NYTimes Reporter Denies Calling Trump 'Racist'

New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin is pushing back against an upcoming book alleging that he once berated a Republican National Committee (RNC) staffer in a phone call and referred to President Trump as a "racist" and a "fascist."

An excerpt of the book, "Media Madness: Donald Trump, the Press, and the War Over the Truth" by Fox News host Howard Kurtz, claims that, during the 2016 presidential race, Martin allegedly called the staffer "complicit" in Trump's "racist" and "fascist" behavior, according to a CNN report.

"Donald Trump is racist and a fascist, we all know it, and you are complicit," the book quotes Martin as saying. "By supporting him you're all culpable."

Martin denied in an email to The Hill that he ever made such a remark, saying that it did not sound like something he — or anyone else in the news business — would say.

Meanwhile, Politico reports the veteran media reporter and Fox News host Howard Kurtz portrays the news media as excessively negative in its treatment of President Donald Trump and essentially serving as opposition to the White House.

Howard Kurtz

“Many are misguided in their belief that they are doing the right thing, and myopic in their rationalizations about why it’s perfectly fine to treat Trump differently than other presidents,” Kurtz writes.

Conservative publisher Regnery will release on Jan. 29.

Though Kurtz does chronicle chaos in the West Wing, as The Washington Post noted in a Sunday night piece on excerpts from the forthcoming book, the author is generally sympathetic toward Trump in terms of his relationship with the media. Presumably, Trump will be much happier with Kurtz’s analysis than Michael Wolff’s in “Fire and Fury,” the bombshell bestseller that depicted Trump as ignorant and incompetent.

“The past two years have radicalized me,” Kurtz writes. “I am increasingly troubled by how many of my colleagues have decided to abandon any semblance of fairness out of a conviction that they must save the country from Trump.”