Eddie Scarry of the Washington Examiner explores a noticeable omission in one major line of attack against President Trump.
Key members of the media continue to push a narrative that President Trump is anti-woman, even as they ignore the several women who hold powerful and high-profile roles in his administration.
After Trump’s announcement last week that he was nominating Gina Haspel as the next CIA director, which would be the first time a woman led the agency, the New York Times covered it with the headline, “Gina Haspel, Trump’s Choice for C.I.A., Played Role in Torture Program.”
That’s a far cry from 2013, when the Times covered then-President Barack Obama’s appointment of Julia Pierson to the Secret Service, another first for a woman. “First Woman Is Chosen to Lead Secret Service,” read the paper’s headline for that announcement. …
… CBS “This Morning” co-host Norah O’Donnell acknowledged Haspel’s nomination as “history-making” but did not credit Trump as her co-host Gayle King credited Obama in 2013 with the appointment of Pierson.
“President Obama made history Tuesday. He appointed the first female director of the Secret Service,” King said in 2013.
Several other women fill big roles in the White House, including White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, one of the most high-profile faces for the administration; White House press secretary Sarah Sanders, the first mother in that job; and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kirsten Nielsen.
But the gender element often takes a backseat to coverage and commentary in the mainstream press that cast Trump as hostile to women, in part because his former deputy chief of staff, Rob Porter, was fired in February after allegations of spousal abuse became public.