Everything about that highly promoted New York Times “interview” with former Trump White House Chief of Staff John Kelly — a general, if you haven’t heard! — reeked of fakery. But a piece of audio from the recorded phone conversations between Kelly and the Times reporter that wasn’t released until two days after the article proves just how artificial it truly was.
The original article was published on Tuesday and included a mix of audio snippets and text quotes of Kelly, presumably offering his answers to questions that the reporter, Michael Schmidt, was asking. At the very bottom was a sound clip labeled, “Kelly on the Importance of Character Over Policy.”
“I’m not recommending anything to anybody,” Kelly is heard telling Schmidt. “I’m just saying — other than, that when you’re looking to vote for someone, regardless, you’ve got to, you’ve got to look at the character and all those kinds of things and then start looking at the individual’s policies.” (Must be nice to live so comfortably that you can afford to vote first and foremost based on whether someone seems pleasant enough rather than how that person’s decisions would literally change your life and the lives of your loved ones.)
In Thursday’s edition of the Times’ “The Daily” podcast, however, there’s a more extended version of that recording that precedes Kelly’s remarks. In that version, Schmidt says something first. “Is there anything else that we need to talk about or is this enough?” he says to Kelly. “I think it’s plenty,” Kelly replies. “But like I said, Mike — I’m not— just make it clear, I’m not recommending anything to anybody, I’m just saying — other than …”
For the interviewer to ask the subject whether there’s anything else “we need to talk about” or “is this enough?” sounds a lot less like a probing interview that Schmidt had been trying to secure for four years (as he said on the podcast) and more like the seeking of a mutual understanding that their shared goal was achieved — the goal being a well-timed piece full of politically harmful accusations about the front-runner for president, Donald Trump.
I reached out to Schmidt by email to see if he had any additional comments about that exchange between him and Kelly but received no response.
At the top of the podcast episode, Schmidt said he had “been trying to get John Kelly to talk and allow me to record it” for a number of years. “And I tried really, really hard to do this because I believe that his story is central to the Trump story.” It created the impression that Schmidt was merely journalistically curious as to what Kelly, as Trump’s longest-serving chief of staff, might have to say. But the piece of the recording mentioned above suggests there was something more specific that the pair had in mind.
Voters certainly ended up with something more specific — a predetermined hit piece crammed with unverifiable accusations exactly two weeks before Election Day. The New York Times and Michael Schmidt were willing and ready to be a part of the effort.
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