NEW YORK >> President Donald Trump has repeatedly denounced The New York Times as fake news. Yet he’s granted more interviews to the newspaper’s reporters since taking office than any other outlet except for Fox News Channel.

The latest was a headline-making talk in Thursday’s paper, where the president said he would never have appointed Attorney General Jeff Sessions had he known Sessions would recuse himself from overseeing the investigation into Russia’s involvement in the last election.

You don’t have to search far to find denunciations of the Times in Trump’s Twitter feed.

Experts say, however, that he’s a New York kid who has always understood the importance of the Times and sought its approval.