NYT Reporter Defends Trump Interview

Michael Schmidt

New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt on Friday defended his impromptu interview with President Trump against backlash from readers who said he should have pressed the president harder.

“Some readers criticized my approach, saying I should have asked more follow-up questions,” Schmidt wrote in the Times’ “Insider” section. “I believed it was more important to continue to allow the president to speak and let people make their own judgments about his statements.”

Schmidt’s interview with Trump at his Florida golf course made headlines Friday, as it was unplanned and unsupervised, according to The Hill.

In the interview, Trump said he had the “absolute right” to do whatever he wants with the Justice Department, and also said that he thought Special Counsel Robert Mueller would be “fair” to him in the investigation into whether his campaign colluded with Russia.

He also repeated at least 15 times during the interview that there was “no collusion” between the campaign and Russia.

White House officials reportedly did not know about the interview, which was unsupervised and on-the-record, and were caught off guard and frustrated after it was published.