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Author: Jenice Armstrong

  • Nothing about Trump’s ballroom benefits us

    Nothing about Trump’s ballroom benefits us

    The White House is the People’s House. Period. It is public property that was paid for by us, built by us, and is maintained by us. And no matter who its current occupants are, we still own that building.

    Yet, we weren’t asked if we wanted a new 90,000-square-foot, mega-ballroom decorated with gold and who-knows-what-else to be added onto our house. But it’s a ballroom we’re getting from President Donald Trump, whether we like it or not. (Count me in the latter group.)

    I agree with those who say the design is tacky. I also agree with those who say we don’t really need it — especially when there is so much our fellow Americans actually need these days.

    The project, which will, of course, be called the Trump Ballroom, is projected to cost $300 million. The president says it will be paid for “100% by me and some friends of mine.”

    Sure. Just like the wall he promised to build and get Mexico to pay for. Same thing with his plan to produce a viable alternative to the Affordable Care Act.

    But even if construction costs are covered, taxpayers will get stuck with paying for maintenance and upkeep.

    A handout rendering of the interior of a “$200 million ballroom” in the East Wing of the White House that was announced by the Trump administration in July. The cost of building it has gone up since then — it is currently estimated at $300 million.

    Between high grocery bills, rising healthcare costs, over-the-top housing prices, and everything else that’s going on right now, building an addition onto the White House should be the lowest Trump priority.

    Yet, the project was very much on the president’s mind Sunday night because he boasted about it on Truth Social, claiming “it will be, at its completion, the most beautiful and spectacular Ballroom anywhere in the World!”

    But for a lot of us, the old East Wing, which was demolished to make way for the Trump Ballroom, was beautiful and spectacular on its own. That includes former first lady Michelle Obama, whose office was once located in the East Wing.

    Just last week, she described on the Jamie Kern Lima podcast what a jarring experience the demolition was for her. “It’s not about me, it’s about us and our traditions and what they stand for,” the former first lady explained. “I think in my body I felt confusion because I’m like, ‘Well, who are we? What do we value and who decides that?’”

    I grew up in Washington, D.C., just seven miles away from the White House. But it could have been a thousand miles away. I felt completely disconnected from the historic landmark and what took place there.

    That is, until Obama moved in with her family. She was the first person whom I ever heard refer to 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. as “the People’s House.” Putting it that way made me feel welcome. It gave me a sense of ownership. I loved how she reminded Americans of that shared ownership throughout her family’s eight years in the White House.

    Former first lady Michelle Obama speaks about her new book “The Look” during an event at Sixth and I Streets in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 12.

    Trump supporters are quick to point out that the Obamas themselves made additions to the White House grounds. When he was in office, President Barack Obama painted lines on an existing tennis court and added basketball hoops. But those are minuscule changes compared with Trump’s addition, which would be almost double the size of the White House itself.

    I listened to Obama’s comments about the White House on the Kern podcast a few days before the Thanksgiving holiday, one of the most American traditions we celebrate.

    And as I mulled over her words, I thought about how, no matter what we think of them, U.S. presidents come and go from their official residence, but the building remains a stalwart symbol of the nation’s highest office.

    A Christmas tree decorates the White House on Monday during a preview of its Christmas decorations, which are themed “Home Is Where the Heart Is.”

    The theme of this year’s White House Christmas decor is “Home Is Where the Heart Is.” But we have to remember that home is ours; Trump is merely a temporary guest at the executive mansion. It still belongs to us, the American people. Period.

  • Trump’s bullying of female reporters won’t stop journalists from asking tough questions

    Trump’s bullying of female reporters won’t stop journalists from asking tough questions

    It has long been established that some of Donald Trump’s most frequently used rhetorical weapons have been misogynistic insults. It is just as well known that the president seldom hides his contempt for journalists.

    So it’s hardly surprising anymore when Trump degrades female reporters. But the president reached a new level of low even for him when he had the nerve to refer to Bloomberg News White House correspondent Catherine Lucey as “piggy” during a briefing with reporters last week aboard Air Force One.

    Trump was angered when Lucey attempted to press him about the government’s case file on convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump literally leaned in Lucey’s direction, jabbed a pointed finger at her, and said, “Quiet! Quiet, piggy!”

    Even after everything we’ve seen from Trump over the past decade, it was a startling and disgusting thing to witness coming from a sitting president of the United States.

    Here’s the thing: Lucey’s a dogged reporter. I know. I used to work with Lucey when she was at the Daily News from 2000 to 2012. Lucey isn’t about to let the president’s schoolyard taunts stop her from asking tough questions.

    Catherine Lucey, now a White House correspondent with Bloomberg, spent a dozen years as a reporter at the Daily News before departing in 2012.

    Same thing with ABC News reporter Mary Bruce. On Tuesday, Trump accused her of being a “terrible person and a terrible reporter.” That’s not going to stop her, either. Journalists are a determined lot. The good ones in the White House pool recognize that their job is to hold him accountable and will stop at nothing short of exposing the truth.

    It’s in our collective DNA.

    Bruce did the right thing when she challenged Trump earlier this week by asking if it was appropriate for his family to be doing business in Saudi Arabia.

    She was also working in the spirit of journalism’s best traditions when she went on to also address Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, asking: “Your Royal Highness, the U.S. intelligence concluded that you orchestrated the brutal murder of a journalist. [The] 9/11 families are furious that you are here in the Oval Office. Why should Americans trust you? And the same to you, Mr. President.”

    After asking Bruce whom she worked for, Trump accused ABC of being “fake news.” He defended his family’s business operations in Saudi Arabia, and said the reporter should not have “embarrassed our guest by asking a question like that.”

    “A lot of people didn’t like that gentleman that you’re talking about,” Trump added, referring to the late Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi. “Whether you like him or didn’t like him, things happen.”

    ABC News reporter Mary Bruce asks a question as President Donald Trump meets Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman in the Oval Office Tuesday.

    A chill washed over me when I heard him say that. According to U.S. intelligence, Khashoggi reportedly was killed and dismembered on Oct. 2, 2018, in the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

    The National Press Club issued a statement afterward, saying the organization is “deeply troubled by President Trump’s comments today regarding the killing of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. Mr. Khashoggi’s murder inside a diplomatic facility was a grave violation of human rights and a direct attack on press freedom.”

    Just this past September, the president ordered NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor to be quiet and listen, and told her she was second-rate, which she is not. Alcindor had asked about his intentions for the Windy City after he posted a meme saying, in part, “Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of War.”

    Trump’s animosity toward journalists goes way back. Following a 2015 Republican primary debate, he said of Megyn Kelly, “There was blood coming out of her eyes, blood coming out of her wherever.”

    Even with the numerous lawsuits he’s filed against news outlets, Trump should have figured out by now that he’ll never stop the press. The president can insult and bar certain news organizations from the White House. But good journalists know how to work around that.

    Even if a network does replace one reporter, another journalist will step in and do the exact same thing. If a newspaper fires a print journalist, these days they’ll move their work to the Substack publishing platform or social media, the way former Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah did shortly after she was let go.

    Observers often wonder why journalists don’t fight back more against Trump’s verbal attacks. “Most reporters want to cover the news, not be the news,” as ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl told Paul Fahri of the Columbia Journalism Review earlier this year. In other words, they try and stay focused on the job at hand.

    And these days, getting bullied by the man-child in the Oval Office seems to come with the territory.

  • From 2025: Jesse Jackson set the stage for modern-day American politics

    From 2025: Jesse Jackson set the stage for modern-day American politics

    Editor’s Note: This column originally appeared in The Inquirer in November. On Tuesday, the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. died at his home in Chicago.

    One of the first articles I wrote for my college paper was about PUSH, the organization founded by the Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. — People United to Save Humanity.

    When the civil rights leader arrived in Washington, D.C., for a presidential campaign rally on the National Mall, I was there. It was electrifying. I remember listening as he called for Americans to unite across racial, gender, and class lines, and become part of his Rainbow Coalition. Looking back, it was a message that would resonate even today. But America wasn’t ready.

    Four years later, he was back on the presidential campaign trail, urging his followers to “keep hope alive.” That time around, he tripled his share of white voters in the Democratic primaries, finishing second to then-Massachusetts Gov. Michael Dukakis. He also pushed the Democratic Party to institute reforms. But once again, America wasn’t ready.

    Although Jackson didn’t clinch the Democratic nomination that time, either, his efforts to become America’s first Black president set the stage for Barack Obama’s historic election.

    CNN anchor Abby Phillip explores the legacy of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and its impact on American politics in her new book “Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power.”

    In 1988, the same year Jackson launched his second presidential bid, CNN anchor Abby Phillip had just been born. I doubt her parents ever dreamed that one day their baby girl would go on to write a seminal tome about Jackson, who at the time was one of the best-known political figures.

    Published last month, A Dream Deferred: Jesse Jackson and the Fight for Black Political Power takes readers through Jackson’s impoverished childhood as the son of a single mother in the Jim Crow South, to his days in the civil rights movement with the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and through his historic campaigns for the presidency.

    I read it last month while vacationing. When I reached the end, I turned the last page with a feeling of gratitude, not only for Jackson and his contributions to the cause of civil rights, but also for Phillip for making the time to write it. A graduate of Harvard University, she’s a media superstar, juggling the demands of motherhood with weeknights at the anchor desk and fact-checking the uber-annoying conservative commentator Scott Jennings, a frequent cohost on her show. If Phillip, 36, had chosen to pass on this considerable undertaking, it would have been understandable.

    Instead, she stuck with it through the COVID-19 pandemic, the launch of her first show, Inside Politics Sunday, the 2021 birth of her daughter, a move to New York City, and the creation of her current show, CNN NewsNight with Abby Phillip. The reporting and writing took almost four years to complete, and was somewhat of a race against time.

    “One of the impetuses for writing this book was just a recognition that in order to really get to the truth of a lot of these stories, you really have to get it from the people who were there,” Phillip told me when we spoke last week. “It was important for me to try to reach those people while they are still with us, including Rev. Jackson, and a lot of his aides and staffers and so on and try to get those stories.”

    A new book written by CNN anchor Abby Phillip explores the legacy of civil rights leader Jesse Jackson and its impact on American politics.

    Doctors diagnosed Jackson, now 84, with Parkinson’s disease in 2017. Two years ago, he stepped down as the leader of the Rainbow-PUSH Coalition, which he had led for roughly half a century.

    Since his speech is impaired by the disease, Phillip found it easier to understand him in person and traveled to his home in Chicago for interviews. The CNN anchor also went with him to his hometown in Greenville, S.C.

    “I really got to know his world, and I’m grateful that they trusted me to do my job,” Phillip said.

    The Rev. Jesse Jackson waves during the 2024 Democratic National Convention in Chicago.

    Much of the book focuses on Jackson’s presidential campaigns. “This is a major point of pride for him,” Phillip said. “His political campaigns, I think he really sees them as an essential part of his legacy. I do think that there was a sense that they were always underplayed or misunderstood.”

    So many of his accomplishments slip deeper into the recesses of our minds with each passing year. He organized voter registration drives that helped elect Chicago’s first Black mayor, Harold Washington, in 1983, and negotiated with Syria for the successful release of Navy Lt. Robert Goodman. He pushed for changes in how delegates were allotted in the Democratic Party.

    President Donald Trump wants to whitewash American history, as evidenced by his call to sanitize the history of Black people in America. In light of this, it’s more important than ever to preserve these stories. Phillip’s goal in writing the Jackson book, she told me, “was to make sure that this chapter didn’t get lost to history.”

    Thanks to her dedication, persistence, and brilliance, it won’t.

  • Philadelphia has lost a great journalist and a kind spirit

    Philadelphia has lost a great journalist and a kind spirit

    We buried my father on a bitterly cold day in Washington, D.C., in 2010. As I followed his casket out of the church, I spotted journalist Michael Days in the crowd of mourners. I didn’t get to speak with him, but I was deeply touched, not to mention honored, that my editor at the Daily News was there.

    He didn’t have to do that. But Days, who died suddenly on Saturday at the age of 72, was a deeply empathetic man who genuinely cared about people. As former Daily News columnist Howard Gensler wrote on Facebook recently: “He celebrated the wins and keenly felt the losses in his newsroom. He knew when to step in and when to step back and he could go Philly on you when he had to — and then later ask you how your parents were doing.”

    I met the pioneering journalist when he was business editor for the Daily News, and I was applying for a job. During my interview, I got so excited at the prospect of earning twice my salary in D.C. at the time that I didn’t bother to negotiate. But Days kindly arranged for me to have two weeks’ vacation during my first year of employment instead of my having to work an entire year, as stipulated by the terms of the union contract.

    That was my first experience with the kind of leader Days was. He was more than just a boss. He was an editor, mentor, and friend who looked out for his staffers, which engendered our intense loyalty. We used to joke that when Days said, “Jump,” our response was, “How high?”

    This is how I’ll always remember Michael Days: sitting in his office with a smile on his face, always ready to talk or just listen.

    As amazing as he was as a newsroom leader, Days was an even better person outside of work. A fellow Catholic, he was a man of great faith who not only attended Mass regularly but whose life exemplified his deeply held Christian beliefs. He and his wife, Angela Dodson — then an editor at the New York Times — adopted not one child, but four brothers all at the same time.

    Once, I had the good fortune of being invited to a holiday party at his home in Trenton — a location picked because it was between his wife’s job in NYC and his own in Philly. Shortly after I arrived, I recall glancing outdoors and spotting four shiny, new bicycles in the backyard. I was in awe. His beautiful home was decorated with a huge tree. I watched as Days’ wife handed each boy a matching Christmas plate. Lunch was a warm, cozy affair with lots of Southern favorites.

    Days’ career took off, as he went on to hold a number of leadership positions in the newsroom. The first time he was in line to make history — as the first African American managing editor of the Daily News — I felt for certain he would get the job. Days had grown up in North Philly and graduated from Roman Catholic High School. Not only did he know the city, he understood the paper’s operations inside and out, and was adept at dealing with its motley crew of reporters and photographers.

    I was outraged when he was passed over for an outsider. But when I stuck my head in his office to check on him, I was startled when he met my gaze with a smile. Days was unflappable like that. Calm. Steady. No matter what happened, he always kept his cool. That’s not easy in a newsroom full of strong personalities, but Days did it.

    Looking back, he had the right idea. Management eventually woke up and named him managing editor, and later executive editor, of the Daily News. Under his leadership, the Daily News excelled journalistically, winning a Pulitzer Prize in 2010 for a series exposing corruption in the Philadelphia Police Department.

    The following year, Days was named managing editor of The Inquirer and left the Daily News for a brief time. When then-publisher Bob Hall announced his return, and Days strode back into the newsroom, we all stood and cheered. Some even cried. Time passed, the papers consolidated, and Days went on to hold other management roles at The Inquirer. Even as he became less involved in the day-to-day newsroom operations, we still streamed in and out of his office, seeking advice about stories we were working on or grabbing a piece of chocolate from his candy dish.

    After he retired in 2020, we continued to seek him out. He would take our calls as if he were still on the clock.

    The author (left) at a WDAS Women of Excellence Luncheon where she was being honored. The late Inquirer Vice President Michael Days is to her immediate right, and former Deputy News Editor Yvette Ousley is next to him.

    Two years ago, a group of Black journalists decided to form a new local affiliate branch of the National Association of Black Journalists after the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists broke off from the nationwide group. Days, then 70, graciously agreed to serve as NABJ-Philadelphia’s inaugural president, and helped the new group find its footing.

    In September, the group hosted a reception at the Free Library of Philadelphia honoring NBC contributor Trymaine Lee, author of the new book, A Thousand Ways to Die: The True Cost of Violence on Black Life in America. When it was his turn to speak, Days praised Lee, who had been a Daily News intern, and told him, “You are a talent, and nobody is surprised that you have done so well.”

    Afterward, former Daily News reporter Mister Mann Frisby posted on social media: “The way he spoke about Trymaine at his book signing, I have also heard him speak of me the same way. Always encouraging. That makes me know that he was CONSISTENT for decades in regards to how he supported and mentored journalists.”

    When I woke up early Sunday and discovered numerous “call me” texts, I knew something really bad had happened. Days’ death sent a seismic jolt through journalism circles nationwide.

    “He was kind and gentle,” recalled Inquirer columnist Elizabeth Wellington. “I lost my own father earlier this year. And this feels as if I’ve lost a second.”

    I feel the same way. Before Days, I’d never met any man I considered anywhere close to being in the same league as my dad, who was a giant among men.

    Inquirer reporter Melanie Burney, who will finish out Days’ term as president of NABJ-Philadelphia, told me she has found herself in the days after his death asking, “What would Michael do?”

    That’s a question I’ve asked myself a few times recently, as well. Days had been just a quick phone call away. Going forward, we will have to rely on the many lessons he has already taught us.