Trump lit out after Zucker, criticizing his former business partner (Zucker was head of NBC during Trump’s Apprentice franchise on the network) for CNN. He turned then to NBC, saying it was the worst, criticizing its reporters, and saying it could not even come up with a flattering picture to broadcast. His complaint: the network’s photographs showed him with multiple chins. NBC President Deborah Turness replied that wasn’t true — NBC right now is using a photograph that shows Trump in very flattering way, she said. Trump also criticized a reporter, who he said was in the room, who had moderated a debate but who he had been told was very upset when Clinton lost. Presumably that was a reference to ABC’s Martha Raddatz or NBC’s Lester Holt.
Conway interceded to say that the new Trump administration appreciated the press corps’ hard work during the campaign and wanted a reset on its relationship to the press. Trump concurred and repeated the point, though he said he disliked the phrase “reset” because it reminded him of Clinton’s initial outreach to the Russians when she was starting as Secretary of State.
Trump said he wanted a relationship with the press that was “cordial and productive.” CBS’s Gayle King asked what would constitute such a relationship, but it wasn’t clear what that meant beyond off the record meetings such as that one.
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