The New York Times was scandalized that a president who’s supposed to be attending to important matters of governing with "heads of state, titans of industry, economic advisers, and public health specialists" spent “an hour in the Oval Office chatting with Harvey Levin, the tabloid emperor whose Los Angeles-based news site and television show are leading purveyors of gossip and scandal.”
It’s not really the gossip they’re upset about. Michael Grynbaum explained that Levin and Trump were discussing another softball interview for Fox News and Levin’s new show Objectified, based off a Fox special from last November. The Friday night special pulled in 4 million viewers, good numbers for a cable news program going into the weekend.
No one at the Times was upset when Barack Obama met with softball interviewers, from bowing Brian Williams to the somewhat more respectable YouTube star who sat in a bathbub filled with milk and Froot Loops.
One of Obama’s favorite softball interviewers was Barbara Walters, so it’s only fitting Grynbaum would compare Levin to Walters:
His interview with Mr. Trump, filmed in September, was a Barbara Walters-style, soft-toned profile of the Republican presidential nominee, who reminisced at length about his childhood in Queens, military academy education, reality television career and rise to prominence.
Mr. Levin’s questions tended to be friendly. “Who are you? Who is Donald Trump?” he asked.
“Always a very tough question,” Mr. Trump replied.
