Washington: US president-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday scrapped a scheduled meeting with The New York Times and within hours reversed his decision and rescheduled it, after chastising the "failing" daily for changing the terms and
conditions of the interview and for being "not nice" to him.
Trump in a series of early morning tweets informed that he had backed out of the interview he had called with The Times. "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 said in a tweet about the newspaper he has repeatedly clashed for what he alleges was its unfair coverage of him.
"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 said in another tweet. "The failing @nytimes just announced that complaints about them are at a 15-year high. I can fully understand that - but why announce?" he said in his third tweet of the day.
In another tweet, Trump said, "Great meetings will take place today at Trump Tower concerning the formation of the people who will run" his government for the next eight years. But later a Trump spokeswoman said: "The meeting is taking place as planned."
The Times also released a statement saying Trump's staff informed them that his "meeting with The Times is on again." "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," its spokesman Eileen Murphy said.
Later, Trump again tweeted confirming his meeting with The Times. "The meeting with the @nytimes is back on at 12:30 today. Look forward to it!" The apparent U-turn came a day after Trump berated media chiefs at Trump Tower for their "unfair" election coverage.
During the campaign, the New York billionaire often railed at the coverage of The Times, which had endorsed Democrat Hillary Clinton for president, as biased against him.
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