Beck Dorey-Stein resigned recently from her stenographer post in the White House of recording what the president says. She held this job during the Obama administration and so far in the Trump administration. She said the president has reduced the job, now preventing stenographers from being present in the room wherein he holds some meetings for interview that sometimes include journalists. She also said the reason she resigned was that she had always been proud of doing her job and that now she did not feel proud of doing it because President Trump lies so much. It seems to me that hardly anyone would know such a thing about the president better than his stenographer would.
Ms. Dorey-Stein has an op-ed about this in today’s New York Times, and she was interviewed on TV tonight about it. To me, she seemed like such a nice and genuine person. She explains that when stenographers do their job in recording what the president says, and whatever anyone else says in any interview or discussion the president has with others, they record what is said by using a microphone and recorder and then later transcribe it. She says the microphone needs to held within a certain number of feet of people to get clear communication. She says when Trump became president, she was told that he does not like microphones being held close to him. She says the reason is that he does not like his words being recorded. Oh, that sounds like a person who does not like being held responsible for what he or she says. That sounds like Mr. Trump to me.
Dorey-Stein’s op-ed piece is entitled, “Why Would the White House Banish Stenographers?” That is what she says is being done. She answers her own question by saying, “Mr. Trump likes to call anyone who disagrees with him ‘fake news.’ But if he’s really the victim of so much inaccurate reporting, why is he so averse to having the facts recorded and transcribed? . . . It’s clear that White House stenographers do not serve his [Trump’s] administration, but rather his adversary: the truth.”
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