Stelter: Time Mag Tweet Shows Trump Doesn’t Want to Talk to Press Outlets He’s ‘Not Friendly’ With Anymore

By Josh FeldmanNov 25th, 2017, 2:32 pm
 

CNN’s Brian Stelter said today President Trump‘s tweet about Time Magazine underscores a point about who the Commander-in-Chief chooses to speak to these days.

The President claimed he rejected an interview/photo shoot with Time Magazine because he was told he was only “probably” going to be named Person of the Year, but “probably is no good.” Time Magazine subsequently said, “The President is incorrect about how we choose Person of the Year.”

Stelter spoke this afternoon with anchor Fredricka Whitfield, who said, “This is ugly and kind of embarrassing, right?”

Of course the President would be on the shortlist, Stelter noted, but the honor is not necessarily a positive thing, given some past honorees. (Trump himself has tweeted a bunch about Time and the honor in the past.)

But then Stelter also made this point about the President’s access to the press:

“I think the bigger picture point here, Fredricka, is that President Trump is very reluctant to give interviews to any outlet that he’s not friendly with. He speaks to his friends at Fox News, he speaks to some local broadcasters that he believes are pro-Trump, but he actually doesn’t give interviews anymore to the Time Magazines or the CNNs or the CBSs or the NBCs of the world. That all started about six months ago, when Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel.”

Trump has done a lot of Fox News interviews this year, especially compared to the competition. Take this observation from October alone:

Watch above, via CNN.

[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