Former President Donald Trump has lavished praise on the “legendary” Barbara Walters as a clip more than three decades old has resurfaced in which she gives him a grilling over his business affairs.
The former president wrote on the Truth Social platform that Walters, who died on Friday aged 93, “was the greatest of them all, by far” as he shared a message announcing her death.
“I knew her well, was interviewed by her many times, and there was nobody like the legendary Barbara Walters—and never will be!” he wrote.
However, his apparent praise of journalistic integrity was short-lived as the post was swiftly followed up with a message in which Trump took another swipe at the “failing New York Times,” which he described as pushing “fake and corrupt news.”
Trump’s fulsome tribute for Walters came after a video from 1990 re-emerged of his interview with the first American woman to work as an evening television news anchor, long before he ran for the White House.
In what could be seen as a preview of his future beefs with the media, he described to her how “inherently dishonest the press in this country is.”
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But Walters told Trump he was on the “verge of bankruptcy” and that as a businessman he was “skating on thin ice and almost drowning.”
“You say on the verge of bankruptcy,” Trump responded, before Walters revealed she had spoken to his banker and then she rejected his claims that he had recently made a “great deal.”
The exchange was widely shared on Twitter by users praising Walters’ approach. Communications consultant Scott Monty tweeted that it was “ironic that she died on the same day his tax returns were released.”
This referred to the release of six years of Trump’s tax records on Friday, which outline how he is making his money mostly from investments and interest payments rather than from real estate businesses, which are marked down consistently in the red.
The House ways and means committee described some of these losses as “large, unusual or questionable.”
The tax records also show that Trump was not being regularly audited by the IRS. He said the documents show “how proudly successful” he had been in using “depreciation and various other tax deductions as an incentive” for creating jobs, buildings and businesses.
Trump has also said that the release of his tax records was “going to lead to horrible things for so many people,” as he accused “the radical, left Democrats” of having “weaponized everything.”
Newsweek has contacted the Trump team for comment.
