President Trump accused the media of calling him “a racist” after a Time reporter incorrectly reported that he had removed the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office.
“That’s a very serious charge. They’re not saying the bust is taken out, what they’re saying is I’m a racist. That’s what they’re saying,” Trump said in an interview with Sean Hannity that aired Thursday on Fox News.
Time’s White House correspondent Zeke Miller mistakenly reported that the bust had been removed after he had not seen it during a visit to the Oval Office last Friday.
Trump said he got “very angry” at his staff when media outlets started reporting the misinformation.
“I said, ‘who took that bust out?!’ because I wasn’t there. And they said it was never moved. It was in the same exact spot, it was never moved,” he said.
Miller issued a correction within an hour that the bust was still in the president’s office, saying it was “apparently obscured by a door and an agent.”
“That’s a very, very serious charge because that’s a racist charge,” Trump said. “Then, when it was revealed that they were wrong, nobody even talks about it.”
