Donald Trump almost didn’t take the stage at the National Association of Black Journalists conference earlier this week because he was terrified of being fact-checked.
The former president appeared on stage Wednesday more than an hour late to take part in a conversation moderated by ABC News’s senior congressional correspondent Rachel Scott, Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner, and Semafor’s political reporter Kadia Goba.
Trump quickly complained about the delayed start, saying it had taken half an hour for the NABJ to get their sound equipment to work. Apparently, he was trying to get ahead of something else.
While there were some audio problems, “the bigger problem was his threat not to take the stage when he had agreed to go on. He did not want to be fact-checked, but we could not let him on the stage without fact-checking,” NABJ president Ken Lemon told Axios in a story published Friday.
The NABJ had arranged for Trump’s interview to be simultaneously fact-checked online in collaboration with Politifact. At one point, Trump’s team requested that the NABJ not post fact-checking to its social media accounts, or allow the moderator to discuss the fact-checking on stage, according to Lemon.
“Our whole team stood our ground,” Lemon told Axios.
At one point, things got desperate. “I was prepared to go on stage to craft a statement, saying he decided not to go on stage because of fact-checking... we couldn’t compromise on that,” Lemon said.
But as Lemon drafted his statement, Trump finally walked on stage, Lemon said.
Trump spokesman Steven Cheung told Axios a different story. He said that Trump’s team waited “for close to 40 minutes while audio/technical issues were fixed by NABJ.”
Trump used his contentious appearance to launch racist attacks against Vice President Kamala Harris, including questioning her race as the crowd booed him.
Trump’s running mate, J.D. Vance, gushed to NOTUS Thursday, lauding Trump for being so brave about the whole event. “He actually goes into hostile audiences, he answers tough questions, he pushes back against them, but he actually answers them, and how nice it is to have an American leader who’s not afraid to go into hostile places and actually answer some tough questions,” Vance said.
However, it’s clear Trump is distinctly unwilling to go into hostile audiences, and was left scrambling for a way to back out when he knew his words would be held to account. His team ended up cutting off the event, which was scheduled to last an hour, after just 34 minutes. If his seething response to ABC’s Scott is any indication, Trump can’t take a tough question at all.
