Donald Trump was caught on hot mic telling a Fox News reporter to praise his first cabinet meeting at the White House on Wednesday.
At the end of the meeting, Trump singled out Lawrence Jones of Fox & Friends saying, “Lawrence! Look at Lawrence! This guy’s making a fortune! He never had it so good!”
He then instructed the Fox News host to give him a favorable review when reporting on the event, “Lawrence, say we did a great job, please. Okay? Say it was unbelievable!”
The exchange was not included in the White House’s live stream of the event, but did show up on the longer-running live stream hosted by The Associated Press.
Trump’s hot mic comment comes as the Trump White House barred the AP indefinitely from the Oval Office and Air Force One because of its refusal to change its style on the Gulf of Mexico after it was renamed to the “Gulf of America.”
A federal judge declined to halt Trump’s ban in a ruling on Monday.
Meanwhile, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a briefing on Tuesday that the White House will now decide which outlets make up the press pool who cover the president, not the White House Correspondents’ Association.
That decision allowed for Trump friendly and right-leaning media outlets to be immediately added to the press pool, including for Wednesday’s cabinet meeting.
