Establishment media figures again leaked information from an off-the-record meeting with President Donald Trump on Tuesday prior to his State of the Union address.
Citing “multiple people in the room” at the White House, the New York Times noted that the president ridiculed possible presidential challengers in 2020 as well as Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer.
“Schumer can be a nasty son of a bitch,” Trump said, according to the report.
He described former Vice President Joe Biden as a “terrible student.”
“His gaffes are unbelievable,” Trump said. “When I say something that you might think is a gaffe, it’s on purpose; it’s not a gaffe. When Biden says something dumb, it’s because he’s dumb.”
The president also noted that Sen. Elizabeth Warren continued to struggle with her false claim of Native American heritage.
“I hope I haven’t wounded Pocahontas too badly,” he said. “I’d like to run against her.”
He also commented with disbelief about Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam’s botched reaction to a yearbook photo that included a man in blackface and a man in a KKK robe.
“Did you see that news conference?” Trump asked reporters. “Could you believe it? He choked like a dog.”
Prominent media figures invited to the lunch included CNN’s Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer, Fox News’s Chris Wallace and Martha MacCallum, ABC’s George Stephanopoulos and David Muir, NBC’s Savannah Guthrie and Lester Holt, and CBS’s Margaret Brennan.
Journalist Greta Van Susteren also attended the lunch, expressing frustration that details of the meeting leaked.
“Maybe it is the lawyer in me…but when you give your word, you should keep it, regardless of who is President,” she wrote on Twitter. “This is [an] annual lunch and many Presidents have cordially invited the anchors..and sooner or later, a Pres will get mad about not honoring word and not hold these”:
Maybe it is the lawyer in me…but when you give your word, you should keep it, regardless of who is President…this is annual lunch and many Presidents have cordially invited the anchors..and sooner or later, a Pres will get mad about not honoring word and not hold these https://t.co/KxF4YlmTtc
— Greta Van Susteren (@greta) February 6, 2019
The only details of the lunch were about the president, not the questions or behavior of the journalists who were invited.
“There was no overriding urgency or importance to warrant any of the leaks and of course the leaks were of no great consequence, either,” Van Susteren wrote. “It just chips away at the honor of ‘off the record.'”
Last month, details of an off-the-record lunch prior to the president’s prime time speech on border security also leaked to the New York Times, prompting a reaction from the president.
“Gave an OFF THE RECORD luncheon, somewhat of a White House tradition or custom, to network anchors yesterday – and they quickly leaked the contents of the meeting,” he wrote in January. “Who would believe how bad it has gotten with the mainstream media, which has gone totally bonkers!”:
Gave an OFF THE RECORD luncheon, somewhat of a White House tradition or custom, to network anchors yesterday – and they quickly leaked the contents of the meeting. Who would believe how bad it has gotten with the mainstream media, which has gone totally bonkers!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 10, 2019
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