The media in attendance during the February 3rd press briefing was expected to dutifully distribute the possible plot as accepted fact.

The United States has acquired intelligence about a Russian plan to fabricate a pretext for an invasion of Ukraine using a faked video that would build on recent disinformation campaigns, according to senior administration officials and others briefed on the material. The plan — which the United States hopes to spoil by making public — involves staging and filming a fabricated attack by the Ukrainian military either on Russian territory or against Russian-speaking people in eastern Ukraine.
— New York Times, 2/3/22

The usual suspects’ accepted anything coming from a Democrat administration as unchallenged gospel.

CNN: US alleges Russia planning false flag operation against Ukraine using ‘graphic’ video
NPR: Deputy NSA talks on Russia’s possible ‘false flag’ attack to justify Ukraine invasion
Fox News: Russia planning Ukraine false flag as pretext for invasion: Pentagon
MSNBC: U.S. intelligence suggests Russia considering ‘elaborate’ pretext to invade Ukraine
USA Today: DOD: Intel shows Russia plotting false flag attack
VoA: US Says Russia Preparing ‘False Flag’ Operation to Justify Invading Ukraine

Lee wasn’t buying it and needed a wee bit more than “Well, I said so”.

For years, conservatives were ridiculed for not blindly accepting news presented by the legacy media. Liberals mock anyone using the term “false flag”. Millions were told to get a vaccine that would prevent them from catching COVID-19. For over five years, millions of Americans were led to believe Donald Trump was a Russian spy that stole an election. There is instance-after-instance where what we were told to believe then is now the complete opposite with seldom an admission of error issued.

A quickly and efficiently failing Biden administration, that looks for anything to exploit that might result in a one percent bump in any poll, is very dangerous as desperate politicians and staff have little regard for whomever they may hurt in order to maintain power. They’ll even conduct missile strikes and are indifferent to any collateral damage and casualties they may cause. They may even find a way to enter a conflict with the belief there’ll be solidarity behind a wartime Commander-in-Chief.

Not like it hasn’t happened before and at least one reporter knows a rat when he smells one.

Donald Trump and the White House comms shop put together a video montage chronicling the media lying, chronicling the media distorting by name, by video, by face, by picture, and they had a meltdown. CNN bugged out of the coverage, claiming that Trump was turning the briefing into a propaganda session, that Trump was turning it into a meltdown.

The meltdown occurred at CNN, MSNBC, and the New York Times because they were exposed. The lies they’ve been telling. And look, Trump had to do this. The White House did this because the New York Times ran that story on Saturday that Trump was unprepared, that millions and millions more lives would be saved if Trump had just known what he was doing.
— Rush Limbaugh, 4/14/20

All notion of the lack “respect for the office” was evidenced when millennial “journalist” Paula Reid spoke to the president in a manner we all know she wouldn’t dare do to her boss unless she really wanted to get fired. It’s also clear CBS News was prepared for fireworks as they only had three lower third graphics prepared for the briefing: “White House Coronavirus Task Force gives update“, “For the latest on the Coronavirus response go to CBSNews.com/coronavirus“, and the only person identified by name was not doctors Fauci or Birx, Treasury secretary Mnuchin or even President Trump: it was “Paula Reid CBS News White House Correspondent“.

All it took to tweak her (and others in the media) was the audacity of President Trump, not only throwing their words back in their faces but also doing to their faces and making them sit through it.

Unlike legendary journalist Helen Thomas who worked 19 years in the craft before she achieved White House correspondent status, Reid got a job at CBS News with an unrelated journalism education, and like others, rose to White House correspondent in relative short order thus further cheapening the importance and value of the position.

Not that anyone would expect full disclosure from the media and how personal issues might taint coverage, but Paula Reid’s husband is a lobbyist for China which could be why the president said she’s the “last person on earth” who’d get any heads up on anything regarding “consequences” for China.

CNN’s John King later voiced his displeasure of his fellow media correspondents having to be so demeaned as to have to watch “taxpayer-funded propaganda”. King believes his CNN audience is ignorant of the fact that many federal agencies have fully-staffed, professional video studios where officials put out “taxpayer-funded” propaganda any time they want. The problem for King is President Trump countered some of the very incorrect messages national media outlets sent out to the public, just because it was the opposite of what the president said.

While King and Wolf Blitzer lament the new low at White House pressers, the unprecedented number of attacks on President Trump slightly outnumber the amount of incorrect, cherry-picked stories the media released with fury and retractions buried, if corrected at all. But as the broadcast media has conveniently edited-for-time as their excuse for taking things out of context, President Trump should refrain from taking up valuable time for during future press briefings.

The White House should put out longer versions on social media, tagging members of the media who got things very wrong, numerous times, and still have their jobs.