President-elect Donald Trump met with the New York Times after all on Tuesday after canceling the meeting earlier in the morning in a series of tweets where he called the newspaper "not nice" for trying to make last-minute changes to the "terms and conditions" of the meeting.
Update: @nytimes meeting w/@realDonaldTrump is back on. Meeting w/journalists is on the record only. Here’s our sta… https://t.co/BeDixm6wPv
The meeting with the @nytimes is back on at 12:30 today. Look forward to it!
Earlier on Tuesday, Trump went on a rant tweeting that the previously scheduled meeting was canceled.
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
Shortly after the first tweet, Trump sent out another saying that the paper continues to "cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!". However, he did say it was possible that a new meeting could be scheduled.
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!
He continued his rant, making sure to note that complaints against the "failing" newspaper are at a 15-year high.
The failing @nytimes just announced that complaints about them are at a 15 year high. I can fully understand that - but why announce?
According to the Times, Trump was going to be meeting with editors and reporters ahead of his Thanksgiving trip to Florida. There was supposed to be a "small, off the record meeting first, followed by an on the record session with Times reporters and editorial columnists," the newspaper said in a statement, according to CNN.
The paper was allegedly all set to go for the meeting and only heard that it was canceled when it saw Trump's tweets. According to the newspaper, Trump had tried to change the meeting to be entirely off the record and the paper refused.
The Times' senior vice president for communications, Eileen Murphy, released the following statement Tuesday:
We were unaware that the meeting was canceled until we saw the president-elect’s tweet this morning. We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to. They tried to yesterday — asking for only a private meeting and no on-the-record segment, which we refused to agree to. In the end, we concluded with them that we would go back to the original plan of a small off-the-record session and a larger on-the-record session with reporters and columnists.
Trump arrived at the Times building sometime around 12:45 p.m. and managed to avoid going through the main lobby where a large crowd had gathered.
Reporters present at the meeting were live-tweeting the president-elect's remarks. He told reporters that he has great respect for the newspaper and would like to improve his relationship with it, adding that he was treated unfairly in their campaign coverage.
"You could make the case the Washington Post was bad, but every once in a while I actually got a good article," Trump said, according to a tweet from Mike Grynbaum.
After he was done talking about his ill treatment by the paper, he took other questions, like whether or not he feels like he energized the alt-right movement.
"I don't want to energize the group, and I disavow the group," he said, adding that he wanted to find out why they have become energized.
Trump also said that he has an "open mind" when asked if he will withdraw from climate change accords and said that he thinks "there is some connectivity" between humans activity and climate change. He had said in a 2012 tweet that "global warming was created by and for the Chinese" in a ploy to make "US manufacturing non-competitive.
The concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make U.S. manufacturing non-competitive.
The meeting comes a day after Trump met a number of top TV news execs and anchors, including representatives from CNN, ABC News, NBC News, CBS News, MSNBC, and Fox News.
It was reported that the meeting turned into a dressing-down of the media, where the president-elect reportedly complained about media coverage. However, according to anonymous sources cited by CNN, the media did make some progress with Trump regarding media access to his administration.
Trump also ranted at the New York Times last week when he accused the newspaper of "very poor and highly inaccurate coverage of the 'Trump phenomena.'" Following Trump's outburst, the newspaper announced it had received 41,000 additional paid subscriptions across its print and digital platforms.