Jill Abramson Ridicules Trump For Incorrectly Using Her Book to Rip the New York Times

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U.S. President Donald Trump speaks in the Rose Garden of the White House on January 4, 2019 in Washington, DC. On Saturday, Jill Abramson fired back at Trump for using her book to bash her... Getty/Alex Wong

Ex-New York Times executive editor Jill Abramson ridiculed President Donald Trump today for incorrectly using her new book to bash her former paper.

Trump praised Abramson on Saturday, saying she was "100% correct" in blasting the paper's "unmistakably anti-Trump bias."

'"Former @NYTimes editor Jill Abramson rips paper's 'unmistakably anti-Trump' bias'" the president tweeted. "Ms. Abramson is 100% correct. Horrible and totally dishonest reporting on almost everything they write. Hence the term Fake News, Enemy of the People, and Opposition Party!"

Shortly after, Abramson said Trump's comments were incorrect and set the record straight on her new book, saying "Merchants of Truth" reveres the Times and praises "it's tough coverage on you."

Anyone who reads my book, Merchants of Truth, will find I revere @nytimes and praise its tough coverage of you https://t.co/fHXYiva4hK

— Jill Abramson (@JillAbramson) January 5, 2019

Trump's initial tweet came after Fox News host Howard Kurtz pointed out that an excerpt from Abramson's book slams the publication for holding anti-Trump bias.

"'Though Baquet said publicly he didn't want the Times to be the opposition party, his news pages were unmistakably anti-Trump,' Abramson writes, adding that she believes the same is true of the Washington Post. 'Some headlines contained raw opinion, as did some of the stories that were labeled as news analysis,'" Kurtz said in a report titled "Former NY Times editor rips Trump coverage as biased".

"What's more, she says, citing legendary 20th century publisher Adolph Ochs, 'the more anti-Trump the Times was perceived to be, the more it was mistrusted for being biased. Ochs's vow to cover the news without fear or favor sounded like an impossible promise in such a polarized environment,'" he added.

But, Abramson told Politico that Kurtz took "Merchants of Truth" "totally out of context" and condemned the article as an "attempt to Foxify my book, which is full of praise for The Times and The Washington Post and their coverage of Trump."

Although the former top editor said The Times made some "bad judgment calls" over their 2016 coverage of Hillary Clinton, she praised the paper's coverage of Trump in light of the president's efforts to "inflame and polarize" American citizens with his "fake news" remarks.

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