A White House stenographer says she resigned over the Trump administration’s lack of respect for her office after President Trump reduced the roles of…
A White House stenographer says she resigned over the Trump administration’s lack of respect for her office after President Trump reduced the roles of the White House position.
Beck Dorey-Stein, who worked as a stenographer for the White House during the second half of the Obama administration, told CNN’s New Day on Wednesday that Trump’s refusal to allow stenographers in the room for meetings and interviews with some journalists crossed a line.
« I quit because I couldn’t be proud of where I worked anymore, » Dorey-Stein said. « I felt like President Trump was lying to the American people, and also…not even trying to tell the truth. He wasn’t even going the extra mile to have the stenographers in the room »
In an op-ed for The New York Times, Dorey-Stein added that Trump’s dislike for microphones « near his face » resulted in her office having less access to the Oval Office, in many cases resulting in no stenographer being present for press conferences or meetings.
« In my five years with President Barack Obama, off-the-record discussions with reporters happened after work hours — not for an hour in the middle of the work day, and certainly not before an interview, » she said, speaking of Trump’s off-the-record conversation with former Fox News host Bill O’Reilly.
« Mr. Trump likes to call anyone who disagrees with him “fake news.” But if he’s really the victim of so much inaccurate reporting, why is he so averse to having the facts recorded and transcribed? »
Dorey-Stein chalked up Trump’s hesitation to utilize the stenographer’s office to his administration’s unwillingness to adequately learn about the position during the transition period last year, and the Trump team’s lack of contact with Obama staffers during the move.
« Perhaps he didn’t fully understand the role of the stenographer. That would make sense, since his administration had rebuffed every invitation from the Obama transition team during an inherently stressful time, including to learn how to keep the lights on, » she wrote.
Trump was heavily criticized in British media after he gave an interview last week to the tabloid The Sun during his four-day stay in the U. K., an interview that Trump later criticized as « fake news » after his remarks aimed at Prime Minister Theresa May were widely reported.
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders later clarified his remarks in a statement to The Hill.
“As he said in his interview with the Sun [May] ‘is a very good person’ and he ‘never said anything bad about her,’” Sanders said in a statement to The Hill. “He thought she was great on NATO today and is a really terrific person. »
“He is thankful for the wonderful welcome from the Prime Minister here in the U. K.”
