Trump Had America's Top TV News Anchors Over for Lunch--and Ate Them Alive [View all]

[octoberlib]

Last edited Tue Feb 4, 2020, 09:51 PM - Edit history (1)

Much to the disappointment of folks at CNN, nobody at the long table—who included NBC’s Lester Holt and Chuck Todd, ABC’s David Muir and George Stephanopoulos, and CBS’s Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan—bothered to ask why the president had gone out of his way to exclude the cable network run by Trump’s former friend Jeff Zucker.


“MSDNC isn’t here as well,” Trump quipped—to polite chuckles but zero protests (not even by Meet the Press and MSNBC anchor Todd) from his captive audience, who were there ostensibly for a briefing on tonight’s State of the Union address but instead were treated to a lot of presidential boasting about his poll numbers and the “through-the-roof” stock market, and a lot of gloating about the “fiasco” of Iowa’s Democratic caucuses and the general disarray in the out-of-power party.

Trump made sure to criticize his Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell for declining to lower interest rates further. Asked about the exploding trillion-dollar deficits his administration has created, the president claimed that lower interest rates will allow him to reduce the red ink in his second term.“He was chill,” said a lunch guest. “He wasn’t angry at all. He was friendly, outgoing, and relaxed. He was confident that he’ll be re-elected.”

Trump also was sanguine about his participation in the fall presidential debates, saying, ”Yeah, I’ll do it,” even though, he claimed, “the debate commission is filled with a bunch of Never Trumpers.” At one point Trump recalled that he had been an early donor to Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer’s first House race, and added: “AOC is gonna run against him in the primary and she’s gonna kick his ass,” a lunch guest quoted the president as predicting.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-had-americas-top-tv-news-anchors-over-for-lunch-and-ate-them-alive?via=twitter_page

Too bad they didn't have enough respect for their colleagues and refuse to attend.

Link to tweet

I reached out to several of these networks asking why they were still participating despite the CNN snub. No one would speak about it on the record.