President Trump agreed to sit for an interview with journalist Jeffrey Goldberg on Thursday despite his famous feud with the Atlantic editor who broke the story about top officials’ use of Signal chat to discuss U.S. attacks on the Houthis.
Conceding it’s a surprising choice to meet Goldberg, Trump said he wants to gauge whether the journalist will write a fair piece after what he called a string of unfair stories.
“I am doing this interview out of curiosity, and as a competition with myself, just to see if it’s possible for The Atlantic to be “truthful.” Are they capable of writing a fair story on ‘Trump’?” he wrote on his social media site.
Trump said Goldberg will interview him at the White House along with fellow Atlantic scribes Michael Scherer and Ashley Parker, whom he has also derided for critical coverage in the past.
The president said the trio wanted to interview him for an article entitled “The Most Consequential President of this Century.”
“The way I look at it, what can be so bad – I WON!” Trump wrote.
Goldberg didn’t immediately comment on Trump’s claim or the forthcoming story.
The president accused Goldberg of writing “fictional stories” about him, including the scoop that Trump called slain U.S. troops “suckers and losers” during his first term. Trump denies saying that, though former Chief of Staff John Kelly confirmed he actually did make the offensive statement.
Goldberg stumbled into one of the worst U.S. security lapses in recent memory when he was inadvertently added to a Signal group chat to discuss a strike on the pro-Iranian rebels in Yemen.
Goldberg initially revealed the existence of the chat group, which could have exposed military secrets to foreign hackers. When Trump administration officials suggested he mischaracterized the nature of the discussion, Goldberg published screenshots of the chat in full.
Trump appeared to give grudging praise to Goldberg for the Signal scoop, calling it a story “he was somewhat more ‘successful’ with.”
