Tapper Grills Raimondo. WaPo Meltdowns. | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room
MEDIA WINNER: Jake Tapper
Commerce secretary Gina Raimondo was put completely on the run by CNN anchor Jake Tapper Sunday in a tense interview about various economic issues such as high gas prices and the baby formula shortage.
Right from the outset of her State of the Union appearance, Raimondo was put to the test by Tapper, who brought the receipts on question after question.
Raimondo tried to tout recent comments from former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers about inflation potentially starting to go down, but Tapper pressed her about a first-guess Summers made a year ago on President Joe Biden’s economic strategy.
“All due respect, Madam Secretary, Larry Summers a year ago, more than a year ago, was saying the Biden administration was putting too much money into the economy, flooding too much money into the economy,” Tapper said. “And he was concerned about inflation. And a Biden administration official said that Larry Summers was wrong. And it turns out he was right.”
Tapper then brought up inflation and the nation’s baby formula shortage and put Raimondo on the spot.
“We’re talking about two critical issues here that directly affect the American people where they live, where the Biden administration looks like it was caught flat-footed — inflation and baby formula,” Tapper said. “Not to mention the record gas prices, which were hurt by the war in Ukraine, no doubt. But that’s not the only reason why they’re so high. Why does it seem the Biden administration is consistently playing clean-up on these problems that are playing out exactly as many experts forecast they would — instead of heading them off before they become a crisis?”
Brendan Smialowski/ AFP via Getty Images
MEDIA LOSER: The Washington Post
Mercy, where to even begin. The Washington Post had an absurdly embarrassing weekend, and much of it played out on Twitter where the entire planet could gawk at the spectacle.
Taylor Lorenz once again became the story and overshadowed her own article, when she was called out on Twitter by two social media influencers irked at her reporting about their coverage of the Johnny Depp–Amber Heard trial. Lorenz’s article originally claimed these influencers declined to comment, but they both tweeted that they were contacted only after the article was published.
The Post added a correction to the article, and then corrected the correction, and that corrected correction is drawing criticism it still hasn’t fully disclosed the problems with the article. Lorenz blamed the issues on an unnamed editor and sparred with CNN’s Brian Stelter and Oliver Darcy on Twitter to whine she is being targeted by a smear campaign. “Scrutiny by fellow journalists is not the same as a smear campaign by crusaders,” Stelter retorted.
Felicia Sonmez is now on day four of a Twitter tirade over her colleague David Weigel retweeting a crass sexist joke on Friday. Weigel was rebuked both internally and publicly by several top Post editors, and apologized and took down the tweet. That didn’t satisfy Sonmez, who continued tweeting her complaints and sparring with Post reporter Jose Del Real.
Executive editor Sally Buzbee’s emailed plea for Post staff to “treat each other with respect and kindness” only incensed Sonmez further, claiming her boss was providing fodder for harassment.
Weigel’s retweet was bad, but the public infighting about it only made things worse. Nothing about this circus made anything better online for women, and it’s become a messy, embarrassing soap opera for the Post.
Links We Like:
Woodward and Bernstein thought Nixon defined corruption. Then came Trump.
– Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, Washington Post
In battered Uvalde, where a police chief is in hiding, grief gives way to calls for accountability
– Zach Despart, Texas Tribune
AMERICAN RASPUTIN: Steve Bannon is still scheming. And he’s still a threat to democracy.
– Jennifer Senior, The Atlantic
The Right Way to Think About ‘Red Flag’ Laws
– David French, The Bulwark
Read the full Mediaite Green Room Newsletter here, including what to expect from this week’s Jan. 6 prime time hearing and a hilarious “cow mayhem” video.
