While calls flooded in to members of Congress expressing outrage about House Republicans’ move to gut the Office of Congressional Ethics, President-elect Donald Trump took to Twitter to criticize the timing, not the substance, of the move.
With all that Congress has to work on, do they really have to make the weakening of the Independent Ethics Watchdog, as unfair as it
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017
……..may be, their number one act and priority. Focus on tax reform, healthcare and so many other things of far greater importance! #DTS
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2017
Trump appeared to agree that there’s too much oversight of Congress — note how he characterized such oversight as “unfair.” Even Sean Spicer, Trump’s soon-to-be press secretary, acknowledged that Trump’s tweets weren’t meant to address the underlying question of whether it’s a good idea to gut the House’s ethics oversight office.
Trump spox Sean Spicer clarifies Trump is annoyed by the timing of GOP gutting ethics watchdog, not the gutting itself. Via pool: pic.twitter.com/DjAsoW7jEv
— Jennifer Bendery (@jbendery) January 3, 2017
But none of that stopped media outlets from pushing the narrative that Trump rebuked his own party to “drain the swamp.”
This, for example, was the New York Times headline:
The Hill might’ve been the worst offender:
JUST IN: Trump torches GOP for weakening ethics watchdog https://t.co/1dlxwaBZTg pic.twitter.com/OQUfSgAbJB
— The Hill (@thehill) January 3, 2017
And a Politico senior writer inaccurately interpreted Trump’s tweets the same way:
so, here we are on day 1 of 115th congress, and the president elect is taking a stand against his own party’s weakening of the ethics cmte
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) January 3, 2017
A couple hours after Trump’s tweets were posted, news broke that House Republicans were scrapping the proposed changes to the ethics office. Though there’s no indication that Trump’s tweets played any role in the reversal — Republican members of Congress reported their offices were swamped with calls urging them not to support the move to gut the ethics office — media outlets and journalists rushed to give Trump credit.
The Washington Post credited Trump’s tweets for the reversal:
Breaking: Republicans back off gutting of House ethics office after critical Trump tweet https://t.co/hWXrbEeeT2
— Washington Post (@washingtonpost) January 3, 2017
And so did the New York Times:
House Republicans reversed their plan to gut an ethics office, after intense criticism from Donald Trump and others https://t.co/uEKFLtkwaM
— The New York Times (@nytimes) January 3, 2017
Other offenders included a congressional correspondent from Bloomberg and Fox News host Howard Kurtz. The Bloomberg report went as far as to concoct a narrative surrounding Trump’s tweets and the aftermath.
none of this happened pic.twitter.com/o6j8GqH4xi
— Simon Maloy (@SimonMaloy) January 3, 2017
The episode embodied Trump’s tried-and-true Twitter strategy: tweet something that sounds good but is inaccurate, lap up the positive coverage, and by the time the media figures out it has been fooled, news consumers have moved on to the next thing.
As the New York Times’ Maggie Haberman put it, Trump’s tweets regarding the ethics office and the reaction to them are a “textbook example of how he succeeded in the campaign.”