Wall Street Journal reporters could hardly get a word in edgewise when their editor, Gerard Baker, traveled with them to the White House earlier this year to interview President Donald Trump.
A transcript of the Oval Office encounter — showing Baker taking an unusually prominent role in the interview, making small talk about golf with the president and telling Ivanka Trump that “It was nice to see you out in Southampton a couple weeks ago” — made for embarrassing reading for many in the Journal’s newsroom when it was leaked to Politico in August.
The intrigue only increased when emails in which Baker castigated his staff for what he felt was unduly harsh coverage of Trump’s presidency were leaked to the New York Times.
Normally garrulous, Baker clammed up when Chicago Inc. asked him on Thursday what he’d learned from the newsroom leaks.
“I don’t want to talk about that!” he said at an Economic Club of Chicago event at the Mid-America Club.
But Baker — an English expat — did tell a joke involving Trump and what he self-depricatingly described as the British people’s need to be heard “slightly more than is justified.”
Here’s the gag: God tells Trump, Chinese President Xi Jinping and BritishPrime Minister Theresa May that the world will end tomorrow.
Trump goes on TV and tells the God-fearing American people that he has good news and bad news: “The good news is that there is a God; the bad news is I’ve met him and the world is going to end tomorrow,” Baker said.
Xi goes on TV and tells the Chinese he has bad news and worse news: “The bad news is there is a God. … The worse news is the world’s going to end.”
Then May goes on TV, Baker said, and tells the British, “Great news — God considers me to be one of the three most important people on Earth.”
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