That Lesley Stahl interview was a nothingburger

Trump's been raging about it for days. God only knows why.

Lesley Stahl is a great journalist, a veteran of CBS News’s glory days, and she’s always been wise to the ways presidents manipulate the press. When President Donald Trump threw a hissy fit over her recent interview with him for 60 Minutes it sounded as though she’d really nailed his scalp to the wall. When Trump posted the full interview on Facebook (much to the justifiable annoyance of CBS News) I thought, “Hoo, boy!”

But the interview turns out to be a disappointment. Stahl doesn’t appear to have prepared well enough to challenge Trump effectively, as Chris Wallace, Jonathan Swan, and Savannah Guthrie did recently. She said “That’s not true” here and there but she didn’t quote chapter and verse to demonstrate why. She let a big orange carp get away.

So why did Trump pitch such a fit? My latest, for the New Republic.