"The president has wanted this wall funding for a long time, but it wasn't until Democrats won the House that he really went to the mat for it. How much of all of this do you think is about the new power dynamic that is his desire to show you who really is in charge?"
Pelosi did not take the bait.
The question can be reparsed as "Why is he doing this to you?" Isn't that better asked of the person doing the doing rather than the done to party? Better to ask someone who is not going to yell at you and shout you down as "fake news".
This particular reporter is demonstrating a problem with journalistic standards in the U.S. Mainstream political journalism is comprised of reporting actions and events and asking each side what they think about the other side. Direct observation with reasonable interpretation is forbidden under standard political reporting and relegated to the opinion section. Just as journalists willingly follow every tweet by the president, in part, because it fits their model the "he said" parry, someone like Nancy Pelosi, who is performing her job, needs to be drawn into the he said/she said model of both sides journalism in order for the model to appear to function, to advance to the next parry. The reporter in this scenario had made the same observation that many others have made (see "Not a Wall, Not a Wall"). But if you think this, there is no reason to ask Pelosi if she agrees with you. It's just not her job.
The only real reason for this shutdown was for Trump to asset his dominance and deny that the Democratic majority in the House has any power.
The reporter reached this reasonable conclusion, but is not empowered to make a declarative statement - hence the disguise in the form of a question to try to get a response from Pelosi that nudges team Trump to respond in an endless he said/she said "debate" of both sides journalism.
Hey - this isn't Jeopardy people.
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| source:npr.org |
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