Update: The meeting is hereby uncancelled .. or unfired.. or whatever:
The meeting with the @nytimes is back on at 12:30 today. Look forward to it!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016
Donald Trump publicly announced that he had canceled a meeting with The New York Times this morning.
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
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 22, 2016
In an epic “he said, she said” the Grey Lady responded with a tweet of their own:
Donald Trump canceled today's meeting with The New York Times. NYT's response: https://t.co/ucRTTwezpG pic.twitter.com/MdBCKanmY0
— The New York Times (@nytimes) November 22, 2016
Could it have been that the Times was not going to put any time in with the future President of the United States unless they could make some money from it?
Putting the scant and difficult to verify information together, add in a large dose of creative license, and here is how negotiations may (or may not) have gone:
Trump staff: Hey, NYT, would you like to have a meeting with the future President?
NYT staff: Sure.
Trump staff: Mr. Trump would like this meeting to be off-the-record.
NYT staff: Uh, we could do a small off-the-record thing, but to do this, we need a larger session with him that we can use to sell papers.
Trump staff: We’ll talk with Mr. Trump about it.
Trump staff: Mr. Trump wants this to be an off-the-record discussion.
NYT staff: That won’t work for us, but we’ll agree to that thing we proposed before – you know where he gets a small off-the-record session and we get a larger one that makes us money.
Trump staff: Mr. Trump still doesn’t like that plan, he’ll let you know his decision shortly through the normal communication channel.
NYT staff: uh-oh…
Until more details become available, we’ll just have to imagine how much fun Trump’s staff had watching a hostile media outlet attempt to negotiate anything with Donald Trump.
This might be a very long presidency for the NY Times.
