Trump Discloses Meeting With NY Times Publisher

President Trump on Sunday disclosed details of a private meeting he had with the publisher of The New York Times, A. G. Sulzberger, and Mr. Sulzberger flatly disputed the president’s characterization of an exchange they had about threats to journalism, reports The NY Times.

Trump said on Twitter that he and Sulzberger had discussed “the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media.

A-G Sulzberger

In a five-paragraph statement issued two hours after the tweet, Sulzberger said he had accepted Trump’s invitation for the July 20 meeting mainly to raise his concerns about his “deeply troubling anti-press rhetoric.”

“I told the president directly that I thought that his language was not just divisive but increasingly dangerous,” said Sulzberger, who became publisher of The Times on Jan. 1.

“I told him that although the phrase ‘fake news’ is untrue and harmful, I am far more concerned about his labeling journalists ‘the enemy of the people,’” Mr. Sulzberger continued. “I warned that this inflammatory language is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence.”

Statement of A.G. Sulzberger, Publisher, The New York Times, in response to President Trump’s tweet about their meeting https://t.co/N6soZfxQZ7 pic.twitter.com/W9mFxCF0tp

— NYTimes Communications (@NYTimesPR) July 29, 2018

Trump has continued to assail the news media at rallies and even at more formal presidential events, encouraging his audiences to chant “CNN sucks!” and to vent their anger at the reporters assembled in the back.

The president invited Sulzberger to the Oval Office earlier this month, according to The Times, continuing a tradition of meetings between presidents and the paper’s publishers. James Bennet, the editorial page editor of The Times, accompanied Mr. Sulzberger to the meeting.

In a statement, Mercedes Schlapp, a White House communications adviser, said, “The president regularly meets with members of the media, and we can confirm this meeting took place.” She did not provide any further details of the meeting or explain why the president chose to publicize it.

The White House had requested that the meeting be kept off the record, according to the statement from The Times.

“But with Mr. Trump’s tweet this morning,” the statement said, “he has put the meeting on the record, so A. G. has decided to respond to the president’s characterization of their conversation, based on detailed notes A. G. and James took.”