The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg had a mini-meltdown on CNN Sunday night over President Trump and journalists joking with each other at the annual “roast” Gridiron Dinner. Goldberg slammed the event as “disgraceful” and “not a laughing matter” on March 4's CNN Newsroom with Ana Cabrera.
The annual event on March 3 attended by the President and media, is in the same vein as the more popular White House Correspondents Dinner, where the President and guests take turns in mocking each other, (albeit this particular event is supposed to be a little more restrained.)
As to be expected, Trump made jokes at the “fake news media”’s expense, and even made a few cracks at his habit of boasting and how much the media hates him.
Despite not attending last year’s WHCD -- to the condemnation and dismay of many in the media -- his decision to perform at this similar event did not appease his harshest media critics, either.
CNN’s Ana Cabrera asked Goldberg how she took Trump’s performance at the March 3 event, on her show the following evening. Goldberg gushed how “disgraceful” it was for journalists to stoop to joking with this President.
“That performance last night was sort of disgraceful, I actually think, for a lot of establishment journalists to be joking around and joshing around with this man who is so hostile to our profession, who is so, um, you know -- who is so violently opposed to the tenants of a free press,” Goldberg lamented.
An irate Goldberg wasn’t done complaining. “None of this is a laughing matter, it’s not even really a laughing matter for him to stand up there and humiliate his long-suffering wife!” she said, dismayed.
Cabrera wondered if Goldberg’s criticism was over-the-top. “But do you think it could be a step forward the fact that he is now willing to mingle with the press?” she posed.
But the journalist’s stubborn bias toward the President couldn’t be assuaged. She went off again on how “disgraceful” it was for the press to normalize Trump and there wasn’t really anything Trump could do that would earn him credit for attending the dinner:
No, I think of course it's not a step forward. It would be a step forward if he was willing to give a press conference. It would be a step forward if they were willing to show even kind of minimal levels of transparency. I think what he did by going to this dinner is he got a lot of journalists to sort of ratify what has been a really disgraceful departure from ordinary norms of openness and candor with the media.
Ironically, Trump slammed the journalists in the room as “the opposition party,” but journalists like Goldberg who didn’t attend would probably proudly wear that moniker. When she’s not on CNN fretting about the President, she’s writing hyperbolic op-eds for The Times, demanding that the press stop calling Trump “presidential” until he “apologizes and resigns.”
