Amtrak’s rules are clear: ‘Passengers are required to wear shoes at all times’
CNN’s top media blogger, Brian Stelter, waddled shoeless on an Amtrak train leaving Washington, D.C., on Sunday after a weekend of heavy partying to celebrate the annual White House Correspondents’ Dinner, aka “nerd prom,” the Washington Free Beacon has learned.
A series of photographic images, exclusively obtained by the Free Beacon, show Stelter in an alarming state of dishevelment aboard the train. While other passengers were attempting to enjoy a peaceful ride, the CNN blogger paced between train cars with his shirt untucked (and excessively unbuttoned) while staring at his phone. He wasn’t wearing any shoes, which is a flagrant violation of Amtrak policy. “Passengers are required to wear shoes at all times while moving around the train,” the company states.
Stelter, sometimes referred to as “Humpty Dumpty” on account of his resemblance to the egg-shaped character in the children’s nursery rhyme, is a notorious party animal even by the depraved standards of the media elite. In 2021, for instance, he guzzled champagne and munched on caviar at a “splashy” HBO premier, just days after expressing disbelief at a Gallup survey that found 63 percent of Americans don’t trust media. (As of 2024, the figure was 69 percent.) Stelter made a name for himself during the first Trump administration by, among other things, relentlessly holding the president accountable for his typos. He was one of the first mainstream journalists to suggest Michael Avenatti (now a convicted felon) should be taken “seriously as a contender” for the Democratic presidential nomination.
The journalist’s stunning disregard for the rules—and for the basic norms regarding public decorum that prevent society from descending into chaos—will not be forgotten. Critics may seize on Stelter’s sloppy and entitled behavior to accuse him of hypocrisy the next time he attacks Donald Trump for allegedly violating one of the many norms the media claim to cherish.
Less than 24 hours before Stelter committed the sartorial equivalent of violence against his fellow passengers, the president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, Eugene Daniels, falsely claimed that journalists “care deeply about accuracy and take seriously the heavy responsibility of being stewards of the public’s trust.” Daniels went on to insist that journalists “are not … the enemy of the people.” Stelter’s behavior on Sunday, and on many other days throughout his career, prove otherwise.
