Trump Reportedly Took Shots at NBC’s Chuck Todd and Lester Holt During Anchor Lunch

Josh FeldmanJan 30th, 2018, 7:16 pm
 

President Trump held a pre-State of the Union lunch with news anchors today, and one report says he did in fact use the opportunity to needle the press a bit.

Specifically NBC News.

Politico‘s Michael Calderone reveals in his new report that Trump singled out Chuck Todd and Lester Holt:

The president took a needling tone with Chuck Todd, the host of NBC’s “Meet the Press,” telling the group that Todd’s the nicest guy in the world until he gets on the show and then becomes “a monster.”

He had a more pointed exchange with NBC News anchor Lester Holt regarding a May 2017 interview in which the president said he considered the “Russia thing” when deciding to fire former FBI director James Comey. The president accused Holt of editing the interview to remove Trump comments the president claimed were almost “Shakespearean,” according to attendees. Holt responded that the entire interview ran online.

Trump has, of course, repeatedly taken a number of shots at Todd over the years:

The President used to work for NBC, and he apparently made a point of bringing that up during the lunch, talking about “money he made for the network and suggested the company’s brass, rather than the specific journalists, were to blame for coverage he doesn’t like.”

It was recently reported that Trump isn’t planning to give a pre-Super Bowl interview to NBC News––a tradition for the President and the network airing the game.

[image via screengrab]

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Josh Feldman - Senior Editor

Josh Feldman is a Senior Editor at Mediaite. Email him here: josh@mediaite.com Follow him on Twitter: @feldmaniac