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The White House’s fight with the press keeps looking petty, punitive, and expensive
Trump’s broader press strategy remained a mess of grievance and coercion, with the administration still dealing with the fallout from its hostility toward the Associated Press and its insistence on controlling language instead of accepting it. The specific fight is bigger than one wire service: it is a test of whether the White House wants a press corps or a permission structure. Right now, it looks like the latter, which is terrible for any administration that claims to love free speech when it is complaining about being called out.