Trump Takes Meeting With TMZ's Harvey Levin (Report)

President Donald Trump reportedly took a meeting with TMZ’s Harvey Levin last week.

The founder of the Los Angeles-based celebrity gossip site was invited to the White House to meet with the president sometime last week, according to a report by EntityMag.com. TMZ did not immediately return TheWrap’s request for comment.

Levin had previously interviewed Trump last September for a one-hour Fox News Channel special titled “OBJECTified: Donald Trump.” The interview aired in November, shortly after Trump won the 2016 presidential election.

Also Read: Donald Trump Slams New York Times for 'Truth' Ad to Air During Oscars (Video)

The news of the meeting was reported by Taryn Hillin of the media site Entity, who worked at TMZ until 2013.

Levin, a Hollywood lawyer, reporter and legal analyst, founded the celebrity news site TMZ in 2005. He also hosts “TMZ Live,” the website’s televised counterpart. Following the one-off special, Fox News gave Levin a 10-episode order for an “OBJECTified” series.

The meeting with Levin comes amid the Trump administration’s ongoing battle with the media, including personal tweets from the president labelling outlets including CNN, the New York Times and NBC News the “enemy of the American people.”

Last month, reporters from CNN, the New York Times, Politico and a variety of other major news organizations were blocked from attending the White House press briefing. Journalists from other outlets, including Time magazine and the Associated Press, boycotted the briefing to protest the exclusion.

Also Read: Trump Escalates War on Media: CNN, NY Times, Politico Blocked From White House Press Briefing

The organizations shut out of the briefing were quick to denounce the action, calling it “unacceptable.” New York Times executive editor Dean Baquet said in a statement, “Nothing like this has ever happened at the White House in our long history of covering multiple administrations of different parties. We strongly protest the exclusion of The New York Times and the other news organizations. Free media access to a transparent government is obviously of crucial national interest.”

8 Times Hypocrite Donald Trump Used the Kind of Anonymous Sources He Now Condemns (Photos)

On Sunday, Donald Trump derided the use of anonymous sourcing in news stories. He also said in February that news outlets "shouldn't be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody's name." It's strange he thinks that, because he's used a lot of anonymous sources himself. Here are some examples.
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Two years after President Obama released his birth certificate, Trump said it was not believable to some people. "You know, some people say that was not his birth certificate," he told ABC in August 2013. "I'm saying I don't know. Nobody knows and you don't know either."
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Trump posted multiple tweets in 2012 citing an anonymous source, as the Daily Beast's Colin Jones noted.
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Trump said one of the sources "called my office."
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Trump took care to describe this source as "extremely credible."
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Trump so often sources information to "many people" (without naming any of them) that there's a well-worn #manypeoplearesaying hashtag on Twitter. The Washington Post wrote an article about it, which includes the examples on the next three slides.
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At a rally in September, a man in Trump's audience said President Obama was a Muslim and “not even an American,” then asked Trump to get rid of Muslim “training camps.”

“You know, a lot of people are saying that, and a lot of people are saying that bad things are happening out there,” Trump responded.
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In early January, Trump said he had heard from many Republicans worried that his rival, Sen. Ted Cruz, was born in Canada.

“I’d hate to see something like that get in his way, but a lot of people are talking about it, and I know that even some states are looking at it very strongly, the fact that he was born in Canada and he has had a double passport,” Trump told the Post.
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In May 2016, Trump told the Post what some "people" believe about the death of Vince Foster. “I don’t bring [Foster’s death] up because I don’t know enough to really discuss it,” Trump said. “I will say there are people who continue to bring it up because they think it was absolutely a murder. I don’t do that because I don’t think it’s fair.”
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Soon after Trump called for an end to anonymous sourcing, The Associated Press noted, "Members of Trump's White House team regularly demand anonymity when talking to reporters."
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Surprise: Trump berates the news media for doing something he’s done himself

On Sunday, Donald Trump derided the use of anonymous sourcing in news stories. He also said in February that news outlets "shouldn't be allowed to use sources unless they use somebody's name." It's strange he thinks that, because he's used a lot of anonymous sources himself. Here are some examples.

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8 Times Hypocrite Donald Trump Used the Kind of Anonymous Sources He Now Condemns (Photos)

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