During an interview with Time Magazine published Thursday, President Donald Trump threatened a reporter with prison time for taking a picture of a letter written by Kim Jong Un.
“Well, you can go to prison instead, because, if you use, if you use the photograph you took of the letter that I gave you confidentially, I didn’t give it to you to take photographs of it,” Trump told the reporter. “So don’t play that game with me.”
The interview was conducted by the magazine’s editor-in-chief Edward Felsenthal, D.C. bureau chief Massimo Calabresi and White House reporters Brian Bennett and Tessa Berenson. The transcript of the interview doesn’t specify who was asking the questions.
When one of the Time reporters asked Trump if he was specifically threatening prison time, Trump said he told the reporter that the photo could be looked at off-the-record.
“That doesn’t mean you take out your camera and start taking pictures of it, OK?” Trump said. “So I hope you don’t have a picture of it. I know you were very quick to pull it out — even you were surprised to see that. You can’t do that stuff. So go have fun with your story.”
Trump then attacked the magazine itself, calling their coverage on him a “disgrace” and telling the reporter that he is “sure it will be the 28th horrible story” Time Magazine publishes on him — despite how “someday within the next 20 years” he will be chosen as Man of the Year.
“With all I’ve done and the success I’ve had, the way that Time magazine writes is absolutely incredible,” Trump said, before going on a Mueller report-centered rant involving a “nasty business dispute” with former FBI Director James Comey.
“You have Bob Mueller who was conflicted, totally conflicted. You know my feeling on that. Comey was his friend,” Trump said. “I had a nasty business dispute with him when he was in private life. A very nasty business dispute. Right? You know about that, right?”
Read the full interview transcript in Time magazine here.
