MEDIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “President Trump reeled off a list of his favorite media personalities on Friday [2-15-19] when asked who might have influenced his decision to declare a national emergency after Congress refused to give him money for a border wall. Sean Hannity, Rush Limbaugh, Tucker Carlson and Laura Ingraham — a powerful bloc of conservative voices who have railed against any budget compromise on wall funding — all received shout-outs in a Rose Garden news conference…The president added that none of the favorites he mentioned, most of whom work for Fox News, drove his decisions: ‘They don’t decide policy,’ he said. The question that got Mr. Trump to discuss his cable and radio cheering squad came from the NBC News reporter Kelly O’Donnell. It seemed apt after what had occurred in December, when the presidency seemed perhaps more entwined than usual with prominent figures in conservative media.”
–Edmund Lee, “Trump Sings Praises of Hannity and Limbaugh in Rose Garden,” The New York Times online, February 15, 2019