President-elect Donald Trump canceled his off-the-record meeting with The New York Times, scheduled for Tuesday, claiming the paper made a rule-change at the last moment.
And then the meeting was back on with little explanation.
Back in March, Trump did sit down with the Times as a candidate. The meeting was deemed off the record, meaning anything said falls under a variation of the Las Vegas rule: What happens (or is said) in the meeting absolutely stays in the room.
But that’s not how it works at The New York Times when it comes to Trump. Just one day after his March meeting that included executive editor Dean Baquet and other senior staff, major contents of the meeting were leaked to Buzzfeed, including portions around an alleged immigration flip-flop that Buzzfeed declared “could deal a serious blow” to the billionaire’s campaign.
Then-public editor Margaret Sullivan investigated the leak. She stated that Baquet told her that “he didn’t know who had spoken to Buzzfeed to describe the off-the-record portion of the session, and that he didn’t intend to pursue it.”
Come again? Won’t pursue it? This was a major breach and therefore an investigation was warranted. And another black eye to a newspaper where credibility is such a serious problem that it reported on Sunday that readers are flooding inboxes and customer care phone lines with complaints not seen in 15 years.
A “searing level of dissatisfaction” is the way the Times described it.
No matter. Here’s what you’ll undoubtedly see today from a press and pundit class that has learned nothing from all the mistakes made leading up to Trump’s unlikely election:
Trump is a bully who can’t take the heat.
Trump cancelling on the Times is a preview of the lack of transparency his administration will have display when he takes office.
And so on…
Speaking of off-the-record meetings, the amount of leaks coming out of Monday’s powwow with broadcast and cable news executives and anchors is nothing short of disturbing.
Remember, in attendance were presidents of cable news networks. In tow were some of their top talent who weren’t on vacation. Fox News was the lone exception, having only sent executives to the meeting.
Yet we read Monday night and today considerable and consistent detail around what happened in that meeting.
So ask yourself this: If the very top of the food chain in terms of decision makers and talent can’t be trusted to keep an off-the-record meeting, you know, off the record, why should they ever be trusted again?
In a related story, before all the WikiLeaks revelations from just one email account — that of Hillary Clinton campaign chief John Podesta — we discovered:
- Quote approval by Clinton campaign sources happened.
- Sharing stories in advance with Clinton campaign officials happened.
- Collusion via sharing debate questions in advance with Clinton senior aides happened.
- Reporters advising and/or cheering on campaigns with guys like Podesta happened.
And yes, an off-the-record meeting between Trump and the people who deliver us the news from five networks had more leaks than the Exxon Valdez.
Trump canceled on The New York Times today. Then he rescheduled.
Given it’s past record of sharing the supposed secret contents of such a conversation, can you really blame his apprehension here?