MSNBC anchor jokes Trump told her to ‘go f*** myself’ when she called for an interview
Stephanie Ruhle contrasted the relative ease that she had connecting to Trump with the beauracratic barries she’s faced when attempting to reach out to President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.MSNBC anchor Stephanie Ruhle joked that President-elect Donald Trump told her to ‘go f*** myself” after she tried to set up an interview with him before the election to discuss his Madson Square Garden campaign rally.
While noting that Trump profanely brushed off her invitation for a sitdown, Ruhle also used this anecdote as an example of how much more accessible Trump is to the press than President Joe Biden or Vice President Kamala Harris, who she claimed are nearly impossible to contact due to buffers put up by their staffs.
Appearing on Lukas Thimm’s live variety stage show So Many Issues, Ruhle brought up the wild MSG rally in October, which was described as “an orgy of fascism” and sparked outrage after a right-wing comic called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.” Ruhle said she “rolled the dice” and decided to call up Trump to see if he’d agree to talk to her about the fallout.
“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,” she noted. “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.”
According to Ruhle, the moral of the story was that she could quickly get Trump on the horn in a matter of minutes.
As for the current president and the then-Democratic presidential nominee, the process wasn’t nearly so simple.
“But my point is, I was able to get to him by dialing his phone. Now that might be completely apesh*t and you’re like, ‘I can’t believe people know this guy’s phone number,’ but the reverse of that, if I were to want to connect with VP Harris or President Biden, there’s 50 people between me and that,” she declared. “I could write a note that maybe could get to somebody to get somebody, then through Pony Express and a pigeon something might end up in a mailbox near them.”
In the end, Ruhle pointed out that even though she was able to dial up Trump right away, it still didn’t mean that he was going to agree to talk to the MSNBC host about the rally, especially considering his well-established animosity towards the liberal cable news network.
“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 concluded in jest to laughter.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments