Talking right

President Trump on Monday met with a small group of conservative journalists, pundits, and radio talk show hosts. I was among them.

After ticking off a list of what he said were his accomplishments leading up to the arbitrary 100-day marker of his presidency, we asked him questions. But unlike the usual formal news conferences filled with largely liberal journalists, there were no “gotcha” questions or accusations disguised as questions from reporters.

My question to President Trump: “Given your stated budding friendship with China’s president, Xi Jinping, and what you say are his efforts to dissuade North Korea’s nuclear program, would you say war is less likely, or about as likely?” The president said he doesn’t discuss military matters in public, but in his answer to my follow-up question he said he’s not sure some of the armaments recently paraded through the streets of Pyongyang are real, but he added, “We’ll see.”

The session was supposed to be on “background,” meaning the president could not be quoted, but halfway through he declared it on the record, which is how news broke of his decision to impose a 20 percent tariff on Canadian lumber entering the United States. Trump said it is “unfair” for the Canadian lumber industry to receive government subsidies. Reciprocity, he called it, “a word I like.”

Conservatives should never be lapdogs for a Republican president. And none of the journalists at Monday’s meeting asked the types of softball questions usually tossed at a Democratic president by so-called mainstream journalists. The president told us he doesn’t expect to be free of criticism, but appreciates fairness.

The president told us he doesn’t expect to be free of criticism, but appreciates fairness.

Evidence that the major media tilt left is undeniable. The Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog organization, calculated that during the first 30 days of his presidency “… the President and his team were the subject of 16 hours of coverage on just the Big Three evening newscasts, or more than half (54 percent) of all of the news coverage during this period. And while most new presidents enjoy a media honeymoon, the tone of Trump’s coverage was nearly as hostile (88 percent negative) as we found during last year’s presidential campaign (91 percent negative).”

The mini news conference ended with a promise by a White House staff member that there would be more of these gatherings. That pledge was in keeping with this administration’s strategy to broaden media access beyond the usual collection of liberal journalists and even beyond the Beltway. White House spokesman Sean Spicer now fields questions via Skype from reporters and anchors in other cities. Most of these have also been substantive and reflect concerns from outside the Washington bubble.

While these changes, the public is getting more information and a different perspective than what they are used to. That can only be good for the country, for conservative journalists who are often ignored by the major media, and for the president.

Listen to Cal Thomas’ commentary on the April 27 edition of The World and Everything in It.