Former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro blasted a New York Times reporter for a story written by a colleague focusing on a new book authored by former White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham.
In the piece that drew Navarro’s ire, published in the Times on Tuesday, White House reporter Katie Rogers revealed excerpts from Grisham’s book, which paints the former president as volatile, abusive and “placating” toward Russian President Vladamir Putin.
“I knew that sooner or later the president would want me to tell the public something that was not true or that would make me sound like a lunatic,” Grisham writes in the book, which is slated to be published next week, the Times reported. “This is not, by the way, a book where you need to like me.”
Navarro, who served as a top adviser to Trump on trade and was one of his fiercest defenders during media appearances, shared a weblink to Rogers’ story on Tuesday as he tweeted criticism of another reporter at the newspaper, Maggie Haberman, and the Times as a whole.
“Grisham book useless gossip,” Navarro said. “If [New York Times] and [Maggie Haberman] pimping, take it as a given its BS. I worked with Stephanie and she was good people but I agree with POTUS that she didn’t cut it in the press office.”
Navarro also shared a link to a book he has recently written, urging his followers to “get truth In Trump Time.”
Haberman, a Washington corespondent for the Times who has interviewed and written about Trump for years, was a top foil for the former president during his time in office. She responded to Navarro’s misplaced criticism with a tweet of her own on Wednesday.
“Peter seems to think all NYT female employees are the same,” she said. “This was written by [Rogers], not me. But thank you!”
“This guy is truly amazing,” Haberman said in another tweet. “Note that he was selling his book on Amazon, which he crusaded against, and get attacked on Twitter. He has assimilated to DC well.”