Trump Wanted a Softball Interview. ABC’s David Muir Obliged.
With the sort of near-mystical media savvy on which Donald Trump built his celebrity brand as a novice politician and reality-television star, his White House aides specifically asked for World News Tonight anchor David Muir—and not chief anchor George Stephanopoulos, according to knowledgeable people—to conduct Trump’s first broadcast television interview of the COVID-19 pandemic.
It was This Week and Good Morning America host Stephanopoulos, a seasoned Democratic political operative-turned-astute political journalist, who, in a series of interviews with the president over two days last June, produced a headline-making primetime special notable for Trump’s self-immolating bombshell that he’d welcome dirt on a political rival from a foreign government.
This time, while Trump was willing to venture from the safety of Fox News toward the potential hazards but bigger audience of ABC—a calculated risk as he faces an increasingly difficult re-election race in which his approval ratings have plummeted for his mishandling of a pandemic that has killed more than 72,000 Americans—Stephanopoulos was apparently a risk too far.
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