NEW YORK: Trump cancelled a meeting with reporters and editors from The New York Times, scheduled for Tuesday, only to reverse himself hours later. “I cancelled today’s meeting with the failing @nytimes when the terms and conditions of the meeting were changed at the last moment. Not nice,” Trump tweeted early on Tuesday morning, the media reported. “Perhaps a new meeting will be set up with the @nytimes. In the meantime they continue to cover me inaccurately and with a nasty tone!” he added in a second tweet minutes later. He continued his tirade against the newspaper, writing that “the failing @nytimes just announced that complaints about them are at a 15 year high. I can fully understand that - but why announce?”A Times spokeswoman told Politico, it learned of the meeting’s cancellation from Trump’s Twitter account on Tuesday morning. She disputed Trump’s claim that the Times had attempted to change the terms of its meeting with the president-elect.

“We were unaware the meeting was canceled until we saw the president-elect’s tweet this morning. We did not change the ground rules at all and made no attempt to,” Times spokeswoman Eileen Murphy said in a statement emailed to Politico. Hope Hicks, Trump spokesperson, told reporters at Trump Tower the meeting was back on. “Mr. Trump’s staff has told us that the President Elect’s meeting with The Times is on again,” Murphy of the Times confirmed. “He will meet with our publisher off-the-record and that session will be followed by an on-the-record meeting with our journalists and editorial columnists.”

Published in Dawn, November 23rd, 2016