Is the media just looking to give us a reason not to trust them?
You should already take any reporting by the mainstream press with a grain of salt given how negative their coverage of President Trump has been. During the Trump Administration’s first 100 days, 93 percent of mainstream media coverage was negative – and it’s only gotten worse since then. The media has never had such disproportionately negative coverage of a president, ever.
Now, in that case, it’s just pure bias. The facts are twisted, manipulated, or otherwise presented in a way that maintains a liberal narrative. They’re “technically” telling the truth, even if the truth is more complicated when you read the fine print.
Fake news is another story – and the mainstream media has been spreading no shortage of that either. Take the following headline from USA Today as the latest example: “Exclusive: Secret Service depletes funds to pay agents because of Trump’s frequent travel, large family.” Now, from that headline, you’d get the impression that the Secret Service’s funds have been depleted because they’ve had to pay more thanks to Trump’s frequent travel and large family.
But, there’s a bit more to the story than that – and former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino explained what the liberal media is getting wrong.
The president does have a large family, and presidential travel is expensive for the U.S. taxpayer. In addition, as the USA Today piece also states: “Overwork and constant travel have also been driving a recent exodus from the Secret Service ranks, yet without congressional intervention to provide additional funding, Alles will not even be able to pay agents for the work they have already done.
The compensation crunch is so serious that the director has begun discussions with key lawmakers to raise the combined salary and overtime cap for agents, from $160,000 per year to $187,000 for at least the duration of Trump’s first term.” But the “overtime,” “constant travel,” and “compensation crunch” problems, although very real, are not problems unique to the Trump administration. I cover this in detail in my new book, “Protecting the President,” which addresses the ongoing crises within the Secret Service.
Here’s what’s really going on. The reason the Secret Service is forced to work its agents on unsustainable overtime and travel schedules has little to do with the size of Trump’s family. The portfolio of protectees expanded dramatically after the September 11 attacks during the G.W. Bush administration, too. It also has little to do with the travel schedule. Barack Obama kept a heavy travel schedule throughout most of his presidency. It has everything to do with the Secret Service’s unsustainable, and growing, portfolio of responsibilities outside the protection sphere.
The Secret Service director himself also commented that Trump isn’t the main factor in their budget troubles… though few in the mainstream media are reporting on that inconvenient truth.
The director dismissed the idea that the size of President Trump’s family and their frequent travel has caused over 1,000 agents to hit their salary caps and overtime allowances this year.
In a statement published Monday, Director Randolph Alles said the Service has the funding needed to “meet all current mission requirements” through the end of the fiscal year and pay employees for overtime within its statutory pay caps. “This issue is not one that can be attributed to the current administration’s protection requirements alone, but rather has been an ongoing issue for nearly a decade due to an overall increase in operational tempo,” Alles said.
Well, that settles that, doesn’t it? Another day, another fake news story pushed by the hacks in the media.
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