Day 1,370: Trump storms out of ‘60 Minutes’ interview after not getting softball questions
Election Day is just 14 days away and Donald Trump still doesn’t have a cohesive message as to why he deserves four more years in office. In rallies, he has gone from even more unhinged ramblings to uncreative regurgitation of 2016 talking points.
So, in more re-upping of his favorite talking points, he seems to be settling on anti-media messages as often as ever.
At events he points at and lambastes the media. Before debates, he slanders moderators, hoping they’ll lob him softballs, or that their questions will be brushed away with later cries of bias. On Tuesday, he lashed out at perhaps the most famous TV broadcast news show in American history: “60 Minutes”. Trump threw a temper tantrum at getting at difficult questions — of the show’s hallmarks — at walked off, ending the interview early.
The drama unfolded after Trump was frustrated with the line of questioning and how the interview was being conducted, said one person familiar with the episode, while another in the room described the president as “pissed.”
The president spent more than 40 minutes with CBS News correspondent Lesley Stahl, and did not proceed to shoot a second portion of the interview that included Vice President Mike Pence. Following a short break, the president decided he had spent enough time in the interview, one White House official said. Pence went on to spend 15 minutes with Stahl and the “60 Minutes” crew.
“60 Minutes” also interviewed Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, both of whom finished their interviews as scheduled.
Trump tried a gotcha moment by noting that Stahl wasn’t wearing a mask after their interview (despite his mocking reporters for wearing masks, his demand that they remove them, and his disdain and skepticism for masks in general.)
Stahl wore a mask the entire time except for the brief snapshot of time that Trump tweeted, immediately subsequent to his storming off.
A person familiar with the situation told CNN that the image from the tweet shows Stahl with her producers immediately after Trump ended the interview. Stahl had not yet gone back to get her personal belongings to put her mask back on. She had a mask on from the time she entered the White House and just before the interview began.
Trump, still fuming hours later, tweeted that he was considering posting the entire interview before “60 Minutes” has a chance to air it on Sunday.
Trump has no real argument to win and he seems to realize that. Unable to fight Biden on this issues, Trump is trying to pick a fight with a familiar opponent, the media, despite their name not being on the ballot. Whether Americans are sick of that schtick and the rest of Trump’s sideshow will be known soon.
1,370 days in, 92 to go
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