The Times: Inside Trump's White House bedroom, his battle for self-preservation

Cartoonists Steve Sack of the Minneapolis Star Tribune, above, and Jimmy Margulies, below, commenting on how Congress is bought and paid for or in the pocket of the National Rifle Association, which bribes elected officials with millions of dollars in campaign contributions to make guns easier to buy and own.

Margulies is the former cartoonist at The Record of Woodland Park, my local daily newspaper, which has gotten much worse since Gannett Co. bought the publishing company that puts it out in July 2016, and laid off more than 350 employees.

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Based on interviews with 60 advisers, associates, friends and members of Congress, The New York Times on Saturday took us inside President Trump's White House bedroom and bathrooms in an online report that carried this headline:

"INSIDE TRUMP'S HOUR-BY-HOUR

BATTLE FOR SELF-PRESERVATION"

But you won't find a word about Trump tweeting while seated on the toilet -- an image that was popular after he took office last Jan. 20.

"With Twitter as his Excalibur, the president takes on his doubters, powered by long spells of cable news and a dozen Diet Cokes," according to reporting by Maggie Haberman, Glenn Thrush and Peter Baker.

"But if Mr. Trump has yet to bend the presidency to his will, he is at least wrestling it to a draw."

News media

Trump likely will be undone by the investigation of Russian meddling into the 2016 election, but this kind of coverage in The Times, Washington Post and and other news outlets isn't really damaging him.

"Around 5:30 each morning, President Trump wakes and tunes into the television in the White House's master bedroom," The Times begins. "He flips to CNN for news, moves to 'Fox & Friends' for comfort and messaging ideas, and sometimes watches MSNBC's 'Morning Joe' because, friends suspect, it fires him up for the day.

"Energized, infuriated -- often a gumbo of both -- Mr. Trump grabs his iPhone. Sometimes he tweets while propped on his pillow, according to aides. Other times he tweets from the den next door, watching another television....

"...He sees the highest office in the land much as he did the night of his stunning victory over Hillary Clinton -- as a prize he must fight to protect every waking moment, and Twitter is his Excalibur.

"Despite all his bluster, he views himself less a titan dominating the world stage than a maligned outside engaged in a struggle to be taken seriously...."

See: Trump appears to be winning battle with media

Steak and ice cream

Referring to Trump as a "lifelong hotelier," The Times says the president's "principal mode of blowing off steam is his nightly dinner in the White House residence..." with invited guests. 

"Mr. Trump has always relished gossiping over plates of well-done steak, salad slathered with Roquefort dressing and bacon crumbles, tureens of gravy and massive slices of dessert with extra ice cream."

For more, see TRUMP'S WAY.

James Comey

In today's column on former FBI Director James Comey, Mike Kelly of The Record betrays his dislike of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton (Opinion front).

Most observers say Comey reopening the investigation into Clinton's handling of classified information on Oct. 28, 2016 (10 days before the election) hurt her campaign, and contributed to her defeat.

Kelly blames Clinton's defeat on "her own mistakes."

Today's Better Living section, which is filled with a couple of dozen photos of cookies, should have carried a warning label for the many older readers who are diabetic, and suffer from related heart problems. 

The author, Liz Johnson, is a "content strategist" at lohud.com and The Journal News, a Gannett paper that covers Westchester, Rockland and Putnam counties in New York.

"Lohud" is Gannett speak for "Lower Hudson Valley."

Al Franken

In the coverage of the resignation of Sen. Al Franken and other elected members of Congress accused of sexual misconduct, the news media are spending little time commenting on why Trump shouldn't also step down in view of his sexual harassment of women.

In an op-ed column on Friday, Editorial Page Editor Alfred P. Doblin swings wildly between the "powerful men who allegedly treated women, and in some cases, other men, as objects created for their enjoyment," and an ice cream store in Montclair.

I read the shop's name over and over before I got the play on words. Dairy Air Ice Cream Co. recalls derriere, the French word for buttocks.

But the problem is not the name, Alfred P. Doblin says; it's the logo, "a shapely bovine ... with her ample tush pushed out and tattooed with 'DA' in a heart."

Doblin calls the logo "obvious sexism," but Trump's "disrespecting women" is mentioned only in passing.

See a video of 16 women who accuse Trump of unwanted kissing and worse: 'He groped me'

In another Margulies cartoon, the lighting of the Christmas Tree in Manhattan's Rockefeller Center is compared to the restoration of electricity and lights in hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico. "Amazing! That's more lights than in all of Puerto Rico," someone in the crowd says.

The F-word has given way to the T-word as Obama is hit with Trumped-up charges

Jimmy Margulies, former editorial cartoonist at The Record of Woodland Park, calls President Trump's proposed tax cuts "hush money" for Republican members of Congress.

On the indictment of Trump former campaign manager Paul Manafort in the probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, Margulies quotes Trump as saying: "He knows what he signed up for," using the same words he uttered to the widow of a black American soldier killed in Niger.

37% OF AMERICANS APPROVE

OF HOW TRUMP IS DOING HIS JOB

-- HACKENSACK, N.J.

By VICTOR E. SASSON

EDITOR

Donald J. Trump has an approval rating "demonstrably lower than any previous chief executive at this point in his presidency over seven decades of polling," The Washington Post says.

A few days short of the first anniversary of his victory over Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election, "fewer than 4 in 10 Americans -- 37 percent -- say they approve of the way he is handling his job," the newspaper reports.

In short, we're Trumped (or as I would have said before his election, we're fucked).

Post reporters Dan Balz and Scott Clement note:

"Trump's approval rating has changed little over the past four months, which have included tumultuous events, from hurricanes to legislative setbacks to indictments in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III's investigation into the role Russia played in the 2016 election.

"The president's disapproval rating has reached 59 percent, with 50 percent saying they strongly disapprove of the job he is doing. While little has changed since the summer, both represent the worst marks of his presidency."

Read the full Washington Post report:

Trump lags behind tepid expectations

Attacking Obama

In recent months, our deeply unpopular president has continued to attack or dismantle policies of Barack Obama, often leveling Trumped-up charges against our first black president.

Trump usually lies outright or distorts Obama's record as he attacks the Affordable Care Act, environmental regulation, trade agreements, tax policy and more.

He also takes credit for a healthy economy, even though just about everyone else notes we are in the ninth year of a recovery from the Great Recession of 2008 that Obama initiated.

What is especially strange is the confluence of the name Trump and the phrase "trumped-up charges," which are "fabricated," "spurious" or "fraudulently concocted," according to MerriamWebster.com.

In other words, trumped-up charges or evidence are made up. Yet, the phrase has been traced back to its first known use in 1728.

That anticipates the embodiment of trumped-up charges by nearly 290 years. Astounding.

Sexual harassment

Today, the front page of The Record explores the growing outrage over sexual harassment of women that began with revelations about Trump, and exploded with charges against Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein, as first reported by The New York Times (1A, 6A and 7A).

"That, in large part, is because of a simple hashtag that has taken social media by storm: #MeToo.

"The hashtag is tied to a movement started a decade ago," says reporter Melanie Anzidel, "but it exploded on social media on Oct. 15, when actress Alyssa Milano asked her followers to reply to her tweet with 'me too' if they had been sexually harassed or assaulted."

Anzidel also relates the reaction to her own #MeToo experience, which she posted on Facebook (6A).

Election of Trump 

The lead story by reporter Svetlana Shkolnikova says women began coming forward several years ago, when the Obama administration "led a national dialogue about sexual violence on college campuses" (6A).

"But it was the election of President Donald Trump, accused by multiple women of sexual assault and caught bragging about grabbing women by the genitals, that mobilized women even more."

The Record makes no attempt to explain why Weinstein's career has crashed and burned, but Trump was elected despite his boasting about sexually harassing and assaulting women.

And a headline on Page 1 says incorrectly:

"MeToo, Trump

embolden women

to speak out about

sexual harassment" 

I don't think it's correct to credit Trump with giving women the courage or confidence to speak out; the day after his inauguration, as the story reports, millions of protesters around the world marched in support of women's rights.

Both of the stories on sexual harassment of women carry the bylines of reporters over a fictitious publication, "North Jersey Record."