TV anchors talk when Donald Trump calls your phone in roundtable

'It just shows how closely he watches these things'

Christopher Hooton
Thursday 13 April 2017 11:21 BST
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Following the success of its actor and director roundtables, The Hollywood Reporter has staged one with top broadcast news anchors.

Jake Tapper, Savannah Guthrie, George Stephanopoulous, Bret Baier and Gayle King discussed fake news, the importance of accurate reporting and, of course, President Trump.

The new POTUS loves to call out the press and specific members of it, which led to this interesting exchange (watch the roundtable in full below):

Donald Trump has been known to call reporters. Has he ever called any of you?

STEPHANOPOULOS: Oh yeah.

TAPPER: Yep. As candidate.

BAIER: Candidate.

STEPHANOPOULOS: I got one as president-elect. And again, it just shows how closely he watches these things. It was right before the inauguration. I was on with [ABC News White House correspondent] Jon Karl, it was when George H.W. Bush was in the hospital. This is a 90-second two-way on GMA, we pointed out that George H.W. Bush didn't vote for him. Bam. He calls up two hours later. He read Bush's letter [apologizing for missing the inauguration] to us over the phone and said, "I just wanted you to know this."

KING: And what was your response?

STEPHANOPOULOS: I kept him on the phone as long as I could, you know? (Laughter.)

BAIER: He used to call about polls at the beginning of the race when he was kind of low in the polls. He'd [say], "Where's this poll?" And, "You're putting out the wrong poll."

STEPHANOPOULOS: Polls and ratings. He would call after the Sunday show and say, "How did you do," or "Did I put you over the top?"

GUTHRIE: In 2011, when he was flirting with the run, Chuck [Todd, NBC's political director] and I used to have [an MSNBC] show, so we'd sometimes mention him, and he would call us and be kind of irritated if he didn't feel like we were taking it seriously. And I don't think it was Trump, but somebody from the Trump Organization forwarded us some Apprentice ratings as proof, I guess, of his political viability.

KING: He is very ferocious about his children. I got a call from [someone in] his office; "Mr. Trump wants to get in touch with you. What's the best address?" And he ended up sending me a picture and a note about an interview I'd done with Ivanka, just to say how much he enjoyed that.

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