Trump Secretly Called Xi, Then Blamed the New York Times for ‘Fake News’

Much of the background of Trump’s call with Xi was reported on by the New York Times, in an article published online Thursday evening and in the print edition of the paper on Friday. The newspaper’s reporting suggested the conversation between the two leaders was predicated by an agreement with Xi that Trump would publicly back “One China.” This would be a major reversal for Trump after the American president sent contrary signals (capped by the call with Taiwan’s president) during his transition about a shakeup in U.S.-China relations.

While the administration claims plans for the call with Xi had been in motion for days, the effort began in earnest on Wednesday, when national security advisor Mike Flynn and his deputy, K.T. McFarland, visited the Chinese ambassador at the embassy in Washington Wednesday morning. As the Times reported, Flynn and McFarland hand-delivered a letter from Trump to the ambassador in an attempt to warm relations. And as a White House source tells THE WEEKLY STANDARD, the visit also began the process of finding a time to place the call this week.

By Thursday morning, the phone call was scheduled for Thursday night, Washington time, at 8:30 p.m. The Times reported that Secretary of State Rex Tillerson “met with officials at the White House to discuss issuing a statement about relations with China.” It’s unclear how much more involved Tillerson and the State Department were in setting up the call; a State Department spokesperson referred all questions about the conversation to the White House.

Meanwhile, the Times had begun working on a piece about U.S.-China relations. Reporter Mark Landler had emailed the White House Wednesday to alert them the Times was preparing a story, and his colleague Maggie Haberman called a White House source on Thursday afternoon just before 4:00 pm. Neither was informed by the White House that the call with Xi would occur later on Thursday evening. Landler sent an email at 7:14 p.m., just over an hour before the phone call, to the White House asking about the administration’s position One China. But Landler received no response, and so the Times published a story online at 9:00 p.m. that began with this:

Trump, the article went on to say, had not spoken with Xi since November 14. That wasn’t true, since Trump had just begun his call with Trump half an hour before the Times story ran. But the call with Xi had not been made public, so the story ran with this detail. It was only after the administration released a readout of the call at 11:04 p.m.—two hours after the initial Times story ran—that the paper updated the article online. At least one version of the print edition of Friday’s Times had the original lead, which may have prompted President Trump to tweet this Friday morning:

So, to recap: The New York Times began inquiring at the White House about a story on U.S.-Chinese relations on Wednesday, just as efforts by the administration to coordinate a call between Trump and Xi were underway. By Thursday, the call with Xi had been scheduled, and the Times made a final contact with the White House before running its story. No one in the White House tipped off the Times that the call would occur Thursday night. And even after the online version had been corrected to reflect newly obtained facts, President Trump accused the paper of “fake news” for an incomplete story that ran in its early print edition.

And what does all this drama about “fake news” and an unreported phone call obscure? The fact that Trump’s Chinese policy had become more conciliatory toward Beijing than what he had been indicating during the campaign and transition.

Ethan Epstein contributed reporting to this piece.