WH Correspondents Reportedly Joking That Howard Kurtz’s Trump Book Was Written By Kellyanne Conway

Fox News personality Howard Kurtz‘s new book has dropped, and everyone seems to be getting their digs in – including some at the White House.

The book, entitled Media Madness: Donald Trump, the Press, and the War over the Truth claims to show “how supposedly objective journalists, alarmed by Trump’s success, have moved into the opposing camp.”

It heavily indicates throughout that its author spent a great deal of time with many then-elites in Washington, including former Chief of Staff Reince Priebus – on whose media coverage and eventual ouster Kurtz wrote extensively – Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump and, most of all, Kellyanne Conway.

“The running joke is that the book was actually written by Kellyanne,” a member of the White House press corps told The Daily Beast.

The press corps member remained anonymous so as not to get into a little war with Kurtz — a move that seems fueled by the desire to keep the focus on the people pulling the strings and not the people calling them out. A very reporter move, and a smart one to keep the attention on Conway’s influence.

In fact, another journalist redacted his or her name from the record to say of the book: “I love people who are demonstrably, exponentially, more wealthy and privileged than me calling me fucking media elite.”

Here’s a big takeaway from this: the very people with the access to the highest echelons of the government can only say how they’ve been falsely represented, rather than taking them down. In that vein, the book also wrecks Maggie Haberman of The New York Times, who has done some of the most incisive and diligent reporting on the Trump White House of anyone in the press. Haberman told The Daily Beast, Kurtz never reached out to her for the book. What does that say of the integrity of the whole project?

[image via screengrab]