Dealing With Loss

What will President Trump be like in press conferences?
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Local students and their supporters march during a walkout protest against US President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle, Washington on November 14, 2016. / AFP / Jason Redmond (Photo credit should read JASON REDMOND/AFP/Getty Images)
Local students and their supporters march during a walkout protest against US President-elect Donald Trump in Seattle, Washington on November 14, 2016. / AFP / Jason Redmond (Photo credit should read JASON REDMOND/AFP/Getty Images)

In the past week, Democrats lost the presidential election while America suffered the ultimate loss of two unique public voices: Leonard Cohen and Gwen Ifill. Ifill was co-anchor of the nightly news show PBS NewsHour (which some still refer to by its original name, the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, showing how influential this show's anchors have been in the past). Ifill will be greatly missed, as she was not only a voice of reason with great intelligence behind it, but also a voice for people not normally heard from in broadcast news.

Ifill once remarked that she made more money in a week than her father made in a year, and she never forgot her humble beginnings in her reporting, as she consistently pressured politicians on what their policy positions actually meant for people on the lower economic rungs of the ladder. She was, in a word, authentic -- something even rarer in national journalism than it is in the world of politics.

I join millions of Americans now mourning the loss of one of the most relatable journalists on the national scene. Ifill will be greatly missed, that much is certain.

So will Leonard Cohen, for different reasons. Cohen's music spoke to millions, and provided the most moving tribute to both his work and the campaign of Hillary Clinton this weekend, when Saturday Night Live opened with Kate McKinnon (dressed as Hillary Clinton) playing the piano and singing Cohen's best-known work, "Hallelujah."

I did my best, it wasn't much

I couldn't feel, so I tried to touch

I've told the truth, I didn't come to fool ya

And even though it all went wrong

I'll stand before the Lord of Song

With nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah

To me, at least, this was one of the most poignant "cold open" scenes ever, in the long and storied history of SNL -- right up there with Rudy Giuliani and Lorne Michaels addressing the nation after 9/11. In one heartfelt moment, McKinnon summed up the loss millions were feeling not only because of Cohen's death, but also because of the outcome of the election.

Now, losing elections is a part of the political process. Nobody wins all the time -- and shouldn't. It's what keeps parties from getting out of touch, to be blunt. But I was reminded today of not just Hillary Clinton's loss for the Democrats, but of the inevitable loss for our country of the presidency of Barack Obama. I say this because I just finished watching Obama's press conference, and couldn't help but wonder what Donald Trump press conferences will be like in the near future.

The end of Obama's presidency has been completely overshadowed by the presidential race, for over a year now. But a remarkable thing has happened during that time period. Obama's job approval has skyrocketed. On New Year's Day, Obama's average daily job approval at RealClearPolitics.com stood at 43.6 percent. Over half of America -- 52.0 percent -- disapproved of the job he was doing. Since that time, Obama has won back a large portion of the public and completely flipped those numbers.

His daily job approval rating today is 52.6 percent, to only 44.0 percent disapproval. The Gallup daily tracking poll actually has Obama at 57 percent approval today -- a whopping 17 points higher than his disapproval rating. That is an astounding turnaround, and it shows that while everyone was obsessing over the race for his successor, more and more people decided that they're going to miss Obama when he's gone.

This was on my mind while I watched Obama field questions from the press today. All presidents have their own style when talking to the press, of course. Some are better in some ways, others excel in different ways. Almost all presidents come into office promising much more press accessibility, but then soon discover it's easier not to answer questions in a live press conference. Obama was no different in this regard, as he entered office promising all sorts of high standards for accessibility (such as holding live town hall meetings on a monthly basis, in different parts of the country). Most of these ideas soon fell by the wayside. There were indeed very long periods during Obama's term in office where no press conferences were held at all (much to the annoyance of the White House press corps).

But when he did hold pressers, Obama's style was to give extremely long answers to each question, and (for the most part) to do so in as sober and calm a manner as possible. "No-Drama Obama" was the one who showed up to talk to the press, to put this another way. We saw this today, as Obama fielded questions about the transition to the Trump presidency.

Obama was obviously feeling the rejection of the election personally. I'd have to check the transcript, but I don't believe Obama even managed to say the name "Donald Trump" at any point, using "the president-elect" or "the next president" instead. That's pretty revealing, when you can't even utter the guy's name. But at the same time, it was subtle. In no way did Obama otherwise express his disappointment with the country's choice of Trump -- in fact, Obama refused to rise to multiple baited questions on this subject today. After all, while other Democrats are free to speak their minds on Donald Trump, Obama has to actually work with the guy for the next few months. And Obama knows that the outgoing transition to power is as much a part of his legacy as what came before it.

What will President Trump be like in press conferences? How will they be different than Obama press conferences? Well, if history is any guide, Trump will do more press conferences at the very start than he will later on. In the early days of his campaign, Trump used to love jousting with the press, and would answer all their questions without limit. Later on, not so much. As president, he'll probably be able to tell those who would stifle his voice that the people deserved to hear from their president, so he'll be doing press conferences once again.

The biggest question I have about Trump speaking to the press as president is who is going to be in that audience? Will Trump himself pick and choose which journalists get press credentials for the White House press pool? Such a question would be almost unthinkable for anyone else entering the job, but it's not exactly a stretch of the imagination to see Trump banning journalists he didn't personally approve of. So will the room be filled only with Fox News reporters (with a few Breitbart "reporters" for flavor, perhaps)? Or will the media continue to be able to pick who represents them in the White House? As far as I can see, that is still a very open question.

Trump is likely to get more questions per press conference than Obama, unless he cuts the press conferences off a lot shorter. Obama, as mentioned, likes to "filibuster" questions by providing long and detailed answers, complete with many pauses and reflection. The upshot of this is that fewer questions fit into a one-hour period. I somehow can't see Trump doing the same thing. Trump's pressers will be a lot closer to George W. Bush's press conferences in this particular regard, with lots of short and snappy answers to specific questions. Again, I say this with a fair amount of confidence due to the style Trump displayed during the campaign. Press conference answers, by their very nature, cannot be scripted. No TelePrompTer help is available. Meaning Trump will answer as Trump, and not as his speechwriters. And Trump-as-Trump is a lot more succinct and to the point.

At some point, Trump is going to stumble badly during an answer. This too is inevitable, and would be no matter who was taking the job. Obama stumbled badly on a few answers early on in his term, and he paid a political price for doing so (see: "beer summit," for an example). Trump will likely do the same, although it is impossible to predict on what issue he'll stumble. But Trump is the master of blustering through faux pas moments, and also of directly attacking the press corps itself when uncomfortable questions arise. His supporters see both of these as strengths, and will likely continue to do so when he's president. Trump's freewheeling style has gotten him to where he is, and he'll be relying on it when he does his first White House press conferences as well.

This all brings me back to where I began, because watching Obama today filled me with a sense of loss. We're not going to get detailed and multifaceted answers to questions anymore from our president -- at least, not for the next four years. Trump may be closer to "all-drama" than Obama's "no-drama" style. This will, doubtlessly, prove to be more entertaining, but also less instructive.

Even if Hillary Clinton had won the presidency, we'd still be on the brink of the end of Obama's time in office. Clinton's style is different from Obama's as well, so either way we'd be missing Obama next year (although, for Democrats, much less acutely). Presidential job approval ratings usually jump upwards during their lame-duck period (this was even true for George W. Bush, whose dismal ratings actually moved up a bit, once the 2008 election was over). It is even now possible that Obama could leave office with job approval ratings close to where he entered office -- with over six in ten Americans approving of him. When I attended the Democratic National Convention this year and heard President Obama speak, there were a few "impossible dream" chants from the crowd, of: "Four more years!" Due to term limits, this is simply not possible, but it certainly gave rise to the thought of how Obama would have done against Trump in the campaign.

President Obama will be missed when he's gone from office. The loss of the Obama presidency would have happened no matter who had won last week, but few in the media have been focusing on it. But while the campaign consumed all available media attention, something interesting was happening with the public. Their approval for President Obama grew significantly, and now stands at the highest point Obama has seen during his entire second term. The loss of Obama running the country was inevitable, but now more and more people are going to come to the same conclusion. We're going to miss President Barack Obama when he's gone.

Chris Weigant blogs at:

Follow Chris on Twitter: @ChrisWeigant

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