President-elect Donald Trump in an exclusive interview on Fox News Monday morning said he is not looking for “retribution, grandstanding or to destroy people who treated me very unfairly”. He said he is in the process of transforming America into the greatest and most powerful country in the world which will have free, fair and open media. “In order to Make America Great Again, it is very important, if not vital, to have a free, fair and open media or press,” Trump said.
Trump’s interview came as MSNBC’s Morning Joe hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski announced in their program today that they went to Mar-a-Lago to meet the President-elect — to explore common ground, to patch things up and to collaborate without stopping to ask him questions. The meeting was a first in seven years and the anti-Trump hosts said Trump was upbeat and cheerful at the meeting.
Trump says he received a call from Joe Scarborough
In the Fox interview, Donald Trump reacted to his interaction with the ‘Morning Joe’ hosts and said he looks forward to such meetings with other media houses too. “I received a call from Joe Scarborough requesting a meeting for him and Mika, and I agreed that it would be a good thing if such meeting took place,” Trump said. “We met at Mar-a-Lago on Friday morning at 8:00.” “Many things were discussed, and I very much appreciated the fact that they wanted to have open communication,” he said. “In many ways, it’s too bad that it wasn’t done long ago.”
Trump added that they “congratulated me on running a ‘great and flawless campaign, one for the history books,’ which I really believe it was, but it was also a campaign where I worked long and hard — perhaps longer and harder than any presidential candidate in history.”
“We talked about various Cabinet members — both announced and to be announced. As expected, they like some very much, but not all,” Trump said. “The meeting ended in a very positive manner, and we agreed to speak in the future.”
“If not treated fairly, however, that will end,” Trump said. “The media is very important to the long-term success of the United States of America.”