Maggie Haberman Narrowly Defends Fox’s Peter Doocy After CNN Anchor Bashes MAGA-fied Trump Press Pool
CNN anchor Anderson Cooper ripped Fox News Senior White House correspondent Peter Doocy over a loaded question that seemed to fit the new Trump press pool, drawing a narrow defense from CNN commentator and New York Times White House correspondent Maggie Haberman.
President Donald Trump held high-stakes talks at the White House Monday with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and European leaders, including a series of White House photo ops.
Doocy drew flak from critics when he asked Zelensky a question that was seen by many as parroting Russian talking points.
“President Zelenskyy, President Zelenskyy, are you prepared to keep sending Ukrainian troops to their deaths for another couple years, or are you going to agree to redraw the maps?” Doocy asked.
PETER DOOCY: President Zelenskyy, President Zelenskyy, are you prepared to keep sending Ukrainian troops to their deaths for another couple years, or are you going to agree to redraw the maps?
ZELENSKYY: Thank you for your question.
So, first of all, we live under each day attacks. You know that today have been a lot of attacks and a lot of wounded people. And a child was dead, small one, one year-and-a-half. So, we need to stop this war, to stop Russia, and we need support, American and European partners. We will do our best for this.
So — and I think we show that we are strong people, and we supported the idea of the United States, personally of President Trump to stop this war, to make a diplomatic way of finishing this war. And we are ready for trilateral, as the president said. This is a good signal about trilateral. I think this is very good.
Thank you.
On Monday night’s edition of CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, Cooper called out the question, and connected it to Trump’s reshaping of the press pool to include MAGA-friendly reporters like Real America’s Voice Chief White House Correspondent Brian Glenn.
Haberman defended Doocy on the narrow grounds that, his question notwithstanding, Doocy was part of the White House press pool during the last several administrations:
COOPER: Maggie, you pointed out in The New York Times a blog, live blog that the Trump administration has worked hard to reshape the White House press corps and stack it with, with friendly outlets. We saw Fox reporter ask Zelenskyy if he’s prepared to keep sending troops to their deaths or if he’ll agree to redraw the maps as if that’s a binary choice. And obviously, I mean, how much do you think the White House is benefiting from the sort of friendly right wing ecosystem he’s now in place?
HABERMAN: Yes, I don’t even think that that questioner is Peter Doocy from Fox’s who’s covered other White House’s — I don’t actually — I don’t know that he’s an example of it.
COOPER: Well, that’s your —
HABERMAN: I think you’ve seen him in other pools. I think you’ve seen Brian Glenn who is a is very prominent on social media, who was the one who first asked Zelenskyy about his suit in the last meeting and then engaged in this back and forth about this today and had this banter with the President, the pool looks nothing like what it used to and they have — slowly they talk a lot about how transparent they are and how much more visible this President is. And yes, he is certainly more visible than Joe Biden was. But they have shaped the pool so that the rigorous questioning he gets is far more limited than it used to be. He does still get some, but it is not what it once was. So, that we don’t ask questions like what David was just pointing to, which is where do things actually stand? You know, is Putin actually giving anything up? You know, how — do you have any condemnation of Putin? Why did you switch from what you said on Friday? We really haven’t heard a lot of that.
COOPER: And you’re right to point out, Peter Doocy is not part of that kind of redrawing of the press room. Maggie, thanks very much.
Watch above via Anderson Cooper 360.
