For the first time in more than two months, President Donald Trump gave a televised interview to someone who doesn’t work at Fox News. But the questioner was probably just as friendly.
On Wednesday, amid the firestorm over his son’s emails regarding alleged campaign assistance from the Russian government, Trump sat down for an interview with the televangelist Pat Robertson. The interview, which took place in the Roosevelt Room of the White House, will air Thursday on the “700 Club.”
It is Trump’s first interview since late last month, and his first non-Fox interview since May. His last two interviews came last month, and each was with “Fox & Friends,” the overwhelmingly pro-Trump morning show that is regular viewing for the president. Trump’s previous interview, which aired on May 13, was with another Fox personality Jeanine Pirro.
His Q&A with Robertson will mark Trump’s first sit-down outside the Fox universe since May 11, when the president was interviewed by NBC News’ Lester Holt.
Holt’s interview came the same week that Trump fired FBI Director James Comey. Similarly, Robertson’s arrives in the wake of another bombshell: the New York Times reported Tuesday on emails between Donald Trump Jr. and a business associate regarding the acquisition of potentially damaging information on Hillary Clinton supplied by the Russian government.
How vigorously the president is questioned about the matter remains to be seen, but Robertson has been a consistent supporter of the administration, praising the president earlier this year as “God’s man for this job.”
Along with the Robertson interview, Trump also sought pastoral guidance earlier this week when several evangelical leaders visited him in the Oval Office for a prayer session.