President Donald Trump irked the American media again Thursday, calling on a Chinese media reporter for the second of his two allotted questions at the news conference with French President Emmanuel Macron.
The protocol for joint leader news conferences is for two questions being given to the host country's media pool and two questions for the guest's media. President Trump's first question went to an ABC News reporter, who asked about Donald Trump Jr's emails released this week and the June 2016 meeting with a Russian lawyer.
The White House defended President Trump's choice, saying he can call on "any reporter he chooses," White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders wrote in an email to CNN.
"Like the members of the White House press corps, the president wants a free press, and he can call on any reporter he chooses," she wrote, CNN reported.
Spurned American media members disagreed with President Trump's choice and his apparent dismissal of news conference tradition.
CNN did admit, though, the president spent "more than an hour speaking with reporters off the record during his flight to Paris," and "the president later asked that some of his remarks during the conversation be put on the record."
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