Report: New York Times Sitting On Blockbuster Trump Tape

[kpete]

Donald Trump Secretly Told The New York Times What He Really Thinks About Immigration


posted on Feb. 29, 2016, at 10:55 a.m.


The New York Times is sitting on an audio recording that some of its staff believes could deal a serious blow to Donald Trump who, in an off-the-record meeting with the newspaper, called into question whether he would stand by his own immigration views.

Trump visited the paper’s Manhattan headquarters on Tuesday, Jan. 5, part of a round of editorial board meetings that — as is traditional — the Democratic candidates for president and some of the Republicans attended. The meetings, conducted partly on the record and partly off the record in a 13th floor conference room, give candidates a chance to make their pitch for the paper’s endorsement.

After a dispute over Trump’s suggestion of tariffs on Chinese goods, the Times released a portion of the recording. But that was from the on-the-record part of the session.

On Saturday, columnist Gail Collins, one of the attendees at the meeting (which also included editor-in-chief Dean Baquet), floated a bit of speculation in her column:

The most optimistic analysis of Trump as a presidential candidate is that he just doesn’t believe in positions, except the ones you adopt for strategic purposes when you’re making a deal. So you obviously can’t explain how you’re going to deport 11 million undocumented immigrants, because it’s going to be the first bid in some future monster negotiation session.

Sources familiar with the recording and transcript — which have reached near-mythical status at the Times — tell me that the second sentence is a bit more than speculation. It reflects, instead, something Trump said about the flexibility of his hard-line anti-immigration stance.





MORE:
http://www.buzzfeed.com/bensmith/trump-tape#.xlDe7ZXe0

[JustABozoOnThisBus]

1. After all the crap that's spewed out of Trump's mouth ...

... I'd be surprised if one more tape has any impact at all.

[jberryhill]

2. I'll bet it won't hurt him at all

His supporters know he's spouting bullshit half the time.

[krawhitham]

3. NY Times can't release this if they agreed it was off the record, no one will ever talk 2 them again