Susan Glasser: This Is ‘the Kremlin Press Pool-ization of The White House’

EXCERPT:

GLASSER: "Yeah, I mean, call it the Kremlin press pool-ization of the White House. I think Donald Trump has always been obsessed with media. It’s one of his skills, is to understand how to play and manipulate the media. And the risk has always been in what I call the Trump 2.0 livestreaming presidency, where he wants a camera on him at all times, but as much under his control as possible. So the risk for independent critical journalism, frankly, of whatever political viewpoint, is that it’s very hard to do that in a situation where you risk being the props of a president who really wants to control and to be almost a 24-hour creature of the media. There was an aide in Trump 1.0 who observed to me that, you know, Donald Trump was like the kid Mike TV in the movie 'Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.' He wanted almost to live inside of the television constantly. I think that’s how he’s been playing out 2.0. So, it’s a big punch for him not to have the networks playing that live streaming at all times, but my fear is that he will find a way around it. Trump TV, in its debut, may be a joke, but maybe they stick with it and they put more resources behind it, and over time, it becomes something closer to a White House propaganda arm that actually has an audience."