-I'm so happy we're finally meeting in person.
I've been a fan of yours for a long time.
The piece that I think first put you on my radar is in 2014.
You were covering a Donald Trump speech in New Hampshire.
This is when he was sort of pretending to be a politician
or somebody who might run for office.
-Yes.
-You then, because of a storm,
you ended up flying back with him to Mar-a-Lago.
-Yes.
-And you wrote an article about those 36 hours.
-I spent 36 hours marooned at Mar-a-Lago with Donald Trump.
And, yes, I wrote a profile [chuckles]
a 6,000-word story about that time with him that,
suffice it to say, he didn't not like.
But the piece -- kind of the gist of the piece --
because my whole takeaway from him at that time
was that he was almost like a tragic figure, you know?
He wanted so desperately
for me to take him seriously as a political figure,
which I didn't. [ Light laughter ]
-Yeah. You -- -You know?
I know you can't relate to that. -[ Laughing ] Yeah, exactly.
Well, I want to get to our similarities.
But you forward the article, which was for BuzzFeed --
you mocked up like a joke...
this was the joke picture... -This -- Yeah.
...of him in the Oval Office,
and that's like what it [bleep] looks like now.
[ Laughter ]
So I do want to get back to the parallels we have,
which is that was sort of a piece like you are --
you did not take him seriously.
In 2011, at the Correspondents' Dinner,
I said, "You know, your -- it's a joke.
Your running is a joke." -Yeah.
-How motivated as he is -- is he by dopes like us?
-Well -- Well, this is the thing.
I've -- We never met before,
but I've always felt this kinship with you,
because we're like part of this fraternity
of haters and losers... -Yeah.
-...who questioned Donald Trump's seriousness
as a candidate.
The thing that I've learned about Donald Trump is that,
even though he was born with
all the wealth and privilege he possibly could have had,
even though he's now president,
he's always felt like
he kind of has his face pressed up against the glass.
Like, he feels like he's an outsider
and that nobody takes him seriously enough,
no one respects him.
The insiders are all sneering at him.
I was actually told once during the election --
this was after -- or right around the time
he was winning the primaries -- that I --
that article that I wrote
was one of the reasons that he decided to run.
But -- But that adviser told me that --
this is a former Trump adviser --
told me that you were higher on the list...
-Okay, well that -- -...on that list of reasons.
So... -That...
[ Laughter ]
[ Laughter and applause ]
So...
[ Laughter and applause continue ]
But he -- never let it be said he is not a vengeful man --
that -- right? --
is it the night of the convention he e-mailed you?
-Just -- Just a couple days before the convention,
before he formally accepted the Republican nomination,
I got an e-mail from him saying, you know,
"McKay, you got it all wrong.
And just watch what's gonna happen in the general election."
Like, "You got this all wrong. I can't believe it."
That was what was going through his mind,
you know, as he's winning the Republican primary.
It's -- I think that people don't understand
just how much this matters to him,
just how much it matters to him
to prove the haters wrong, to prove everyone wrong.
Even now, when he's in the -- in the Oval Office,
one of the things that reporters are dealing with
when they cover this White House
is that you'll write a story
that's well sourced, that's accurate
about some staffer who's gonna be fired.
And because Trump will see it reported, he'll change his mind,
just to be able to say, "Look, that was fake news.
I got them wrong." -Right.
-He's really motivated by trying to disprove the press,
to disprove anybody who he thinks is unfairly treating him.
-I want to talk about sourcing real quick because, you know,
it seems like we hear so much coming out of this White House,
more than, maybe, we've ever had --
we've ever heard.
It is because, from the very top,
he is a source that he is talking to the press so often
that the people underneath him feel the freedom to do the same?
-Yeah, absolutely. You know, it's funny.
Like, Trump does this thing where,
after his day's work is done,
he'll retire to the Residence of the White House
and just kind of make freewheeling phone calls
to, like, random people. -Yeah.
-And, sometimes, they're, like, fellow billionaire pals,
and, sometimes, they're media people,
and, sometimes, they're reporters.
And -- And it's funny -- I've had experiences with this
even when I was interviewing him at Mar-a-Lago
where he'll be talking, and he'll tell you a story,
and he'll be like, "Okay, this part's off the record.
Well, now this part, just attribute it to someone else,"
or whatever.
And he'll just -- he'll -- he'll be --
he'll just put random stuff out there.
And that --
a lot of the stories you see in -- in the press are --
it'll say like "somebody familiar with the situation,"
or like "a senior White House official,"
and it'll be the President of the United States.
-Yeah. Yeah. [ Laughter ]
A lurking, slow-moving mass of a man.
[ Laughter ] Did -- And do you think, like --
But that actually seems like he's thinking about it
more than we maybe give him credit for.
So, while he's telling a story, he is at least aware enough
to know which parts to pull off the record and on the record.
-Yeah, in my experience, at least,
it was the parts that he wanted me to write
that were flattering about him,
but he didn't want to have it attributed to him.
-Got it.
-So, it'll be like some heroic story about him
or a story about some celebrity
who said he was the greatest ever of something, you know.
"But -- But put that off the record.
Just don't use my name on that."
[ Laughter ]
-So he wants it out there, but he wants it to seem like
it came from another source. -He wants -- Exactly. Right.