The good, the bad and the ugly of Donald Trump’s appearance with NABJ

Before Donald Trump even took the stage on Wednesday for a Q&A with reporters at the National Association of Black Journalists gathering in Chicago, there was a major split about whether he should have been invited in the first place.

After the Q&A abruptly came to an end and in the hours that followed, the controversy was alive and well, and the divide remained far and wide.

For many, it was an insightful interview that showed the public exactly what Trump thinks and how he acts, and validated the reason for inviting him. For others, it was a dumpster fire of chaos that accomplished very little except to prove NABJ made a mistake in inviting him to spew insults and dodge valid questions.

Perhaps those differing viewpoints were partially based on how people felt before the Q&A.

Going into Wednesday, some believed that a candidate for president absolutely should be invited to such an important convention. There, seasoned journalists could ask the candidate tough questions about their policies and resumé, and get insight on the topics that affect the Black community.

On the other side, the argument was that Trump is not a normal candidate, and that he should not be given a platform to continue rhetoric that they feel has been disrespectful to Black Americans and journalists, and the media overall.

The whole event was surreal. It started more than 75 minutes late. Some reported that was because Trump’s team didn’t want the event fact-checked in real time. Others, including Trump, said it was because of audio issues. By the time Trump took the stage with moderators Harris Faulkner (Fox News), Kadia Goba (Semafor) and Rachel Scott (ABC News), patience was already thin and tensions were already bubbling.

It turned up a notch with Scott’s first question and, especially, Trump’s answer.

Here’s what happened:

Scott asked, “I want to start by addressing the elephant in the room, sir. A lot of people did not think it was appropriate for you to be here today. You have pushed false claims about some of your rivals, from Nikki Haley to former President Barack Obama, saying that they were not born in the United States, which is not true. You have told four congresswomen of color who were American citizens to go back to where they came from. You have used words like ‘animal’ and ‘rabid’ to describe Black district attorneys. You've attacked Black journalists, calling them a loser, saying the questions that they ask are, quote, stupid and racist. You've had dinner with a white supremacist at your Mar-a-Lago resort. So my question, sir, now that you are asking Black supporters to vote for you: Why should Black voters trust you after you have used language like that?”

Trump immediately lost his cool, saying, “I don’t think I’ve ever been asked a question in such a horrible manner. A first question. You don’t even say hello, how are you? Are you with ABC, because I think they’re a fake news network, a terrible network. I think it’s disgraceful that I came here in good spirits. I love the Black population of this country, I’ve done so much for the Black population of this country.”

Trump wasn’t done with Scott, saying, “I think it’s a very nasty question. For you to start off a question and answer period especially when you’re 35 minutes late … in such a hostile manner, I think it’s a disgrace.”

And with that, we were off.

That’s where the divide among those watching really set in. Some of it had to do with Trump’s answers and behavior. Some of it had to do with the performance of the moderators. The opinions were all over the place.

Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, who stepped down as co-chair of NABJ after it was announced that Trump would appear, was very critical on X during and after the Q&A session.

She tweeted:

• “I’m stunned at how horrible this is.”
• “I am so angry right now. N.A.B.J., this was a colossal mistake.”
• After it was over, she tweeted, “Room is boiling with anger and disappointment right now.”

Then again, CNN’s Abby Phillip tweeted, “Incredibly proud of @rachelvscott and @kadiagoba today. Substantive but tough questioning. NABJ leadership made a decision grounded in journalism to have Trump come answer questions. And it produced one of the newsiest interviews with him this year.”

Annie Karni, a congressional correspondent for The New York Times, tweeted that it was the “best televised questioning” of Trump since he was interviewed by then-Axios reporter Jonathan Swan in 2020 on HBO.

Washington Post media critic Erik Wemple tweeted, “The NABJ journos did an excellent job of pressing former President Trump with straightforward and important questions. An excellent session. Interviewing a presidential candidate — Trump or whoever it may be — is precisely what journalists should do at their conventions.”

New York Times editorial writer Mara Gay wrote, “The journalists at the event did the country a service. Much of that work was done by Rachel Scott of ABC News.”

I found the interview to be a mixed bag. There were good moments and decent questions. But there also didn’t seem to be a unified strategy among the three moderators. It felt like three separate one-on-one interviews instead of a cohesive conversation. It felt disjointed and hurried, as if the moderators didn’t even talk to each other ahead of time about how to handle the interview. There were even occasions when it felt like a press conference with moderators talking over one another, trying to get a question in.

Faulkner offered Trump a couple of softballs, including a question that allowed him to swing away at the current economy under President Joe Biden. Harris did try to pin Trump down on what he would do to change that, but he didn’t really get into specifics.

That leads us to the usual problem with Trump interviews: His answers did not match the questions.

Appearing on CNN, NPR’s Eric Deggans, an NABJ member, said the event turned out the way many critics feared it would with Trump saying things that were insulting and not true, and not directly answering the questions he was asked.

Deggans said, “I think Donald Trump is very much a chaos agent when it comes to politics and when it comes to interviews with journalists. And you have to have a very specific and focused strategy for trying to break through that to actually get him to answer questions that you want to know the answers to. And I think unfortunately, whatever strategy they had for trying to question him didn't get to what needed to happen, which was to figure out how to sort of pin him down and challenge him when he says things that aren't true. So unfortunately, I think it turned out the way a lot of critics of his appearance expected and we didn't learn as much as we hoped we might learn.”

Deggans said it was important to have a presidential nominee attend so he could be asked specific questions about issues that impact Black voters, as well as other topics.

However, Deggans said, Trump is not your normal presidential candidate.

“He requires a very specific and focused strategy,” Deggans said, “So I think the interview probably didn't unfold the way some of us would have hoped because when you ask a question, but then the answer doesn't relate to the question that you asked then you're not really finding out the answer to the issues that are really on your mind or that you really want the candidate to address. And there was a lot of that going on through this interview where a question would be asked and he would answer the question that he wanted to answer.”

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Trump’s performance

While one can debate NABJ’s decision to have Trump at its convention, as well as the performance of the moderators, there is very little debate that Trump’s appearance was an unmitigated disaster for the former president.

Jessica Tarlov, who is the liberal voice on Fox News’ “The Five,” said on air, “My reaction is it was a complete, absolute dumpster fire for the former president. I don't feel the need to give him any credit for showing up there because he came with a terrible attitude.”

Tarlov said Trump hit “all his regular hits, lying about his record.” She added that Trump’s comments about Harris’ race were “offensive.”

Those comments? Almost too outrageous to believe.

Trump was asked by Scott about Republicans who have called Harris a “DEI hire” and whether he agrees with that. After tangling with Scott about the definition of “DEI,” Trump said, “She was always of Indian heritage, and she was only promoting Indian heritage. I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago, when she happened to turn Black, and now she wants to be known as Black. So I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”

He added, “I respect either one, but she obviously doesn’t, because she was Indian all the way, and then all of a sudden she made a turn and she went — she became a Black person. I think somebody should look into that, too.”

It’s unfathomable that this has to be stated, but The Associated Press puts it this way: “Harris is the daughter of a Jamaican father and an Indian mother, both immigrants to the U.S. As an undergraduate, Harris attended Howard University, one of the nation’s most prominent historically Black colleges and universities, where she also pledged the historically Black sorority Alpha Kappa Alpha. As a U.S. senator, Harris was a member of the Congressional Black Caucus, supporting her colleagues’ legislation to strengthen voting rights and reforming policing.”

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was read what Trump said and responded by saying, “As a person of color, as a Black woman in this position … what he just said, what you just read out to me is repulsive, it’s insulting. No one has any right to tell someone how they identify.”

Appearing on CNN, Republican strategist Shermichael Singleton said, “You need to be careful with this crap. As far as every Black person in America is concerned, she is Black. … To question the vice president’s ethnicity — I can’t even say what I really want to say about this.”

He added: “I think a lot of Black people will watch this appearance and then they will point to the former president and they will point to the Republican Party and say this is why we will never give you all the majority of our support.”

Ultimately, many could argue that despite Trump’s answers and the jumbled nature of the event, it did produce more examples of Trump’s attitudes and personality. And by that measure, inviting Trump to the event could be viewed as a success.

Politico’s Eli Stokols wrote, “In his most watched public appearance since Harris took over for Biden atop the Democratic ticket, Trump’s coarse, cutting and at times snappish responses, including calling one of Scott’s questions ‘nasty,’ showed him to be very much the same person he has always been despite the assassination attempt earlier this month that he initially claimed had changed his outlook and approach.”

The New York Times’ Jonathan Weisman, Maya King and Zolan Kanno-Youngs summed it up this way: “Mr. Trump’s remarks prompted gasps and jeers from the audience at the National Association of Black Journalists in Chicago. The former president’s combative appearance there was one of the most unusual of the campaign so far as he sparred with reporters over diversity efforts, repeated falsehoods about a range of subjects and told the group that he was ‘the best president for the Black population’ since Abraham Lincoln.”

Perhaps even Trump’s handlers knew the Q&A was such a mess for Trump that they cut off what was reportedly planned to be an hourlong session after 35 minutes.

CNN’s Sara Sidner, who was in attendance in Chicago, said, “Every time he (was) asked a question, his response was to attack (the questioner) first and then to meander around the question oftentimes. There was disappointment in the room. People wanted to hear what his policies were, and were hoping that maybe he would have a little bit more of a robust conversation when it comes to some of the issues that directly affect the Black community. And what they got instead was something of a tug-of-war between him and the questioners who he did not like the questions from.”

In the room

My colleague Kerwin Speight, who is on Poynter’s faculty and an NABJ member, was in the room for Trump’s Q&A and filed this report.

Speight writes about the two exchanges that he found particularly illuminating, including the part when Trump questioned Harris’ ethnicity and said, “Is she Indian or is she Black?”

Speight wrote, “The audience — predominantly Black — let out a collective gasp.”

Speight went on to write, “I go to NABJ almost every year to see old friends, acquire new knowledge and become a better journalist. This is the organization that supports and nurtures Black journalists so they can do the work that fuels democracy. I went to Trump’s appearance because I wanted to see him answer tough questions that Black Americans care about. Now that it’s over, I do not anticipate that the controversy over whether NABJ should have invited Trump will end anytime soon. I’m OK with that.”

He finished by writing, “A comment I overheard as the event concluded sums it up, ‘That went about as expected.’”

The facts of the matter

Poynter’s PolitiFact was all over the Trump Q&A. Louis Jacobson, Samantha Putterman and Maria Ramirez Uribe with “Fact-checking Donald Trump in Chicago at National Association of Black Journalists conference.”

It’s a detailed account of some of the things Trump said during the conference, and well worth the time.

Media tidbits

• The New York Times’ Katie Robertson writes about the alternative weekly in “The Stranger in Seattle Gets a New Owner, With Plans for Expansion.”
• The Los Angeles Times’ Alexandra Del Rosario with “Huw Edwards, former BBC presenter, pleads guilty to making indecent images of children.”
• The Washington Post’s Sarah Ellison and Jeremy Barr with “How the Murdoch family ended up in a legal fight over the future of Fox.”
• Some CNN news. Jessica Dean has been named anchor of the prime-time weekend edition of “CNN Newsroom.” She will continue to serve as a correspondent covering politics. She has been with CNN since 2018. Meanwhile, Donie O’Sullivan has been promoted to CNN senior correspondent. He has been CNN’s reporter on online misinformation and the spread of conspiracy theories and extremism. Deadline’s Ted Johnson has more.
• This is cool: Deadline’s Nellie Andreeva and Peter White report that NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” will bring back former cast member Maya Rudolph to play Kamala Harris through the 2024 election. Rudolph has popularly portrayed Harris in the past on the show.
• For The Los Angeles Times, Tracy Brown and Greg Braxton with “NBC’s Olympic obsession with celebrities is a little cringe.”

Hot type

• An absolute must-read from The Washington Post’s Gus Garcia-Roberts with “Who killed Tyler Skaggs? After an MLB pitcher overdosed, blame fell on one team employee. Five years later, records suggest the truth is more complicated.”
• The Los Angeles Times’ Christopher Goffard with “The Manson follower who tried to assassinate a president — and the man who stopped her.”
• The New York Times’ Andrew Keh (with terrific photos by Chang W. Lee) with “No, You Can’t Beat an Olympic Table Tennis Player.”

More resources for journalists

• Public media journalists: attend our Digital Transformation Project Q&A webinar Aug. 13.
• Try our free Grant Writing for Journalists self-directed course
• Lead With Influence is for leaders who manage big responsibilities but have no direct reports.

Have feedback or a tip? Email Poynter senior media writer Tom Jones at [email protected].