MSNBC broadcaster Stephanie Ruhle praised the ease of access to Donald Trump during the election campaign despite the President-elect effectively telling her to pound sand when trying to arrange an interview.
Ruhle contacted the Republican in the wake of his epic Madison Square Garden rally just days before November’s election. During Lukas Thimm’s live variety stage show “So Many Issues,” Ruhle called Trump to discuss the fallout after Tony Hinchliffe’s “floating island of garbage” joke about Puerto Rico.
She said:
I wasn’t calling to chit-chat. I said, ‘Mr. President, this is Stephanie Ruhle, you made a lot of comments last night,’ blah-blah-blah. It was not an on-the-record conversation, so I’m not going to get into what he said. But I called for one reason. I said, ‘You just said a whole bunch of public things. I’d like to sit down for an interview with you. We’ve got five days before the election.’ So we didn’t get anything, there’s nothing for me to report. I called, I said I want an interview. Obviously, he said no.
Ruhle noted the differences between Trump and then-presidential rival Kamala Harris and President Joe Biden, suggesting “there’s 50 people” in the way of a potential interview.
“And I called DJT to say, ‘Yo, can I get an interview?’ And he told me to go f*** myself, but I still was able to connect with him,” she jokingly concluded.
Throughout the campaign, Harris largely avoided the media until a last-minute media spree as election day drew closer. The owner of Time magazine slammed the Democrat for ignoring interview requests back in October, while podcaster Joe Rogan – who interviewed and later endorsed Trump – detailed the strict conditions for any interview he conducted with the Vice President.
Social media commentors noted the differences between the two candidates.
Others noted how Ruhle received a response from Trump, even if it was not one she was looking for.
