Journalists in the White House Correspondents Corps covering President Joe Biden’s administration routinely steal insignia items from Air Force One, four people told West Wing Playbook.
reportedly looted grown During Biden’s tenure, NBC correspondent Kelly O’Donnell, president of the White House Correspondents Association, even issued a “brief reminder” that stealing from Air Force One would not be tolerated. Log the verified email in a playbook.
No one from the press reportedly responded to O’Donnell’s email.
The items allegedly stolen include:
- wine glass
- tumbler
- gold edge plate
- embroidered pillow cover
“Over the years, many journalists and other journalists have bought everything from engraved whiskey tumblers to wine glasses to just about anything bearing the Air Force One insignia before stepping off a plane. He silently stuffed everything into his bag,” Playbook reported.
“When I got on my first plane, the person next to me said, ‘You should take that glass with you,'” one current White House correspondent told West Wing Playbook. “They were like, ‘Everyone’s doing it.'”
When I brought up the topic with current and former White House correspondents, stories flew. There’s a story about a senator at the front of the plane who, a talkative aide told reporters, took everything that wasn’t bolted down with him. Several colleagues of the former White House correspondent for a major newspaper hosted the dinner and said all the food was served on gold-rimmed Air Force One plates and was clearly taken in portions over time. . Reporters recalled returning to Joint Base Andrews in the evening and coming down the back stairs to the sound of glassware and porcelain dishes clanging inside their backpacks.
White House officials familiar with the matter told Playbook that the reported looting has gotten so bad that O’Donnell is under pressure to crack down on the theft charges, and that a crackdown is expected. The goal is not to embarrass individual reporters; instead, “the press corps needs to stop theft.”
In the reported case, an email was sent to reporters asking them to return items they had “inadvertently” and “accidentally” removed. One of the reporters who allegedly received the email allegedly stole an embroidered pillowcase. The person reportedly admitted to the theft charge and had scheduled a return for the item at Lafayette Square, just outside the White House.
When the reporter returned the item to a White House official known as the press liaison, “the pillowcase changed hands and that was that.”
The reported looting of Air Force One reflects badly on a press corps already suffering from low confidence. According to a Gallup poll released in 2023, trust in establishment media to accurately report “the news in a complete, fair and accurate manner” has fallen to its lowest level since a record low in 2016.
Distrust of the media is well documented. Gallup also found that 50 percent of Americans say the national media intends to mislead, misinform, and persuade the public, while only a minority say they can trust most news organizations. It was also found that 35%. Additionally, 6 in 10 Americans say establishment media is to blame for misinformation, a separate Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights poll found. Became.
Wendell Husebo is a political reporter for Breitbart News and a former Republican war room analyst.he is the author of politics of slave morality.Follow Wendell “X” @WendellHusebø or society of truth @WendellHusebo.
