like this before," he said.
Matthews said she thinks it was intentional that the White House continued trying to block the press, even after the judge issued an order allowing reporters back into the briefing room.
"I think that the White House is pushing the envelope to see what they can get away with. And we've seen them before — defy court orders. So, it doesn't surprise me that they were dragging their feet on this and didn't want to let these reporters back onto the White House campus," she said.
She went on to say that she found it "hilarious to see President Trump then complaining about the lack of media coverage surrounding his China summit."
"The White House loves to say that President Trump is his own best messenger, but he's often his own worst enemy, too," she added, noting that he couldn't have picked a worse time to ban the press from the White House.
However, she said that it is part of his pattern, similar to his imposing tariffs that worsened the affordability crisis and starting a war that increased fuel costs.
Alexander recalled that the president would do what he called "throwing grenades" at the press, while another issue was unfolding in the background. He confirmed that things like threatening to tear down the Kennedy Center and banning the media are all part of a grand strategy to distract Americans amid the economic crisis.
Matthews said she agrees that's what it is. She called it a move that "he has long used where he tries to make it impossible for everyone to keep up with everything. And you feel like you're often drinking from a fire hose. I know I felt like that even working for the guy. And so I can only imagine when you're an everyday, average American trying to keep up with the news cycle, you can't keep track of it all."
It's a strategy that Steve Bannon coined as "flooding the zone," where he encouraged Trump to throw out as many "crazy things you can't keep up with" as a distraction so no one specific thing can saturate Americans across all media.
"He would rather us be talking probably about his media ban or talking about him trying to rename the Kennedy Center, than us talking about the pocketbook issues that Americans are actually worried about heading into the midterm elections," Matthews continued. "He doesn't want us focused on gas prices or his war of choice with Iran, that there's seemingly no end in sight to, or how the Fed just raised interest rates for the first time in more than three years."
"He has been racking up loss after loss after loss. And so, yeah, he wants to distract us with these types of things," she closed. "But that's why it's important that we bring up those issues and keep our eye on the ball heading into the midterm elections."