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Trump Calls NBC News Anchor And Fellow GOP'er Lester Holt A Democrat

It appears that as far as the news media is concerned, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump sees Democrats everywhere. Even when they're not.

Take his friendly chat Monday night with Fox's Bill O'Reilly, who asked Trump about the scheduled moderators of his debates with Hillary Clinton. If you missed it, here's a portion of the transcript courtesy of The Washington Post when they talked about the journalists who will be asking the questions, including Lester Holt of NBC:

"TRUMP: And by the way, Lester is a Democrat.

"O'REILLY: I didn't know that.

"TRUMP: Look, it's a phony system. Lester is a Democrat. I mean, they are all Democrats. Okay? It's a very unfair system."

Well, we checked that part about NBC's Lester Holt, who will moderate the first debate on Sept. 26.

In fact, as Time magazine also points out, Holt has been a registered Republican in the state of New York since 2003.

We also asked the Trump campaign for comment on what the candidate meant to say or the basis of his assertion about Holt's political affiliation, but have not had a response yet.

But Trump did say at a rally Thursday in North Carolina that "I think Lester Holt will be very fair, but a lot of people will be watching to see if that's true."

Copyright 2021 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

David Folkenflik was described by Geraldo Rivera of Fox News as "a really weak-kneed, backstabbing, sweaty-palmed reporter." Others have been kinder. The Columbia Journalism Review, for example, once gave him a "laurel" for reporting that immediately led the U.S. military to institute safety measures for journalists in Baghdad.