Reince Priebus tried to trick Trump into canceling his New York Times meeting

When Donald Trump huffily canceled that planned meeting with the New York Times early this morning, it turns out he did it because Reince Priebus tricked him into doing so.

Three people with knowledge of Mr. Trump’s initial decision to cancel the meeting said that Reince Priebus, the incoming White House chief of staff, had been among those urging the president-elect to cancel it, because he would face questions he might not be prepared to answer. It was Mr. Priebus who relayed to Mr. Trump, erroneously, that The Times had changed the conditions of the meeting, believing it would result in a cancellation, these people said.

Got that? Trump's "serious" staff pick, Priebus, was so worried that his boss was going to melt in the face of reporter questions that he told Trump a made-up story to get him to cancel. He lied to his president-elect in an attempt to manipulate him into not doing something potentially self-damaging.

Oh, this is going to be a grand administration. We'll be wanting that traveling press pool just to make sure Trump's own staff hasn't tied him up, thrown him in a trunk and has been forging his signature on things for weeks.

This also isn't the first time this has happened. Late in the campaign we were treated to the story of how then-campaign chair Paul Manafort tricked Trump into meeting with Mike Pence after Trump had already chosen Chris Christie as his vice president by telling Trump his jet was broken and Trump couldn't leave the city. He then arranged for Trump to meet Pence that night so that Pence could make his case.