Matt Lauer Grills Trump After Time Magazine Names Him Person of the Year

Alexandra Rosenmann
,
 AlterNet
and
 Alexandra Rosenmann
December 07, 2016

Donald Trump has been chosen as Time magazine's Person of the Year, but that doesn't mean everyone in the mainstream media is bowing down to him just yet. Case in point, "Today" show host Matt Lauer, who grilled the president-elect on a variety of topics in an exclusive interview following the magazine's announcement of the award.

For quick reference, here's how much Time's Oct. 24 and Aug. 22 issues depicting Donald Trump differ from its latest:

"I don't think it's appropriate for me to be owning stocks when I'm making deals for this country that maybe will affect one company positively and one company negatively," Trump said about selling all of his stocks in June, despite unprecedented conflicts of interest surrounding his properties around the globe. 

"Speaking of things that are appropriate, shortly after winning the election, you gave an interview when you talked about your use of Twitter and you said that you were going to be much more restrained as the president because you seem to understand that perhaps having fights on Twitter would not be appropriate for the president," Lauer responded. "I have not seen you backing off fights on Twitter," he added.

Lauer then rattled off a series of Trump's recent targets.

"In the time since you were elected, you've targeted the cast of 'Hamilton,' the New York Times, China, Boeing, the media and SNL. Is this proving to be a habit that you're finding a difficult time breaking?" Lauer asked Trump. 

The president-elect disagreed completely. 

"I am very restrained," Trump insisted. "I talk about important things... and frankly it's a modern-day form of communication," he told Lauer before boasting about his follower count.

Lauer turned to Trump's "Saturday Night Live" bashing.

"On a lighter note, can we agree, President-elect Trump, that at this stage it would be better for you to simply stop watching SNL as opposed to watching it and then complaining about it?" Lauer asked. 

As NBC owns Saturday Night Live, telling the Person of the Year not to watch your channel is reverse-psychology at its best.

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