President Donald Trump reportedly clashed with his TIME magazine reporter during a recent sit-down, accusing the publication of focusing only on alleged negativity before launching into an expletive-filled complaint.
Donald Trump reportedly objected to questions asked during his TIME interview
The rupture came as Trump fielded a question about whether Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) should step down because of his declining health. Rather than stay on topic, the president veered into a broader grievance about the interview itself (via HuffPost).
“You haven’t asked me one f***ing positive question,” Trump told the reporter. “All of this. What about this? What about that? What about that? What about this? All negative. Why are you devoting all this time to the White House?”
Trump had appeared to still be addressing an earlier question about pardoning members of his administration before his term expires when his answer spiraled. He contrasted his situation with former President Joe Biden’s pardons, complaining about what he saw as a double standard.
“So that’s just — well, Sleepy Joe gave pardons to everybody,” Trump said. “He gave them to Fauci. He gave them to this. But you mean I’m not allowed to give them, but Sleepy Joe’s allowed to give them? This ain’t gonna be much of a story.”
From there, Trump pivoted to defending his renovations of the White House and insisted he deserved credit for the work. “Now it’s perfect, and I would say that I should be given credit for fixing the White House because I’m also doing very well with the war,” he said. “I’m doing very well with another war that we already won, Venezuela. Do you notice you haven’t asked me a question about Venezuela?”
The interviewer pointed out that Venezuela had come up earlier, but Trump brushed the correction aside. “No, but I’m just thinking to myself, fake news. But I have a lot of respect. I like the owner, good guy,” he said, referencing TIME owner Marc Benioff. “But I don’t understand. I’m sitting here. I’ve done all this stuff.”
TIME‘s published article, written by Eric Cortellessa under the title “What Trump Has Built,” made no mention of the blowup. The exchange surfaced only in the transcript.
