The New York Times hit back Saturday at White House Communications Director Steven Cheung’s insistence that their story about Vice President J.D. Vance contained false information.

The story titled, Is JD Vance the 2028 Front Runner? Trump Has Questions, that ran in Saturday’s paper stated:

In meetings, Mr. Vance frequently scrolls his phone, and he uses social media to fight with his critics. The president frequently posts to Truth Social, but he does not spend time replying to people online, as Mr. Vance does.

Susie Wiles, Trump’s chief of staff, recently advised Mr. Vance to take a break from social media, as have other officials in the West Wing, according to people familiar with those interactions, because the fighting was beneath his office. (Mr. Vance said he took a break for Lent.)

Cheung took to X to deny the interaction between Wiles and Vance ever happened.

“This isn’t true. We denied it to the New York Times and they refused to run our quote. Complete fake news. This supposed ‘conversation’ never happened,” Cheung wrote.

When reached by email for comment, Times spokeswoman Danielle Rhoades Ha maintained, “We’re confident in the accuracy of our reporting.”

The article continued, “In November, the president wondered aloud why Mr. Vance was not more subservient, like the officials who work for President Xi Jinping of China.”

“Why don’t you behave like that?” Mr. Trump asked Mr. Vance during a breakfast for Republican senators. “JD doesn’t behave like that! JD butts into conversations! I want to have that for at least a couple of days. OK, JD?”

People close to the president say that Mr. Vance is in Mr. Trump’s good graces.

“My father always brings up how JD is a savage and annihilates the fake news, like the made-up narrative of this story,” Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, said in a statement relayed through his spokesman. “Interviews, rallies, podcasts — he shows up and performs and that’s what my father cares about.”

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