Should Businessmen Replace Journalists on Air Force One?: President Donald Trump has doubled down on efforts to enforce the renaming of the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America.”
Such renaming is silly, more commonplace to autocracies like the Soviet Union, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and Saddam Hussein’s Iraq than democracies like the United States. To force others to embrace the new vocabulary, Trump is cracking down. The Associated Press won’t play ball? Gone is its access to the White House briefing room and its seat on Air Force One.
Kicking one of the largest reach wire services off the president’s plane may be petty but raises a more important question: Why should the press be on Air Force One in the first place?
Press on Air Force One: Time To End It?
Air Force One was the creation of Dwight D. Eisenhower who used a relatively modest 1948 Lockheed Constellation VC-121A to shuttle first his family and then visiting dignitaries around. Eisenhower did not allow it. After all, there is no right for journalists to get free travel or accompany the president. Journalists do not ride in his limousine, so why should his plane be different?
The embrace of the ever-present journalist on Air Force One grew as television began to drive politics in the aftermath of the 1960 Kennedy-Nixon debate. Successive presidents granted the press access to one of the greatest presidential perks. The numbers of journalists flying with the president grew as did Air Force One; today, there are 13 regular press seats, though other journalists can join or accompany on parallel flights. Journalists pay their own way.
The idea that journalists are entitled to fly with the president is a creation of media outlets and their inflated sense of self. Journalists can just as easily fly commercial to reach West Palm Beach, Riyadh, or New Delhi.
If Trump really wants to advance America’s place in the world and enhance national interests, he will politely oust all journalists from Air Force One and offer their seats instead to America’s business leaders and CEOs. Complaints about favoritism ring hollow.
After all, business leaders could serve on a rotational basis from a broader pool as do journalists. U.S. diplomats stationed in embassies could search out business opportunities to guide pool assignments when Air Force One and its corollaries for the vice president and various secretaries do travel.
While some U.S. embassies do have commercial attaches to help with matchmaking, they tend to be passive, offering facilitation and some matchmaking, but they are nowhere near as aggressive as their European counterparts who seek out opportunities for companies back home.
The press and diplomats may condemn swapping journalists out for businessmen as smelling of corruption, self-interest, and being otherwise vulgar, but such arguments would only reflect their own ignorance: When French President Emmanuel Macron travels, he brings an entourage of business leaders with him. Likewise, Turkey’s business leaders accompany Recep Tayyip Erdogan as he crosses the globe. Israel’s tech elite travel with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his foreign trips.
Tying presidents and business leaders make sense. Journalists today report news less than seek to interpret and spin it but accessibility lessens their importance as any American can go online and access presidential speeches and full press conferences.
Business ties not only grow the economy, but serve a diplomatic function perhaps as great if not greater than local U.S. embassies as they encourage stability, moderation, and promote people-to-people ties more than behind-the-blast wall cocktail parties.
Make Air Force One Great Again?
If Trump truly wants to make America great again, he will kick the press off Air Force One, not for silly reasons or loyalty tests as he does with the Associated Press, but rather to recalibrate values to prioritize permanent business ties above the political vanity that has guided Air Force One press passes since the past 60 years.
About the Author: Dr. Michael Rubin
Dr. Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and director of policy analysis at the Middle East Forum. He is also a 19FortyFive Contributing Editor. The views expressed in this opinion pieces are the author’s own.
