Trump meets with NYC media executives, including longtime foe Graydon Carter
NEW YORK -- President-elect Donald Trump sat down Friday with executives at Conde Nast, a magazine chain whose editors have frequently been his foes.
The 90-minute, off-the-record meeting, which underscores Mr. Trump’s unusual relationship with the press, comes just days before he is slated to hold his first news conference as president-elect, an event normally scheduled just days after Election Day. Mr. Trump tweeted early Friday that he had been asked to attend the meeting by Vogue Editor, Anna Wintour.
Wintour is a longtime admirer of President Barack Obama and his family. She supported and raised money for Trump’s general election opponent, Hillary Clinton. Another attendee, New Yorker editor David Remnick, has repeatedly been critical of Trump.
And, perhaps most notably, Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter famously described Mr. Trump as a “short-fingered vulgarian” and from his tenure at Spy Magazine in the mid-1980s until now, has repeatedly mocked the celebrity businessman. The February issue of Vanity Fair contains Mr. Trump’s recent tweet about the magazine - which deemed the publication “Way down, big trouble, dead! Graydon Carter, no talent, will be out!” - on its cover.
Steven Newhouse, who oversees digital strategy for Advance Publications, which owns Conde Nast and others, was also in attendance and was described by Mr. Trump in his tweet as “a friend.”
Representatives at Conde Nast and a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump declined to comment on the meeting, citing its off-the-record nature.
The trip to the Conde Nast headquarters at the One World Trade Center skyscraper evoked a similar trip Mr. Trump took in late November to meet with reporters and editors at The New York Times. Though that meeting was on the record, both the Times and the Conde Nast publications have for decades loomed large for Mr. Trump in New York and have received an outsized share of his attention.
Mr. Trump made his antagonistic relationship with the media a centerpiece of his campaign, inciting his rally crowds to boo the press, singling out individual reporters with derogatory names like “sleazebag” and using Twitter to attack coverage he didn’t like. That conflict has continued during the transition. Since his election, Mr. Trump has sat for a few interviews and occasionally has fielded reporters’ shouted questions.
No modern president-elect has waited as long as Mr. Trump to hold a full-fledged press conference. His last was in July, a drought of more than 150 days. That is slated to end on Wednesday, as Mr. Trump’s aides have said he will take questions on his divestment from his business and other matters during a press conference in New York.