NYT Publisher: Trump Boasted About Popularizing “Fake News” Phrase, Cited Countries That Suppress Media

Yesterday afternoon Trump tweeted about a previously off-the-record meeting with New York Times publisher A.G. Sulzberger, prompting Sulzberger to issue a statement discounting Trump’s account of the meeting. That, of course, sent Glorious Leader into a raging tweetstorm in which he accused the nation’s newspapers of being “unpatriotic.” Today, we have a follow-up.

The New York Times reports:



In a telephone interview, Mr. Sulzberger described the meeting with Mr. Trump, whom he had met only once before, as cordial. But he said he went into the Oval Office determined to make a point about what he views as the dangers of the president’s inflammatory language.

Mr. Sulzberger recalled telling Mr. Trump at one point that newspapers had begun posting armed guards outside their offices because of a rise in threats against journalists. The president, he said, expressed surprise that they did not already have armed guards.

At another point, Mr. Trump expressed pride in popularizing the phrase “fake news,” and said other countries had begun banning it. Mr. Sulzberger responded that those countries were dictatorships and that they were not banning “fake news” but rather independent scrutiny of their actions.