President-elect Donald Trump met with reporters for a 30 minute off-the-record gathering in his Palm Beach home Sunday night.
The pool reported that Trump was joined by Melania Trump, Reince Priebus, Kellyanne Conway, Stephen Miller and Jason Miller. A photo posted by a reporter present shows 21 mostly happy journalists posing with Trump.
Christmas @ Mar-a-Lago: @realDonaldTrump, relaxed and chatty, hosts press for drinks — off-record but pics OK @axios pic.twitter.com/lysW7FHzIl
— Mike Allen (@mikeallen) December 19, 2016
There was varied reactions from reporters who didn’t attend. A reporter who had been criticized after leaked emails revealed they attended off-the-record dinners hosted by John Podesta wondered if there would be a similar response to this meeting. The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman said on Twitter, “Will the same people who treated the Podesta dinner like some kind of conspiracy react same to Trump/reporters evening?”
Politico reporter Marc Caputo tweeted, “Trump shouldve had a press conference or 2 by now, but are reporters supposed to foot-stomp & refuse to talk to him off record as a result?”
The Los Angeles Times’ national reporter Matt Pearce said “Hell yeah” they should not have met. And MTV News’ Jamil Smith responded to Caputo by saying, “You make resistance to an authoritarian who endangers journalists sound like the behavior of whiny children. It is anything but.”