WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President Donald Trump has demanded and received an apology from a Washington Post reporter over a photo of Trump’s Florida rally on Friday.
Trump tweeted Saturday that “.?DaveWeigel ?WashingtonPost put out a phoney photo of an empty arena hours before I arrived ? the venue, w/ thousands of people outside, on their way in.” The post included photos of the Pensacola venue as Trump spoke.
“Packed house, many people unable to get in. Demand apology & retraction from FAKE NEWS WaPo!” Trump tweeted from his Florida estate, where he was spending the weekend.
Weigel apologized within minutes.
“Sure thing: I apologize,” Weigel tweeted. Weigel said he deleted the photo after another reporter “told me I’d gotten it wrong.”
Trump said in a follow-up tweet that Weigel should be fired.
At Friday’s rally, Trump pointed to a CNN correction and other corrections and clarifications by news organizations in the past week on stories that initially had been damaging to the president but didn’t live up to the scrutiny.