Reporter chides Trump's 'creepy' fireside chat invitation: 'Under no circumstances'

A reporter whom President Donald Trump mentioned by name in a recent fundraising email responded to the president's "creepy" message on Sunday.

Trump mentioned Salon's White House columnist Brian Karem by name in a new fundraising email, inviting the journalist to a "fireside chat" with him. The invite included a standard-issue AI-generated photo of Trump sitting in a leather chair next to a wooden fireplace in an undisclosed location.

"Brian and I by the fireplace?" Trump's email reads.

The invitation came after Karem wrote several columns that sharply criticized the president. In one recent column, Karem said Trump has become "untethered from reality" and is a "danger to all of us." In another, Karem wrote that Trump's speech at the most recent World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, was a "listless word-salad monologue."

Karem responded to Trump's invitation in a new Substack post on Sunday.

"If Donald Trump wants to sit with me by the fire, I’m looking around to see if he put something in my drink," Karem wrote. "Yeah, Don, it sounds weird. And while I’d love to sit down with you and ask you a few questions, and I’ll happily respond, I will remind you that you never respond to me or most reporters who aren’t kissing your political posterior."

"And under no circumstances do I want to sit by the fire with you," he added. "Just saying."

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