Kathmandu. The United States President Donald Trump was scheduled to converse with the host of the CBS News show “60 minutes”, Lesley Stahl on Tuesday. He abruptly cut his interview short, and did not return for his joint appearance with the Vice-President Mike Pence.

According to CNN, Trump claimed that the network had the sufficient materials to air the interview, before walking out. His conduct runs characteristic to the “combative” behavior he has exhibited during the campaign rallies and debates, whenever his administration has been critiqued for its policies. He has now threatened to post a recording of the interview by himself, before the air-time on CBS, “for the sake of accuracy in reporting,” mentioning that he would showcase the biased attitude of the media. This message came immediately after he criticized Stahl in a tweet for “not wearing a mask in the White House,” posting a short video of her without her mask on. It has been mentioned by CNN that the video was taken right after the interview ended when Stahl did not have the time to immediately put her mask back on.

Disagreements between US Presidents and the media is not a new phenomenon. Thomas Jefferson, a founding father and the third president of the nation, had hailed the role of the newspapers before he himself became the prime fodder for headlines. After assuming office, he noted that his personal grievances were being thrown to the public eye and stated that, “Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle.” From Jefferson to Trump, several Presidents, like Bill Clinton and Woodrow Wilson have clashed with the press on several accounts, mostly where their personal lives and beliefs were aired for everybody to witness and judge.

Trump, has however, directly challenged the free press and its credibility on several occasions, simply for critiquing his policies and his Presidential term. In a CNBC news report published in May 22, 2018, Stahl noted that in an off-camera discussion in 2016 of why the President was adamant on discrediting the press, “he said, ‘You know why I do it? I do it to discredit you all and demean you all so when you write negative stories about me, no one will believe you.’ He said that.”

Trump’s feud with the press is unlikely to cool down any time soon. As Biden has been leading in the polls, Trump has been getting more aggressive. This was seen during the first Presidential debate and the town hall meeting, where he kept on interrupting Biden during his answers, and cut-off the moderators to put his own view forth.