Trump Administration Deputy Press Secretary: 'Would Be So Nice If We Had a Complicit, Compliant Media'

White House Principal Deputy Press Secretary Hogan Gidley over the weekend complained about the mainstream media's coverage of President Donald Trump and expressed his view that "it would be so nice if we had a complicit, compliant media."

During an interview with Fox News' Howard Kurtz on Mediabuzz Sunday, Gidley condemned the latest coverage of the president's hostile meeting with Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, which resulted in the Democratic leader accusing him of having a "temper tantrum for us all to see."

"The president the other day asked you and Sarah Sanders and Kellyanne [Conway] to vouch the fact that he didn't throw a temper tantrum in that meeting with Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi. You said you weren't at that meeting but you spoke about another meeting. There's been all kinds of media mockery… Was it awkward for all of the advisers to have to vouch for the boss?" Kurtz asked Gidley.

"Absolutely not. Especially if you're in the face of 92 percent negative news coverage against you. We have to vouch for him all the time. It's amazing how the media covers what he does, what he says in a slant that makes everything negative, no matter how positive the subject matter may be," Gidley responded, before clarifying that he's referring to "a majority of journalists."

"When he leaves the meeting with Nancy Pelosi and all they do is mischaracterize his demeanor and take whatever she says, lock, stock and barrel," the Trump administration staffer continued. "It would be so nice if we had a complicit, compliant media the way the Democrats do, and we don't."

Gidley explained that this is why Trump "takes everything directly to the America people" through his statements made on Twitter.

Trump reportedly stormed out of a White House meeting with Pelosi and Schumer on Wednesday hours after Pelosi accused him of engaging in a "coverup" over his administration's stonewalling of House Democratic efforts to obtain documents pertaining to their investigations into the president's personal and company finances.

The president walked to the Rose Garden after walking out of the heated meeting to tell reporters his version of events and further demand Democrats drop their probes into him.

"I came here to do a meeting on infrastructure with Democrats, not really thinking they wanted to do infrastructure or anything else other than investigate and I just saw that Nancy Pelosi, just before our meeting, made a statement that 'we believe that the President of the United States is engaged in a coverup.' Well, it turns out I'm the most transparent president probably in the history of this country," the president said, explaining his unexpected exit from the meeting. "Instead of walking in happily to a meeting, I walk into look at people that have just said that I was doing a coverup."

After Pelosi told her Democratic colleagues that Trump had a "temper tantrum for us all to see" in a letter sent later that evening, the president defended his conduct in a tweet as well as asked several members of his team to vouch for him during a press conference on Thursday morning.

"I was extremely calm yesterday with my meeting with Pelosi and Schumer, knowing that they would say I was raging, which they always do, along with their partner, the Fake News Media. Well, so many stories about the meeting use the Rage narrative anyway - Fake & Corrupt Press!" Trump tweeted.

Kurtz noted that the media covering the incident gave "both sides" of the story. "How is that fake and corrupt press?" he asked Gidley.

"Cause of the language they used and they say things like, 'he was enraged' or 'he stormed out.' Those are editorialized words. You can say he left the meeting, you can say he walked out of the meeting," Gidley replied.

"Left abruptly. That's fair," Kurtz said.

"Define abruptly," Gidley argued. "He gave his message and left the meeting, there was no time limit set beforehand."