CNN’S Tapper: Trump ‘Empirically Worse and More Opaque’ Than Obama

Tuesday on CNN’s “The Lead,” host Jake Tapper said on transparency issues President Donald Trump’s administration is “empirically worse and more opaque.” than President Barack Obama’s administration was.

Tapper said, “Let’s turn to our politics lead now. This afternoon, Press Secretary Sean Spicer held an on-camera briefing and took reporters’ questions. That is something that in and of itself should not be news, but in this case, it is because the Trump administrators have been keeping reporters at bay for more than a week. In many ways, the Trump administration has been less transparent than its predecessors. Even those who thought the Obama administration never lived up to its ballyhooed promises of transparency, President Obama released his taxes, and President Trump has not released his.”

“President Trump shares literally nothing about who is coming to see him,” he continued. “President Obama golfed quite a bit, as does President Trump, but the Obama house would tell the public when he was hitting the links and with whom. This White House, for whatever reason, keeps that information private. Even the White House briefings are now shorter, with more non-answers and a new trend of not allowing cameras or even audio recordings of what your White House is saying on any given day. People in power like to hide things from the public. We called it out under President Obama, and now it is empirically worse and more opaque.”

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