Archives de catégorie : Video Marketing

White House says Conway has been ‘counseled’ after touting Ivanka Trump’s products

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President Trump’s official counselor, Kellyanne Conway, was “counseled” after she told TV audiences to “go buy Ivanka’s stuff,” the White House said Thursday.

Legal experts said Conway had broken a key ethics law banning federal employees from using their public office to endorse products. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that Conway “has been counseled,” but offered no other comment.

Federal law bans employees from using their public office to endorse products. White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Thursday that Conway “has been counseled,” but offered no other comment.

Conway, speaking to “Fox Friends” viewers from the White House briefing room, was responding to boycotts of Ivanka Trump merchandise and Nordstrom’s discontinuation of stocking her clothing and shoe lines, which the retailer said was in response to low sales and which the president assailed as unfair.

“I’m going to give it a free commercial here,” Conway said of the president’s daughter’s merchandise brand. “Go buy it today.”

President Trump’s counselor Kellyanne Conway. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)

[Fact Checker: Trump’s claim Ivanka is being ‘treated so unfairly’ by Nordstrom]

Conway and officials from the Office of Government Ethics did not respond to requests for comment Thursday.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), chairman of the House Oversight Committee, said Conway’s endorsement was ”clearly over the line” and “unacceptable.”

Earlier in the day, the committee’s ranking Democrat, Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (Md.), had urged Chaffetz to support a review into what he called “a textbook violation of government ethics laws.”

Several attorneys, including former heads of federal agencies, said Conway’s endorsement directly conflicted with OGE rules designed to separate government policy from private business dealings.

“I don’t see what their defense is,” said Campaign Legal Center general counsel Lawrence Noble, who is also former counsel for the Federal Election Commission. “She did this on television. She was very clear it was advertising. Hopefully at the very least they will acknowledge this is wrong.”

Don W. Fox, former general counsel and former acting director of OGE, told The Washington Post that “Conway’s encouragement to buy Ivanka’s stuff would seem to be a clear violation of rules prohibiting misuse of public office for anyone’s private gain.”

He added: “This is jaw-dropping to me. This rule has been promulgated by the federal Office of Government Ethics as part of the Standards of Conduct for all executive branch employees and it applies to all members of the armed forces as well.”

Attorneys said a typical executive-branch employee who violated the rule could face significant disciplinary action, including a multi-day suspension and loss of pay.

Enforcement measures are largely left to the head of the federal agency — in Conway’s case, the White House.

Federal law states the director of OGE can advise the White House and Conway of the violation, conduct its own investigation and recommend that they consider disciplinary action.

But OGE’s recommendations are non-binding, and the ultimate decision resides with the White House.

Conway’s endorsement comes as the Trump administration faces growing scrutiny over whether it is taking fears of conflicts of interest seriously.

Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington executive director Noah Bookbinder called Conway’s endorsement “just another example of what looks like a disturbing pattern of this administration acting to benefit the businesses of the president’s family and supporters.”

The president took to Twitter on Wednesday to lash out at Nordstrom for dropping Ivanka Trump’s line, saying his daughter had “been treated so unfairly” by the store.

Said Peter Schweizer, who has worked closely with Trump aide Stephen K. Bannon and wrote the book “Clinton Cash,” which was critical of donations to the Clinton Foundation: “They’ve crossed a very, very important bright line, and it’s not good. To encourage Americans to buy goods from companies owned by the first family is totally out of bounds and needs to stop.

“Clearly, the Trumps feel some of this is related to politics. But whether that’s true or not, these marketing battles need to be fought by Ivanka and her company. They cannot and should not be fought by government employees and the White House,” Schweizer said. “It’s time to move beyond the mind-set and the role of a businessman and assume the mantle of commander of chief.”

Conway’s endorsement of the Ivanka business also highlights an awkward reality for a White House threatening U.S. companies seeking to move jobs or operations overseas. Nearly all of Ivanka-brand merchandise is manufactured in low-cost-labor countries, including China, Indonesia, and Vietnam.

Trump critics quickly seized on the endorsement. Robert Weissman, president of liberal advocacy group Public Citizen, said in a statement, “Conway’s self-proclaimed advertisement for the Ivanka Trump fashion line demonstrates again what anyone with common sense already knew: President Trump and the Trump administration will use the government apparatus to advance the interests of the family businesses.”

Trump last month tweeted his own support for another retailer, L. L. Bean, saying, “People will support you even more now. Buy L.L.Bean.” A company board member, Linda Bean, donated money to a pro-Trump super PAC. Lawyers said the federal ban on endorsements specifically exempts the president and vice president.

How Coretta Scott King and JFK joined forces — and helped change the Democratic Party

Video Marketing,

Coretta Scott King, widow of Martin Luther King Jr., walks a picket line to protest apartheid at the South African Embassy in Washington on Nov. 29, 1984. (Charles Tasnadi/AP)

When Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) used Coretta Scott King’s words to express her opposition to President Trump’s attorney general nominee, it was hardly the first time a Democratic politician saw the importance of King as a civil rights symbol.

At the height of the movement nearly 60 years ago, Martin Luther King Jr.’s wife was contacted by another senator from Massachusetts. It’s a call some historians say played a role in solidifying what is now one of the most loyal bases of the Democratic Party — black voters.

It was October 1960. King was a pregnant wife whose husband had been arrested on a traffic charge while leading a protest in Atlanta. John F. Kennedy was a presidential candidate who was facing a tight race against Richard Nixon, and who understood that there were a significant number of black votes to be won, particularly in the industrial states of the North.

At that time, black voters tended to vote for the party of Abraham Lincoln, a Republican, and were skeptical of the wealthy senator from the Northeast.

[Republicans vote to rebuke Elizabeth Warren, saying she impugned Sessions’s character]

Kennedy and a few people in his campaign saw an opportunity.

Harris Wofford, a Kennedy aide who later became a White House civil rights special assistant, saw the merits of reaching out to Martin Luther King Jr.’s wife and spoke to Kennedy’s brother-in-law, Sargent Shriver, about it.

A public statement was too politically risky, so they opted for a discreet phone call, Harvard University history professor Fredrik Logevall said. Shriver, knowing the idea would be frowned upon by other aides, waited until he was alone with Kennedy and urged him to make the call.

Kennedy didn’t need to be persuaded, Logevall said.

As King recalled in her memoir, “My Life, My Love, My Legacy”:

“May I speak to Mrs. King?” Sargent Sriver said. “Please hold for Senator Kennedy.”

After a brief greeting, Senator Kennedy expressed his concern for me and Martin. “I know this must be very hard for you. I understand you are expecting your third child, and I just wanted you to know that I was thinking about you and Dr. King. If there is anything I can do to help, please let me know.”

Of course I told him that I appreciated his concern and would welcome any assistance.

After the call, things happened fast. I began to hear encouraging news about Martin’s release. Even A.D. [Martin Luther King Jr.’s brother] said, “I’ll bet you he’ll be out by tomorrow night.”

A.D. was right.

After Robert F. Kennedy, who was serving as his brother’s campaign manager, called the governor of Georgia and the judge in charge of the case, Martin Luther King Jr. was freed.

Because of that phone call to Coretta Scott King, Kennedy gained the endorsement of Martin Luther King Sr., a lifelong Republican and a Baptist preacher who was supporting Nixon.

“Because this man was willing to wipe tears from my daughter[-in-law’s] eyes, I’ve got a suitcase full of votes, and I’m going to take them to Mr. Kennedy and dump them on his lap,” the elder King said.

Voters, too, took notice.

[Read the letter Coretta Scott King wrote opposing Sessions’s 1986 federal nomination]

The call, a shrewd move on Kennedy’s part, turned out to be a consequential gesture that reverberated within the black community, Logevall said. What was initially meant to be discreet phone call became public, and in late October 1960, Kennedy made a statement about it at an impromptu news conference.

“She is a friend of mine and I was concerned about the situation,” Kennedy said.

More than 70 percent of black voters voted for him, according to the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.

“I think he had genuine sympathy for the fact that King had been imprisoned without real cause, and it was very good for his campaign,” said Robert Dallek, a historian who focuses on American presidents. “They’re not mutually exclusive.”

More broadly, Kennedy’s personal intervention in the plight of a civil rights leader played a role in the shift of black voters from the party of Lincoln to the Democratic Party, Dallek said.

It started with Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, which created economic programs for the unemployed following the Great Depression. African Americans, the disproportionately affected group, benefited from those programs. So although Roosevelt, a Democrat, had shied away from speaking out about civil rights and against lynching in the South, his New Deal paved the way for the significant shift of the black vote from the Republican Party, Dallek said.

Kennedy, Dallek said, deepened and strengthened that hold.

“I guess you can say it’s one step on that trajectory,” Logevall said.

Almost four years after the phone call, Kennedy’s successor, Lyndon B. Johnson, signed the Civil Rights Act into law.

READ MORE:

Ted Cruz: ‘The Democrats are the party of the Ku Klux Klan’

‘Nevertheless, she persisted’ becomes new battle cry after McConnell silences Elizabeth Warren

The silencing of Elizabeth Warren and an old Senate rule prompted by a fistfight

Shifty stats and marketing myths put under the spotlight [VIDEO]

Video Marketing,

Marketers can’t afford to work with assumptions, inaccuracies, urban myths or received wisdom, and yet the marketing world is full of spurious statistics and authors citing unsubstantiated or inaccurate ‘facts’.

Often without considering origins of their research or indeed its original intent. Take the claim that “a one minute video is worth 1.8 million words of text”: which is repeated on over 800,000 web pages and very often cited as scientific fact …. although it’s based merely on some quick calculator work and a cliché.

Two reasons to care about accuracy

I spent many many years working in broadcast TV and one of my favourite sayings was “never let the facts get in the way of a good story”. This can make it sound like we were fast and loose with the truth, whereas the saying is actually a reminder to use only the facts needed to make a point, not that we should tell untruths or “vague up” stats to fit our goals.

For me the problem with dodgy stats is twofold. The first is obvious; end customers hate being lied to and will quickly turn their backs on brands they don’t trust. Consumers born between 1998 and 2008, who grew up with functional internet connections, are the most astute when it comes to video marketing content. These aren’t people who believe everything they see online – and they’re people who can and will quickly debunk claims that don’t ring true, ruining brand reputation at the same time.

For me the second area is less obvious, but for marketers it’s an even bigger worry. The facts that we are told by others looking to provide us services can form the basis of an entire marketing campaign, and the old adage of “put shit in, get shit out”  has never been more relevant. A marketing campaign that’s run on inaccurate data risks setting itself unrealistic targets and making poor strategic choices. If you ran a video marketing campaign with ‘number of Facebook views’ as a KPI, and then discovered that until August 2016, the number of Facebook views included users who only watch three seconds of a video – long enough for a video to start playing automatically and then be scrolled past as a nuisance – you’d be well advised to question your success.

But what about the data that tells us one platform is great and another isn’t? With my role in video marketing I see stats like this all the time. 

“Video makes up 33 percent of online time”

Well, that’s just so vague that it’s basically meaningless. Whose time are we talking about? On what platform and device? What type of video content are they viewing? All of these factors are important. Different demographics have more or less time available to watch, are more or less likely to multitask, own more or fewer devices and watch different content on different platforms. The analysis that over-18s in the US spent 39 minutes per day watching video on mobile devices in April 2015, on the other hand, is specific and drawn from a credible source, thus has substance: it’s not a general, woolly claim, but something concrete.

However, it’s also dated. It’s wise to use the most recent statistics available to substantiate claims. This more recent report indicates that the same demographic spent a more conservative 26 minutes per day watching video on mobile devices, averaged out over a year. Mobile video changes so quickly, and generates such a huge amount of data, that statistics rapidly become outdated. Good statistics are specific, they are up to date and can be verified.

Finally, good statistics come from the proverbial horse’s mouth. Let’s say we search for “how much time do we spend watching video online”. Our first result is a summary of an article from the Daily Telegraph which paraphrases an Ofcom report claiming that 16-24 year olds spend more than 27 hours a week on the internet. (It’s also from May 2015, which means it’s probably out of date – but we digress.) This means the first stat we see is three steps removed from the raw data on which it’s based. Which in turn means there have been three stages of editorial process involved – three chances to skew, misrepresent or simply make a mistake about the facts. In this case, the claim is accurate – but why take the chance? Go back to the source and see.

Best practice in video marketing claims

The main thing to remember is that a stat without context or background is meaningless.  No matter how attention grabbing a claim like “the average internet user spends 88% more time on a site with video” may be, it needs to be backed up with recent and accessible evidence. Providing a reference to a reliable source, even if it’s a report behind a paywall, allows interested readers to verify the claim.

Best practice involves cross-referencing multiple, reputable sources for each claim and potential bias. When Magisto and BIA/Kelsey agree that digital video is the fastest growing medium, it’s probably a viable claim. But Magisto and BIA/Kelsey both stand to gain from an increased interest in small business videos, so of course, they’re going to claim it’s a growth market.

The most reliable sources are those which commission their own research into a wide range of areas, rather than their own segments of the industry.

Go beyond marketing 101

Good video marketing strategy isn’t based on vague, meaningless or inaccurate stats, nor on the kind of attention-grabbing cheap tricks that any basic marketing class will teach you and most audiences know to look out for. It’s based on an understanding of current video marketing trends which push the brand forward.

It also helps to be aware of what’s coming up in the future. CIM predicts a stark shift toward responsive design for mobile devices, an increasing wariness of marketing messages among emergent digital native consumers, and further potential for augmented and virtual reality marketing campaigns. Meanwhile, eConsultancy turns its gaze on the statistics it’s unearthed during 2016, identifying slow consumer growth, disparity between customer needs and marketer capabilities, and a disturbing lack of mobile strategy across business organisations.

The new black in video marketing will bring these insights together. It will base its strategies on solid, reliable data, rigorously tested for mobile and it will identify the reasons customers have for mistrusting marketers, and work to correct them. It can start by throwing out the bold claims based on shaky stats.

Jon Mowat is MD of UK based strategic video marketing agency Hurricane Media.

Read the January 2017 issue of Business Review Europe magazine. 

Follow @BizReviewEurope

Netflix hopes to convert bingewatchers into bingebuyers in merchandising marketing push

Video Marketing,

Video streaming company Netflix is looking to diversify its income beyond its subscription-based model with a move into merchandising recognising that many loved franchise call the service home.

To reinforce its ambition, the company is on the hunt for an exec to oversee the sale of Netflix branded merchandise, revealed by a job listing for ‘Senior Manager, Licensing, Merchandising and Promotion’ in Beverly Hills, California.

The company is hoping for an individual capable of “amplifying fervor around key titles by developing new channels for consumers and communities to interact with Netflix”.

It highlights the sale of merchandise as more of a marketing activation that can “help promote our titles so they become part of the zeitgeist for longer periods of time”.

Those chasing the position will have control of the licensing across books, comics, gaming toys, collectibles, soundtrack and apparel.

It appears the space is about to get busier, Netflix has made a move into gaming with a Castlevania TV show in addition to making its own drive into merchandising, meanwhile games company Activision Blizzard is moving into merchandising and TV, snapping up former Disney and Mattel exec Tim Kilpin. Furthermore, it claims it can create content that lives up to HBO’s Westworld.

Why marketing is the true ‘game of games’: Could a video game be in your future plans?

Video Marketing,

(c)iStock.com/ilbusca

What connects the ever-increasing rash of zombie-based, end/beginning of civilisations series, history of now, robotic lifestyles, and topic-related movies? They all seem to pose the question: does media drive culture, or culture drive media?

I ask this question in part based on this story, as well as my recent readings, which include Pendulum, by Roy H. Williams and Michael R. Drew, Prosper, by Chris Martenson and Adam Taggart, and Tribes, by Seth Godin.

What I see is a new need to engage the next few generations, not only with the current predictable field of marketing, but also with a highly defined strategy that includes AI, VR, experiential marketing, and even brand-based video games.

Why video games?

Brand-based video games are designed to support a target market. They provide avatars, characters, locations, objectives, challenges, antagonists, and conflict, as well as the resolution of conflict, telling the brand’s story not in a 15 or 30 second commercial but across the life of the targeted audience, at a speed and end result that the consumer in part drives, across long-term dialogue and engagement.

Included with this brand-based trans media strategy, as dubbed by Jeff Gomez of Starlight Entertainment – whose email to me sparked this article – is a defined brand objective combining the very best of all the interactive and haptic based media into a defined proprietary device: the branded and brand-owned video game.

A video game based on a brand’s needs provides the best of many worlds; the world of culture-driven media and the world of media-driven culture.

Does marketing need a video game to engage the next few generations of consumers and businesses?

Think about your brand as a storyline, and consider all the different paths of media you can take to get that storyline ‘out there’. Then, think of all the different levels that the consumer can experience while on the buying adventure. Why not provide the opportunity to your clients and customers to select the targeted line they feel best fits their life – their past and present, their desires, their response, and their ability to close the sale?

The game rules are simple: follow your part, your story, to the end result – a sale or interaction – and keep the communication open via ongoing updates, dialogue, and interactive engagement. Allow for a change of storyline and personal additions to the narrative, or if you prefer, ‘na-your-tive’. In planning your game, ask yourself what a lead character must go through to achieve an objective. Actions must reflect gameplay and unique features. Reward the use of tractable and measurable unique strategies to achieve the end game.

Rewards, levels, expansions, and contractions are part of the next stage of simplification of marketing, placing as many of the media and tracking devices into one tool, a foundational tool that becomes the ‘I’ of marketing: the marketing video game.

Is a marketing-based video game in your future?

What better way to tell your story than via a branded video game – a truly responsive marketing tool. Games can be played at home, on the road, or at stores, with retail locations as part of the background across most, if not all, media.

Your game needs to determine who is playing and track the interaction of the consumers and the impact of that interaction on your story. Which incentives are provided to allow the consumer to move up or down a level? How is the information presented to the consumer? What skill sets can be taught, allowing the consumers to be kept in the loop and aware of their current position and future rewards – based on your brand?

Furthermore, how will the distinct chapters or sections of the game creatively and visually roll out the story’s progress and increase challenge, while effectively and simply leading to a defined end point? Your branded game needs to measure the rise and fall of events, provide interactions, and drive elements. It should offer crucial or critical information, plot twists, rising stakes, events – game-based and real world-based such as experiential marketing – leading to the climax, the sale. Consider updating the ongoing sales process and even using the game foundations as a device to enhance the engagement and relationship between the brand and the consumer.

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Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch says Trump’s attacks on judiciary are ‘demoralizing’

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President Trump’s escalating attacks on the federal judiciary drew denunciation Wednesday from his Supreme Court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, who told a senator that the criticism was “disheartening” and “demoralizing” to independent federal courts.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) said Gorsuch made the comments during their private meeting Wednesday, and the account was confirmed by Ron Bonjean, a member of the group guiding the judge through his confirmation process.

Trump on Wednesday morning declared that an appeals court’s hearing Tuesday night regarding his controversial immigration executive order was “disgraceful,” and that judges were more concerned about politics than following the law.

The remarks followed earlier tweets from Trump disparaging “the so-called judge” who issued a nationwide stop to his plan and saying the ruling “put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system.”

Blumenthal said Gorsuch, whom Trump nominated to the Supreme Court just over a week ago, agreed with him that the president’s language was out of line.

“I told him how abhorrent Donald Trump’s invective and insults are towards the judiciary. And he said to me that he found them ‘disheartening’ and ‘demoralizing’ — his words,” Blumenthal said in an interview.

Gorsuch “stated very emotionally and strongly his belief in his fellow judges’ integrity and the principle of judicial independence,” he added. “And I made clear to him that that belief requires him to be stronger and more explicit, more public in his views.”

[Trump’s rallying cry: fear itself]

The contretemps added another layer to the roiling nature of Trump’s young presidency. Some historians wondered whether Supreme Court nominees had ever separated themselves in such a way from the president who nominated them; others tried to recall whether a president had ever given a nominee reason to do so.

Less than three weeks after taking the oath of office, Trump already has a legal dispute that seems likely to arrive soon at the Supreme Court. His comments about the judiciary seem far beyond the more veiled criticism presidents usually lob at the branch, and Democrats have pointed to those comments in arguing for a close examination of Gorsuch, who has served for 10 years on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit.

Within hours of Blumenthal’s revelation of Gorsuch’s remarks, there were questions about how Trump, famously thin-skinned about criticism, would receive his nominee’s words. There was a competing theory that they were a calculated attempt by Gorsuch to assert his independence.

Carrie Severino, chief counsel and policy director of the Judicial Crisis Network, a group promoting Gorsuch’s nomination, said the judge’s remarks simply confirmed what those close to Gorsuch already knew.

“He’s always been a person independent of the president, and it was shown by his statement,” she said.

Those on the left, meanwhile, said Gorsuch would need to do more than that.

“Is Gorsuch distancing himself from Trump? As we say on the Internet: LOL,” Drew Courtney of People for the American Way said in a statement. “To be clear: Donald Trump’s pattern of attacks on federal judges is more than demoralizing — it’s a threat to the separation of powers and our constitutional system, and it’s hard to imagine a more tepid response than to call them ‘disheartening.’ ”

Trump has been on a days-long crusade against the judicial branch since U.S. District Judge James L. Robart of Seattle halted the administration’s executive order temporarily halting the U.S. refu­gee program and barring entry to the United States from seven predominantly Muslim countries. A three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit is deliberating whether Trump’s executive order should be allowed to stand.

Speaking Wednesday at the Major Cities Chiefs Association Winter Conference in Washington, Trump said he listened to the oral arguments at the appeals court and was disappointed at what he heard.

“I don’t ever want to call a court biased, so I won’t call it biased,” Trump told the group. “But courts seem to be so political, and it would be so great for our justice system if they would be able to read a statement and do what’s right.”

Trump said the arguments were “disgraceful” because his executive order “can’t be written any plainer or better and for us to be going through this” — he paused to mention that a judge in Boston had ruled that the order could stand.

Trump said the courts were standing in the way of what he was elected to do and that even “a bad student in high school” would support his policies.

“We want security,” he said. “One of the reasons I was elected was because of law and order and security. It’s one of the reasons I was elected. . . . And they’re taking away our weapons, one by one. That’s what they’re doing. And you know it and I know it.”

The panel of 9th Circuit judges questioned whether the administration had any evidence of increased risk that would warrant the new restrictions, and whether the restrictions violated the law and the Constitution’s protections against religious discrimination.

Trump’s comments were the latest escalation in a worsening dispute between the executive branch and the judiciary that the president has personally carried out on social media and in public remarks. While it is not new for a president to disagree with the actions of another branch of government, Trump’s crusade against the federal judiciary comes before the legal process has fully played out and is unusual for its threatening tone and use of personal invective.

[‘If something happens’: Trump points his finger in case of a terrorist attack]

White House press secretary Sean Spicer said Wednesday that the president is expressing his frustration with a process that he believes should be subject to common sense.

“He respects the judiciary,” Spicer said. “It’s hard for him and for a lot of people to understand how something so clear in the law can be so misinterpreted.”

He added that Trump, who has a long history of punching back against his opponents both political and personal, is also speaking directly to his supporters who are looking for him to aggressively deliver on his campaign promises.

“He likes to talk to his supporters, to be blunt,” Spicer added. “Part of it is that people wonder — who helped elect him — what is he doing to enact his agenda.”

Trump’s handling of the incident recalled his attacks during the presidential campaign on an American judge of Mexican descent, Gonzalo Curiel, who Trump claimed could not fairly adjudicate a fraud case against now-defunct Trump University because of his ethnic heritage.

“In Trump’s world there’s a precedent where he believes a judge of Mexican heritage can’t fairly judge his case,” said longtime Republican strategist Rick Wilson, a frequent Trump critic. “It’s part of the overall pattern of the Trump White House: They want to always be on the attack. It’s not enough to say their ideas are wrong, their policies are wrong; you‘ve got to nuke them.”

A coalition of Democratic members of the House introduced a resolution criticizing Trump’s attacks, and Laura Brill, a California lawyer and former clerk to Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, sent the administration’s top lawyers a letter on behalf of nearly 150 lawyers who practice in the federal courts denouncing Trump’s comments.

“Lawyers across the political spectrum believe that the president’s personal attacks on individual judges and on the judicial branch are improper and destructive,” Brill said in a statement. “Because judges face ethical constraints in their ability to respond directly, the letter calls on the president to retract and end such personal attacks.”

Not everyone was deeply offended by Trump’s words. Paul G. Cassell, a University of Utah law professor who served as a federal district judge from 2002 to 2007 and was nominated by President George W. Bush, said he believes Trump “stepped over the line” in his criticism of Robart.

“But I would characterize it as a misdemeanor traffic ticket, not a felony,” Cassell said. “Judges have thick-enough skins that they are used to being criticized. We live in a time in which strong language seems to be the order of the day.”

“The president certainly has a right to criticize the court,” Cassell said.

He said he thought then-President Barack Obama went further in his 2010 State of the Union criticism of the Supreme Court, which had just decided the Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission case. Cassell said Obama used “more elegant language,” but also contends that Obama’s analysis of the case was off-base.

Besides, he added, “The president can tweet all he wants, but the final decision will be made by the judiciary.”