7 March 2018 tweet and video

I think, to many conservatives, many Republicans, it was reassuring, in the sense that this was the first time we have seen a president, a conservative president, really express vocally at a press conference the bias he feels and many of us feel has been given in the coverage toward the Trump administration. And so he’s sort of holding the press’ feet to the fire while he’s taking their questions. And it’s combative. It’s interesting. I think you are going to see a lot more people tuning in to these press conferences. It used to be that conservatives who were in government, like myself, we would get what we felt was unfair coverage, we’d go home, we would grumble, we would complain about it, but we actually wouldn’t say anything to the reporter or to the reporters while they’re asking us additional questions. He’s very confrontational. And I think that’s refreshing. So I think it actually is going to be good. And I think the public is going to take an interest in these press conferences much more so than in past presidencies.

In an interview with Steve Kroft of 60 Minutes, the day before announcing his candidacy for President:

14 December 2017 annual press conference

Excerpts from Theodore Roosevelt’s address before the Convention of the National Progressive Party in Chicago, August, 1912

A senior White House official who spoke contemporaneously with participants in the meeting recorded this summary: "The president proceeded to lecture and insult the entire group about how they didn't know anything when it came to defense or national security. It seems clear that many of the president's senior advisers, especially those in the national security realm, are extremely concerned with his erratic nature, his relative ignorance, his inability to learn, as well as what they consider his dangerous views."

As we stand here on this 25th anniversary meeting of the Inter American Press Association, I should like to be permitted some personal comments before I then deliver my prepared remarks to you. I have learned that this is the first occasion in which the remarks of the President of any one of the American nations has been carried and is being carried live by Telstar to all the nations in the hemisphere. And we are proud that it is before the Inter American Press Association. I am sure that those of you, and I know that most of you here are members and publishers of the newspaper profession, will not be jealous if this is on television tonight.

"Jab Barish Ata hai To Pani Aata hai, Jab Ziada Barish aata hai to Ziada pani aata hai"(in a news conference)

When I was in Miami, President Carter was running for reëlection. I had interviewed Miss Lillian and the Carters’ sons when I was working in Columbus. There was going to be a press conference with him, and my news director assigned my male co-anchor to cover it. So I went to my news director and said, ‘Is there a reason why you asked Steve to do this?’ He didn’t even know he’d done it. I was, like, ‘I just want to make sure that you think about it the next time.’ ”

The scope and audacity of John Kennedy’s May 25, 1961, message to a joint session of Congress on “Urgent National Needs” — the speech that launched the Apollo program — dazzled me. We would use rockets not yet designed and alloys not yet conceived, navigation and docking schemes not yet devised, in order to send a man to an unknown world — a world not yet explored, not even in a preliminary way, not even by robots — and we would bring him safely back, and we would do it before the decade was over. This confident pronouncement was made before any American had even achieved Earth orbit.

Here’s the White House that, you have a president that’ll do a 20 minute interview and somebody will sum up what he said, and he’ll say, "I didn’t say that!" The reporter will say, "No, you just said that 15 minutes ago!" "No, I didn’t!" You have a president that does that.

A hundred years from tonight, another American president will stand in this place and report on the State of the Union. He—or she—(applause)—he or she will look back on a 21st century shaped in so many ways by the decisions we make here and now. So let it be said of us then that we were thinking not only of our time, but of their time; that we reached as high as our ideals; that we put aside our divisions and found a new hour of healing and hopefulness; that we joined together to serve and strengthen the land we love.

"Leadership is a two-way street, loyalty up and loyalty down."

(CBS 60 Minutes interview, March 6, 1983)

In response to suspected leaks to the press about Vietnam, Kissinger had ordered FBI wiretaps in 1969 on the telephones of 17 journalists and White House aides, without court approval. Many news stories based on the purported leaks questioned progress in the American war effort, further fueling the antiwar movement. In a tape from the Oval Office on February 22, 1971, Nixon said, “In the short run, it would be so much easier, wouldn’t it, to run this war in a dictatorial way, kill all the reporters and carry on the war.” “The press is your enemy,” Nixon explained five days later in a meeting with Admiral Thomas H. Moorer, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to another tape. “Enemies. Understand that? . . . Now, never act that way . . . give them a drink, you know, treat them nice, you just love it, you’re trying to be helpful. But don’t help the bastards. Ever. Because they’re trying to stick the knife right in our groin.