Trump Dines with José Díaz-Balart, Lester Holt, Roland Martin, Yamiche Alcindor, and Others Before SOTU

Hours before his first formal State of the Union address, Donald Trump gathered some top news anchors at the White House. Among the group were Telemundo's José Díaz-Balart, PBS’ Yamiche Alcindor, and TV One’s Roland Martin. Politico reports that Trump had a pointed exchange with NBC News anchor Lester Holt regarding a May 2017 interview in which the president said he considered the “Russia thing” when deciding to fire former FBI Director James Comey. The president accused Holt of editing the interview to remove Trump comments the president claimed were almost “Shakespearean,” according to attendees. Holt responded that the entire interview ran online. The Apprentice star also commented during the lunch about how much money he made for the network and suggested the company’s brass, rather than the specific journalists, were to blame for coverage he doesn’t like. Other lunch attendees included George Stephanopoulos and David Muir (ABC News), Norah O'Donnell and Jeff Glor(CBS), Bret Baier and Martha MacCallum (Fox News), Jake Tapper and Wolf Blitzer(CNN), Steve Scully (C-SPAN), Judy Woodruff (PBS), White House Press SecretarySarah Huckabee Sanders, and Communications Director Hope Hicks. Politico reports that VP Mike Pence and Chief of Staff John Kelly also stopped by. More here.