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Liberal journalists who decry an allegedly pusillanimous White House press corps under Trump never seem to spend 10 seconds considering how "courageous" this group was under Biden.

CNN "Chief Media Analyst" Brian Stelter tweeted: "The Trump White House has sought to reshape the press corps in its favor this year, and today showcased how well the effort has succeeded." Stelter was unhappy that no one ruined President Donald Trump's Q&A session in the Oval Office with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

"This display, especially in front of foreign leaders, is so embarrassing," Stelter said an anonymous White House reporter told him. "Many of the questions aren't designed to get answers, but to create another confrontation or make Trump look good. That's not journalism."

The less-than-courageous journalist added: "High schoolers could do a better job than some of these people." Wouldn't it be nice to know which liberal was doing the lecturing here, so we could compare it to their questions at the White House? Was it a CNN reporter?

This routine was a repeat of CNN's Donie O'Sullivan in April ripping the "MAGA Media" in the White House press corps. CNN thinks every journalist's role at every event is to Ruin Trump. They find it infuriating that Trump selects questions from reporters who don't want to ruin him.

Stelter was especially angry when Brian Glenn asked Trump a softball -- an accurate softball -- about how the press is rooting for him to fail at peace-making in Ukraine. How dare he set up three minutes of media bashing!

Stephen "RedSteeze" Miller -- who has crusaded on X about the media's embarrassing lack of professionalism during Biden's obvious mental decline -- upbraided Stelter by reminding him of April 2023. President Joe Biden was caught holding a crib sheet of reporters and their expected questions, including Los Angeles Times reporter Courtney Subramanian -- who asked Biden a question very much like the one on his crib sheet.

Stelter wasn't a CNN employee when this happened. CNN.com writer Stephen Collinson wrote about it, insisting it was "more innocent" than conservative critics thought. "The query did not exactly match the one Biden was apparently expecting and the L.A. Times said in a statement that Subramanian did not submit her question to the press office in advance, though she had been in regular contact with White House aides seeking information for her reporting."

In other words, White House press aides asked about what questions might be asked, and they summarized those, and gosh, it came out almost exactly like she asked it. It doesn't look very "innocent." It looks like collusion.

On television, CNN White House reporter Arlette Saenz also rushed to Team Biden's defense: "Now, it's worth noting that her question was not identical to what was on that note card and her outlet says that they did not submit any questions to the White House ahead of this press conference."

If you're going to trash a "MAGA Media" reporter for going too soft, Stelter should wonder about how Saenz and CNN's other White House reporters performed under Biden. No one yelled at Team Biden like they were Jim Acosta.

Saenz sounded like a repeater, not a reporter, channeling whatever messaging the White House was pushing. Saenz's interview with Jill Biden in 2023 sounded like a chat with Drew Barrymore ... or a high school journalist.

White House reporters should be expected to ask challenging but respectful questions to presidents -- not to make them look good or bad, but to get answers for the public. If softball questions are considered dreadfully unprofessional by definition, CNN shouldn't have the gall to complain about anyone else's performance.

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Tim Graham is director of media analysis at the Media Research Center and executive editor of the blog NewsBusters.org. To find out more about Tim Graham and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www.creators.com.

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