Brit Hume on the end of decorum at White House press briefings
It's not just a 'gotcha' game, Fox News senior political analyst Brit Hume tells Tucker Carlson on 'Tucker Carlson Tonight.'
Fox News political analyst Brit Hume said Tuesday that the White House press corps appears to be trying to make the presidential coronavirus briefings more about the president and less about the coronavirus.
Hume told "Tucker Carlson Tonight" that he senses a drastic shift in the conduct of the reporters compared to the years he spent as the White House correspondent for ABC News decades ago.
He said that many times during such briefings -- as President Trump held one today after a long break -- he came away with questions he would have asked that were never posed to the president by the reporters in the room.
"I don't know what story these reporters think they are covering but it isn't the coronavirus outbreak that they are covering. What they are covering is Donald Trump and Donald Trump, to them, is someone whom I think is reasonably clear most reporters do not respect or admire, and indeed I think they hold him in contempt," said Hume.
He said that, as a result of the opinionated nature of the correspondents, the "aggressive behavior" in the briefing room is different than the same typical aggression he was used to with past administrations.
Hume noted how his ABC News predecessor, Sam Donaldson, would routinely pose tough questions and be somewhat pointed with President Reagan, but never in a disrespectful way.
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"[Donaldson] could be quite firm and strong and would ask very pointed questions. But he was always respectful and courteous. He rarely interrupted or argued, and that was the standard that we all observed," he said, adding how colleagues at times spurned the late longtime UPI correspondent Helen Thomas when they thought she crossed a line in questioning the president at the time.
"Helen Thomas would try to do it and she was scorned by her colleagues ....she was not held in high esteem," he said.
"It's not just a gotcha game... It's to extract information," he added.
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