Did CNN’s Van Jones work with the White House on police reform?
Van Jones. (AP Photo/Kathy Willens, File)
There’s nothing wrong with CNN contributor Van Jones helping the Trump administration with police reform. There’s also nothing wrong with Jones going on TV and saying positive things about that police reform.
However, there is a problem if Jones doesn’t tell the audience that he helped with Trump’s executive order before talking about how positive it is.
But that’s exactly what happened, according to a story from The Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove. Or did none of that happen? Jones has responded, saying Grove’s story is “based on false, sensational charges.”
Let’s start here: Grove reported that Jones secretly worked with Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner to help frame the president’s reform plan following George Floyd’s death while in police custody and national protests about police brutality. Then, after Trump announced his project, Jones went on CNN’s “Inside Politics with John King” and “Anderson Cooper 360” and praised it.
Jones told Cooper, “I think it’s pushing in the right direction. What you got today is, I think, a sign that we are winning. … Donald Trump has put himself on record saying we need to reform the police department. … We are winning! Donald Trump had no plan a month ago to work on this issue at all. The fact that we are now in the direction of moving forward, I think, is good.”
Jones never disclosed he was involved.
IF ALL THIS IS TRUE, this is Journalism 101. Jones absolutely had an obligation to tell the audience about his role.
Also of note, Grove wrote, “By most accounts, Kushner and Jones became fast friends; Jones has been an occasional dinner guest of Jared and Ivanka Trump at their mansion in Washington’s posh Kalorama neighborhood, and Kushner introduced Jones to Kim Kardashian West, a longtime pal — along with her husband Kanye — of Ivanka’s.”
BUT …
Jones is saying he had nothing to do with Trump’s executive order. In a five-tweet thread, Jones said that since the pandemic has started, he hasn’t even been to Washington, D.C., let alone the White House. In addition, Jones tweeted, “I have never been included in any meetings about police reform (not by phone, zoom, nada). I didn’t know what was in the EO until the day it was released.”
Jones said whenever he has spoken to the White House about a topic that is discussed on air, he has revealed his involvement. But, in this case, he claimed he wasn’t involved in any discussions.
Jones tweeted, “The accusation that I attended White House meetings on police reform but failed to disclose them is doubly false, and it should be corrected.”
Grove, however, quoted a source as saying Jones, human rights attorney Jessica Jackson and a group called the Reform Alliance “had been working with a lot of the families of people who had been killed by police officers, and we worked very closely with them on the EO.”
The source told Grove, “On the EO, I would say he and Jessica were very helpful.”
Did Jones work on the EO? We don’t know. But he most definitely said good things about it even though it had many critics, including House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate minority leader Chuck Schumer and Rev. Al Sharpton, who told The Daily Beast, “I did not think the executive order was worth the paper it was written on.”
Sharpton added, “Van’s experiment with Trump is a case of him having more faith than I have, but I’m not going to attack him for doing it.”
Then again, Jones said he shouldn’t be attacked at all because he had nothing to do with it.
Getting the story straight
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany speaks during a press briefing at the White House on Monday. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany was asked Monday on “Fox & Friends” about President Trump retweeting a video of a Trump supporter at The Villages in Florida yelling “white power!” After several hours Sunday, Trump removed the retweet.
McEnany repeated the White House official word from Sunday, which was that Trump did not initially hear the man yell “white power” in the video even though the man said it twice in the first 10 seconds. During her appearance on “Fox & Friends,” McEnany said, “But (Trump) made very clear to me that he stands with the people of The Villages, our great seniors, men and women in the Villages who support this president. He stands for them and his point in tweeting out that video was to stand with his supporters who are oftentimes demonized.”
While it’s the press secretary’s role, at times, to defend the president, McEnany’s comment about this on “Fox & Friends” was troubling. She either was completely tone-deaf as to what she was saying or, in an effort to not offend anyone at The Villages, she failed to condemn (and essentially condoned) a Trump supporter who would use the phrase “white power.” One would hope that someone who uses such a phrase actually would be demonized.
The reality might be Trump didn’t even watch the video before retweeting it — and that, too, is worrisome. Perhaps instead of dodging and ducking and trying to spin the story, McEnany and the White House should have just said, “The president made a mistake retweeting that and he apologizes for it.”
More McEnany
A big topic during McEnany’s White House press briefing on Monday was whether President Trump had been briefed on U.S. intelligence that said Russia placed bounties on U.S. troops in Afghanistan.
Trump tweeted Sunday night that “Intel just reported to me that they did not find this info credible” and therefore did not tell him or Vice President Mike Pence. Then McEnany said Monday there was “no consensus” about those reports and that there were “dissenting opinions” about them.
It was all rather confusing as to whether or not Trump was briefed — or should have been briefed. And McEnany was asked to, again, clarify. After McEnany said that the question had already been “asked and answered,” she said the president is briefed on “verified intelligence.”
Then she took aim at The New York Times for reporting Trump was briefed.
“And,” she continued, “I really think it’s time for The New York Times to step back and ask themselves why they’ve been wrong — so wrong, so often.”
Then, reading from a notebook (which shows she came prepared to critique the media), McEnany went through a list of items when she said the Times was incorrect involving the White House and Russia.
She concluded by saying, “I think it’s time that The New York Times and The Washington Post hand back their Pulitzers.”
With that, she walked off while ignoring the question of why Trump hasn’t condemned “white power.”
It was, as we’ve seen often from her, a petty and childish display by a White House press secretary who appears more interested in taking shots at well-respected news organizations than doing her job — which is to brief the press.
I wrote earlier this year that McEnany seems overmatched in her role. The Columbia Journalism Review’s Bill Grueskin recently wrote about McEnany’s media criticism, and that was before her petulant act on Monday.
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