Trump Reportedly Trashed Media ‘Liars’ in Meeting with Networks: ‘It Was Like a F*cking Firing Squad’
Donald Trump‘s closed-door meeting with big names from major TV networks went as well as you might expect, according to a new report.
Trump met today with CNN’s Jeff Zucker and Wolf Blitzer, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and David Muir, NBC’s Chuck Todd, CBS’ Charlie Rose, Fox News’ Bill Shine, and a few others for a conversation a few hours ago.
How did it go? Well, here’s how once source summed it up to The New York Post:
“It was like a f—ing firing squad,” said one source.
“Trump started with Jeff Zucker and said I hate your network, everyone at CNN is a liar and you should be ashamed….
Yes, as two individuals recounted to the Post, quite a lot of this meeting involved Trump ranting at the “liars” in the room, singling out CNN and Zucker in particular, as well as NBC’s Katy Tur for her general coverage of him and ABC’s Martha Raddatz (who was in the room too) for how emotional she got talking about a potential Trump win on election night.
One of the people who spoke to the Post said, “Trump kept saying, ‘We’re in a room of liars, the deceitful dishonest media who got it all wrong. He addressed everyone in the room calling the media dishonest, deceitful liars.'”
On a totally unrelated note, Trump will be meeting with the “failing” New York Times tomorrow…
UPDATE –– 6:18 pm ET: It is worth noting here that the newspeople in the room agreed to the meeting being off-the-record and, thus, cannot publicly talk about what happened.
UPDATE –– 7:47 pm ET: Politico has more details on the meeting from another source. And while it makes it clear the meeting overall was cordial, there were still the tense parts:
The source said the meeting started with a typical Trump complaint about the “dishonest media,” and that he specifically singled out CNN and NBC News for example as “the worst.”
He also complained about photos of himself that NBC used that he found unflattering, the source said.
Trump turned to NBC News President Deborah Turness at one point, the source said, and told her the network won’t run a nice picture of him, instead choosing “this picture of me,” as he made a face with a double chin. Turness replied that they had a “very nice” picture of him on their website at the moment.
[image via screengrab]
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