I agree with pretty much everything after your first sentence. If you watched the last election you would know that he pretty much thumbed his nose at the media and got away with it.
Which is not the same thing as "[turning] the media's own dishonest tactics against them." Trump is not a satirist or social critic in the vein of Socrates or Voltaire. He's just a shameless liar with selfish motivations. I'm stressing this point because I can't stand this whole "what's bad for the establishment is good for me!" idea that Trump undoubtedly owes much of his popularity to. It's such a childish, sophomoric view that simply isn't an accurate reflection of the world. There are some things about the media and the establishment that need to be called out forcefully and torn down, obviously. But the relevance of fact-checking and the notion of yielding (or at least modifying one's position or argument) in the face of overwhelming contradictory factual evidence are not among them.
Ok. Well I didn't mean that what Trump was doing was exactly the same thing in every respect. Mostly he got the better of them tho. One tactic he definitely stole from them was posting stuff that wasn't necessarily true about them and his political opponents. He did pull a few good ones during the campaign too. I forgot what the issue was, but one time he got them all hyped up about a press conference he was going to give on some controversial topic. When they arrived he offered a one minute speech that completely de-escalated whatever issue they were on about and then announced the conference over. That was kind of funny.
I definitely agree that Trump is no Socrates or Voltaire. But then, you would be hard pressed to find someone that was in the current crop of MSM reporters. And I certainly don't deny many of the other criticisms you're giving. I just think many of them could also apply to much of the MSM. You must surely agree that their performance hasn't been stellar of late.
One thing they could do in the press briefing room is to remember they are working for national newspapers, not
Gossip Girl.