Forget 'failing,' Trump has new name for N.Y. Times
WND
In a meeting Tuesday with arch-media enemy the New York Times, President-elect Donald Trump praised President Obama and condemned the “alt right” while defending Steve Bannon as his chief strategist.
He also talked about his desire to make a peace deal between Israel and the Palestinians.
Trump had originally canceled the meeting, saying the Times had changed the ground rules, but then rescheduled it. The meeting started out rocky, with Trump accusing the Times of being the “worst” media outlet in the way it covered his campaign.
And “they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!” Trump tweeted Tuesday morning.
Trump was asked about concerns from minority groups that the coverage of Breitbart News under Bannon, its former chairman, has become a “platform” for the so-called alt-right movement. Many on the left have accused him of being racist, anti-Semitic and part of an alt-right movement, which embraces white nationalism. Trump said that was “very unfair” given that no evidence is ever offered of Bannon’s supposed racism.
“If I thought he was a racist or alt-right or any of the things, the terms we could use, I wouldn’t even think about hiring him,” Trump said, according to Maggie Haberman, a Times reporter who was present at the meeting.
Trump schooled the Times a bit on Breitbart’s mission.
“Breitbart is just a publication,” he said. “They cover stories like you cover stories. That are certainly a much more conservative paper, to put it mildly, than the New York Times. But Breitbart really is a news organization that has become quite successful. It’s got readers, and it does cover subjects on the right, but it covers subjects on the left also. It’s a pretty big thing.”
Trump also addressed the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
“I would love to be the one who made peace with Israel and the Palestinians, that would be such a great achievement,” Trump said, according to a tweet by Times reporter Mike Grynbaum.
“I would love to be the one who made peace with Israel and the Palestinians, that would be such a great achievement.”
— Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016
Reince Priebus accompanied Trump on Tuesday, along with Trump’s policy adviser Stephen Miller, senior adviser Kellyanne Conway and spokeswoman Hope Hicks.
His parting comment was that the Times was a “world jewel.” That’s quite a contrast from the “Lying Times” and the “Failing Times,” which he repeatedly called the paper during his campaign.
The President-elect’s parting message: The New York Times is “a world jewel. And I hope we can all get along.”
— Mike Grynbaum (@grynbaum) November 22, 2016
Reporter Julie Davis tweeted that Trump also commented on his relations with House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. Apparently they’ve mended fences, at least for now.
Trump on GOP leaders @McConnellPress & @SpeakerRyan: “Right now they’re in love with me. Four weeks ago, they weren’t in love with me”
— Julie Davis (@juliehdavis) November 22, 2016
Trump also had more kind words for President Obama’s handling of the transition, according to Times reporter Maggie Haberman.
“I think he’s looking to do absolutely the right thing for the country in terms of transition,” Trump says of Obama.
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) November 22, 2016
Trump reportedly added that “I really liked him a lot.”
According to Politico, there was much back and forth about the influence of the alt-right on Trump’s success as a presidential candidate.
Trump told the Times reporters he “disavows the fringe political movement that many say helped power his candidacy,” Politico reported.
Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet tried to insinuate that Trump “bears responsibility for the growing prominence of groups espousing white nationalist viewpoints,” according to Politico.
“I don’t think so, Dean,” Trump said in response to a question from Baquet about if he has “energized” the alt-right.
Politico defined alt-right as “a nationalist movement that embraces populism and white identity politics.” At a conference this weekend in Washington, adherents used racist innuendo and arm salutes that resembled those of the Nazis.
Richard Spencer, a neo-Nazi leader who coined the term “alt-right,” opened a speech at the conference with the greeting: “Hail Trump, hail our people, hail victory!”
“I don’t want to energize the group, and I disavow the group,” Trump told Baquet. “It’s not a group I want to energize, and if they are energized, I want to look into it and find out why.”
Asked point-blank about the conference featuring Spencer, Trump again disavowed any support.
“I disavow and condemn them,” Trump told Times reporters. He did chide them for continuing to ask about the topic though, telling one questioner: “Boy, you are really into [this issue].”
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