CHR - Return of the Diet Coke Button

TOP LINE

On the eve of Inauguration Day, the time is right to share my personal story about the “Diet Coke” button.

DEEP DIVE

It is a privilege and a tremendous opportunity for a reporter to interview the Commander in Chief.   Any journalist who tells you otherwise is bitter because they can’t land the big interview.

I have sat down with President Trump twice.  First at Fox News, after the Special Counsel Robert Mueller report was released.  The second time, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, as a senior investigative correspondent for CBS News.

In advance of interviewing President Trump, I was invited to an informal meeting at the White House. The Oval Office appointment had the tone of a “get to know you session.”  

While the meeting was “off the record,” I can tell you that it wasn’t about setting limits on an interview or providing questions which would cross a journalistic redline.  I understood from President Trump’s press team that he made the final call on which reporter would conduct the interview.

Sitting across from President Trump, I noticed a red button on the Resolute Desk and my imagination ran wild.  “What was it, a nuclear button, a panic button, or a get this reporter out of here button?”’

I was not the first person to fall into this trap.  In his book, “The Chief’s Chief,”  former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows described his encounter with the Diet Coke button, writing it "seemed like something you might use to launch a nuclear missile, or maybe to order SEAL Team Six into action."

“I braced for whatever sonic boom, breaking glass, or cloud of smoke I assumed was coming,” Meadows added.

With a keen eye, President Trump saw my curiosity, and leveraged it. He leaned across the desk, and in what seemed a very deliberate manner, he pressed the red button. I nearly jumped out of my seat.

Then to my right, I recall that a butler entered the Oval Office with a silver tray and several tall glasses of Diet Coke.   I can’t recall exactly, and it may have been the shock of the red button, but the butler seemed to appear out of nowhere from behind the bookcases.

I recall President Trump put his hand next to his mouth, and whispered, “It’s one of the best parts of the job!”

Out of respect for the ground rules, I am not going to say much more about the meeting because it was off the record. As we concluded,  President Trump asked if I had ever seen the Lincoln bedroom which, of course, I had not.  Then he made some quip about the Clintons and you can fill in the rest.

The CBS interview went ahead in July 2020 in the Rose Garden because of COVID-19 restrictions.  The questions were direct. One in particular he described as “a terrible question to ask,” but President Trump still answered each query. With my urging, CBS News released the full, unedited transcript.

Bear that precedent in mind as you consider the lingering controversy over the 60 Minutes Kamala Harris edit.

This week we're coming to you with exclusive content from Guantanamo Bay.

While some 800 detainees have passed through the detention camps during the global war on terror, only 15 detainees remain, including the five 9/11 suspects.

Based on public reporting, a conservative estimate is that it costs US taxpayers 30 million dollars annually per detainee.

And despite the efforts of multiple administrations to close the detention operations, a third courthouse was recently built at Camp Justice.

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