Trump and the White House Photographer
Category: News & Politics
Via: john-russell • 2 years ago • 26 commentsBy: drsltaylor (Outside the Beltway)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Trump and the White House Photographer
Grifting, all the way down.
Steven L. Taylor · Thursday, March 31, 2022 · 6 comments
Via the NYT: She Took the White House Photos. Trump Moved to Take the Profit.
As President Donald J. Trump's tenure came to an end, the chief White House photographer, who had traveled the world with him and spent countless hours inside the White House snapping pictures, notified Mr. Trump's aides that she intended to publish a book collecting some of her most memorable images.
This was hardly a radical idea: Official photographers from every White House since President Ronald Reagan's have published their own books. Barack Obama and George W. Bush were so supportive that they wrote forewords for them.
But like so much else involving Mr. Trump, the plan by his chief photographer, Shealah Craighead, did not follow this bipartisan norm.
[…]
in dealing with Ms. Craighead, Mr. Trump appears to have become the first former president to try to make money from a book planned by a former White House photographer, said John Bredar, a documentary filmmaker and author who has studied the history of the White House photographers.
Specifically:
aides to Mr. Trump asked her for a cut of her book advance payment, in exchange for his writing a foreword and helping promote the book, according to former associates of Mr. Trump.
Then Mr. Trump's team asked Ms. Craighead to hold off on her book project to allow the former president to take Ms. Craighead's photos and those of other White House staff photographers and publish his own book, which is now selling for as much as $230 a copy.
It is worth nothing that that book deal Ms. Craighead would have gotten would have been worth, according to the piece, hundreds of thousands of dollars. It is unclear as to whether she would have kept the proceeds, as at least one previous photographer donated theirs.
Regardless, it was all pure class from Team Trump:
Since leaving office, Mr. Trump has sought multiple ways to monetize his presidency, from charging supporters to attend an event and take photos with him to selling MAGA merchandise. He also has a long history of disputes from before his political career with business partners and over the years faced regular accusations that he did not properly compensate contractors.
The plan to publish "Our Journey Together" came together quickly, after Ms. Craighead had already selected a book agent and negotiated a contract to publish her own book and secured a commitment from Mr. Trump to write the foreword, former White House officials said.
No doubt I have a soft spot in my heart for photographers, but this just is all so petty and crass (yes, I know).
The book is not the only way that the Trump family is cashing in on photos by White House photographers. On Presidents' Day, Mrs. Trump opened sales of a series of digital images from Mr. Trump's White House tenure — photos of Mr. Trump at Mount Rushmore, exiting Air Force One and in a tuxedo for a White House dinner — for $50 a piece.
It should be noted that by federal law the photos are in the public domain, so legally Trump is on solid ground here (for a change).
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Any use of or reference to so called TDS is off topic and will be removed. Address only subjects mentioned in the article, the White House photographer and trumps interactions with her.
Is Trump doing anything illegal here? It is a simple yes or no answer.
If it is not illegal this is yet another of the "But Trruuummmmppppp"; articles that dominate NT. .
Hurry up and prosecute for something already! The last 7 and half years have been a sickening waste of time and tax payer money by the Democrats. Is there a DA or AG among all of the Democrats that has the balls to bring charges against Trump? They win and it is a direct ticket to the Democrat nomination for the Presidency; the lose, and they won't be able to hold a job as a dog catcher. If Trump is guilty of so damn much this should be a slam dunk; and happened a long time ago.
Do you actually, seriously believe the only measure of right and wrong is illegality ?
The judicial system doesn't convict on the basis of morality. St. Peter's supposed to do that.
Buzz this article is not about the legality of the actions of the people in the story, at all.
Let's address the topic. Which would be Trump's greed and break from established norms of presidential behavior.
You're the one who brought up the aspect of right and wrong and that means morality, which I then commented about. And greed is not governed by law, but what it leads to might be.
What about...
Bill and Hillary being dirt poor when they moved into the WH...and millionaires when they left?
Same for Obama...every president gains wealth and influence while in office
If there was a video of Trump raping a microwaved cantaloupe his sycophants would ask "Is Trump doing anything illegal here? It is a simple yes or no answer".
raping a microwaved cantaloupe
What made you think of that?
The microwaved cantaloupe himself...
I, too, have posted comments previously wondering why it has been taking so long to prosecute Trump. Guess it's just the American justice system doesn't exactly compare to an F1 race. I suppose if a convicted murderer can sit on death row for 10 to 20 years in America it's just par for the course (I didn't really want to make a golf comparison considering it's about Trump but I can't think of another way to say it.) Is it because the prosecutors just don't have a case, or is it because they don't want to influence the November midterms, or Trump's chances of running again, or are just totally incompetent - who knows?
Maybe they're having trouble finding evidence of an actual crime
[deleted] All they have to do is see Trumps name and they set their hair on fire and blurt out the 1st conspiracy theory that comes to mind.
The problem is they don't have a single thing to prosecute them on. [deleted]
Didn't John say that TDS was not to be mentioned?
That comment was flagged yesterday. So much for the worth of always flagging.
I wonder if he sells the opportunity to join him in a golf game as well.
Former POTUS' do write and sell autobiographical books, and are paid for lectures as well, so it's just that he goes to extremes that underline his lack of integrity. Although what he did to that photographer was typical of him, I consider it to be a rotten and selfish thing to have done, and am amazed that anyone can be proud of his having been their POTUS.
What gets me is people want to spend that kind of money and buy a photo?
If it is public domain, why pay...
There was an actor (I forget who) who used to charge for his autograph...twenty dollars. He would then donate every penny to charity.
If I understand this correctly, Trump is the first president in memory to ask for a cut of the proceeds of his White House photographer's post presidential photo book.
Why does all this untoward shit keep emanating from him? Is he jinxed ?
He has only ever cared about himself.
Uh, you are correct.
To Donald Trump, norms are meant to be broken … into tiny pieces, then sprinkled onto a double Whopper with bacon and cheese, then shit out on the floor for someone else to clean up.
The Washington Examiner is a conservative website/newspaper , and Timothy P Carney is a conservative writer.
www.washingtonexaminer.com /opinion/trump-ripped-off-his-white-house-photographer-because-he-rips-off-everyone-who-gets-close-to-him
Trump ripped off his White House photographer because he rips off everyone who gets close to him
Timothy P. Carney 3-3 minutes 4/1/2022
W hen Donald Trump’s handpicked White House photographer Shea Craighead asked him to write the foreword to her book of Trump-era White House photos, he had one thought: How can I make money off this?
Trump's first idea, according to a New York Times story , was to take a cut from Craighead’s royalties. In the end, the former president decided to simply beat her to market by publishing his own book of photos and pocketing millions in royalties himself.
Craighead put her book on ice when she learned she would be competing with Trump.
The reaction today, to the Times piece and other stories about this incident, is that Trump ripped her off. Some of the people who feel Trump mistreated Craighead are former Trump employees:
“Shea’s a very talented photographer and this was really all of her hard work,” Stephanie Grisham, Trump’s former press secretary, told the Times . “I just keep thinking: What a shame that he is actually now profiting off of it. But then again, this is the guy who is hawking caps and all kinds of stuff right now to raise money for himself.”
Other critics are former Trump supporters:
Ann Coulter is right. Donald Trump never looks out for the little guy , the working man, or even his own supporters. He occasionally acts as if he does but really only to benefit himself. Politicians being greedy and turning their power into personal wealth is nothing new, but Trump is more blatant and more greedy than his predecessors on this score.
His campaign spent millions at his own hotels, thus funneling donor money into his own pockets. As president, he made it clear that anyone seeking his favor would stay at his properties — again, converting his position of public trust into his own private profit. And after he lost the election, he has continued his charade partly in the service of filling his own bank accounts. He gets supporters to donate to what they think is a cause, but is really just him. As Grisham points out, selling Trump merchandise seems to regular supporters like a way to support a political cause, but Trump uses it simply to further enrich himself.
Nobody should be surprised. Donald Trump is a conman and always has been a conman. Since 2015, he’s just added tens of millions of new marks. And now his former photographer, Shea Craighead, is just the latest in a long line of people, including his wives, who have learned that if you get in business with Trump, you end up losing.
In fact, the Washington is an EXTREME right wing source, almost right off the charts, and a favourite of some members here.
No it's not.
Trump not only ripped off the photographer but he then used her work in his own book.