Trump Pressed Fox Reporter Over Alabama Controversy

President again tweets about the hurricane controversy
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Sep 6, 2019 10:17 AM CDT
Trump Pressed Fox Reporter Over Alabama Controversy
President Donald Trump talks with reporters after receiving a briefing on Hurricane Dorian in the Oval Office of the White House on Wednesday.   (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

President Trump really doesn't want to let this days-long Alabama-Hurricane Dorian mess fade to memory. Not content with numerous tweets repeating his claim that the state was threatened by the storm, Trump called Fox News senior White House correspondent John Roberts into the Oval Office on Thursday to repeat his case, CNN reports, citing an internal email Roberts sent. Trump was "looking for acknowledgment that he was not wrong for saying that at some point, Alabama was at risk—even if the situation had changed by the time he issued the tweet," Roberts wrote. The controversy began Sunday, when Trump warned that Alabama was "most likely to be hit (much) harder than anticipated." The National Weather Service then quickly clarified that Alabama would not be affected by the storm at all.

The AP explains that Friday forecasts showed a "tiny bit" of Alabama in the warning cone, but the state was completely in the clear by Saturday, a full day ahead of Trump's warning. According to Roberts, Trump "stressed to me that forecasts for Dorian last week had Alabama in the warning cone" so "it is unfair to say Alabama was never threatened." Trump himself continued the theme on Friday. "The Fake News Media was fixated on the fact that I properly said, at the beginnings of Hurricane Dorian, that in addition to Florida & other states, Alabama may also be grazed or hit," he wrote. "They went Crazy, hoping against hope that I made a mistake (which I didn’t)." He complained about "four days of corrupt reporting, still without an apology." (And then there was that altered map.)

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