Daniel Dale, the Toronto Star reporter who published off-record comments from President Donald Trump to Bloomberg reporters, in which Trump said he would not compromise with Canada in trade negotiations, denied Saturday that the Bloomberg reporters themselves leaked the comments.
Dale said he was making the denial to combat Trump’s accusations Friday that Bloomberg’s reporters had broken the off-record arrangement.
The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman, citing unnamed “people close to the White House,” said Friday that her sources had “raised [the] possibility that Trump ordered it put out.”
I’d said I wasn’t going to say anything about my source for the quotes Trump made off the record to Bloomberg.
However, I don’t want to be party to the president’s smearing of excellent, ethical journalists. So I can say this: none of the Bloomberg interviewers was my source.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 1, 2018
Trump is calling Jennifer Jacobs, Margaret Talev and their editor liars. They aren’t, and they didn’t violate their “off the record” promise to him. I don’t want to be a party to his attempt to make fellow reporters look deceitful.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 1, 2018
So: I’m not going to engage in an “OK if it isn’t them than who was it” game, but the president is incorrect when he claims he was wronged by his interviewers.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 1, 2018
Maybe I should have expected the president would confirm a Toronto Star story (!) and use this to go after Bloomberg reporters, but I did not – thought it was likely he’d either a) ignore it or b) or call it fake news and go after my own ethics, which would’ve been fine.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 1, 2018
Anyway, this is an unusual thing to do, but this is an unusual situation. That’s all.
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 1, 2018
I’m not beating myself up, actually – I’m very happy with the story, don’t think I did anything wrong. Just didn’t expect the president to smear Bloomberg reporters rather than me, and want to deal with it. https://t.co/84NFGqiPay
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 1, 2018
