Early Tuesday morning, President-elect Donald Trump backed out of a scheduled meeting with the ‘failing’ The New York Times, claiming that the conditions of the meeting were changed last moment.
I cancelled today’s meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016
He later tweeted that ‘perhaps a new meeting will be set up’ after the newspaper ceases to cover him inaccurately.
Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016
In a third Tweet, the Republican billionaire has asked why would the paper announce that the ‘complaints about them are a 15 times high’.
The failing @nytimes just announced that complaints about them are at a 15 year high. I can fully understand that – but why announce?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016
The tweet was apparently in reference to The Times public editor Liz Spayd’s piece published over the weekend.
Spayd, in her article, had said the number of complaints to her office is five times the normal. She said influx of letters to editors, which are not necessarily complaints about the coverage of presidential election, is one of the largest since September 11, 2011.
The Times in its report about the scheduled sitdown said it only found out about the meeting being called off through Trump’s tweet.
“We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to,” said Times spokesperson Eileen Murphy.
She said Trump’s representative asked for a private meeting with nothing on the record. But the two sides later agreed to a small off-the-record session and a larger on-the-record session with reporters and columnists.