The White House corrected its transcript of Monday’s press conference after facing claims that it airbrushed an embarrassing moment out of the Rose Garden event by omitting a verbal jab President Trump threw at the second journalist he called on.
‘She’s shocked that I picked her. She’s like in a state of shock,’ Trump said Monday as ABC News reporter Cecilia Vega remained seated and looked around for a staffer to hand her a microphone.
Vega stood seconds later, offering an apologetic: ‘I’m not thinking, Mr. President.’
‘That’s okay,’ Trump replied. ‘I know you’re not thinking – you never do.’
The transcript issued hours later omitted Vega’s word ‘thinking’ and showed Trump saying, ‘I know you’re not thanking.’
President Donald Trump told a reporter during Monday’s Rose Garden press conference that ‘I know you’re not thinking – you never do’
ABC News correspondent Cecilia Vega had offered a brief apology for looking around fo ra microphone instead of standing immediately when Trump called on her: ‘I’m not thinking, Mr. President’
SLIDE ME: The White House’s original transcript (on the left) botched Trump’s answer and omitted Vega’s setup comment (DailyMail.com’s corrections are on the right)
A White House spokesperson did not respond to an email Tuesday morning requesting comment, but the Press Office issued a partial correction hours later – fixing Trump’s comment but not restoring Vega’s.
The West Wing has taken the same kind of action at least twice this year under similar circumstances.
In January the White House’s flawed transcript of a marathon immigration negotiating session with a bipartisan group of lawmakers hid the fact that the president verbally agreed with California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s key demand.
Feinstein had asked for a ‘clean’ bill that would restore the Obama-era Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program without any new funding for Trump’s long-promised border wall.
‘Yeah, I would like to do it,’ Trump responded, seeming confused enough that a Republican congressman had to step in and clarify what Feinstein meant.
Trump said Vega looked ‘shocked’ that he had called on her; in reality she was trying to figure out how to be heard outdoors without a microphone
The president’s reply was missing hours later when the White House released an 11,200-word record of the session. The White House issued a corrected version later, insisting the sloppy clerical work was not a conspiracy to hide a presidential blunder.
DailyMail.com found that MSNBC’s broadcast of the meeting included a closed-caption text feed with the same omission that the White House made.
The White House maintains a staff of stenographers, professionals who are not political appointees.
It’s possible they were using the automated text as a baseline and editing it, rather than writing a fresh transcription of the event.
The White House corrected Monday’s transcript a day later, but skipped the usual practice of using asterisks to mark where the correction was in a lengthy transcript
Monday’s press conference was meant as a victory lap on a replacement for the aging trilateral NAFTA trade deal, but quickly turned into a free-for-all about the prognosis for embattled Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh
In July the White House updated its transcript of Trump’s Helsinki press conference with Vladimir Putin, restoring one question an American journalist asked the Russian president.
The initial transcript left out the question: ‘Did you want President Trump to win the election?’
Putin had answered, ‘Yes, I did. Yes, I did.’ But without the question, the transcript made that crucial moment in history nearly impossible to understand.
The White House later blamed an audio glitch, saying the omission was ‘by no means malicious.’
President Trump appeared confused during a January meeting about how one plank of his own immigration policy differed from what Democrats favor, and the embarrassing moment was left out of the White House transcript
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein urged Trump to back a ‘clean’ DACA bill – one without other demands attached – and the president replied: ‘Yeah, I would like to do it,’ before a fellow Republican rushed to correct him
SLIDE ME TOO: The White House had to correct a transcript in January after Trump agreed with a Democratic senator about her desire for a ‘clean’ bill restoring the DACA program without simultaneously funding his border wall
The sound recording that stenographers relied on in that case was flawed. Government broadcast producers had left the reporter’s microphone muted while a Russian-to-English translator delivered Putin’s answer to his previous question.
By the time the translator finished and the reporter’s microphone level was turned up, he was halfway through. People watching the official White House livestream on YouTube also missed it.
Correcting White House transcripts is rare but not unheard of.
President Barack Obama’s press team issued a revision following March 2016 a meeting with financial regulators. The month before that saw two such fixes, covering Obama’s speeches about cybersecurity and closing the Guantanamo Bay military prison.