President Trump ripped the New York Times on Friday morning for stating he had not spoken with Chinese President Xi Jinping since November and not mentioning the two leaders’ phone call on Thursday, even though the first sentence of an updated story references the recent call.
Trump and Xi spoke for the first time since his inauguration Thursday night and the New York Times reported on the call with a story. The first sentence of the story mentions that Trump and Xi spoke on the phone and later on in the story, the Times states Xi and Trump had not spoken “since Nov. 14, the week after he was elected.”
“The failing @nytimes does major FAKE NEWS China story saying ‘Mr.Xi has not spoken to Mr. Trump since Nov.14.’ We spoke at length yesterday!” Trump tweeted.
The website NewsDiffs shows the Times reported on a letter sent from Trump to Xi wishing him a happy Chinese New Year, published early Thursday morning. An update to the story was published at 9:30 p.m. revealing Trump and Xi had not spoken since Nov. 14.
About an hour later, the Times updated the story again with the details on the call between Xi and Trump. Trump tweeted about the Times story about 10 hours after the report was updated. The national print edition on Friday contained the unupdated story published before the call.
The failing @nytimes does major FAKE NEWS China story saying “Mr.Xi has not spoken to Mr. Trump since Nov.14.” We spoke at length yesterday!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 10, 2017
Trump has been a major critic of the Times during the election and the early days of his presidency.
In the call, Trump reportedly told Xi he would honor the One-China policy, an issue that was thrown into doubt when Trump last year spoke with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen.
This story has been updated with more details about the New York Times’ publishing process.
