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(CNN) - Fox News White House correspondent John Roberts had just finished his live coverage at 3 pm Thursday when President Donald Trump called him to the Oval Office.
The president had an argument to defend, according to an internal email from Fox that Roberts sent about the meeting provided to CNN.
"He reiterated that forecasts for Dorian last week had Alabama in the warning cone," Roberts wrote. "He insisted that it is unfair to say that Alabama was never threatened by the storm."
Roberts' analysis of the meeting was that the president "only sought recognition that he was not wrong in saying that at some point, Alabama was at risk, even if the situation had changed when he issued the tweet" on Sunday morning, in which he said the state "will probably be hit." The president also provided Roberts with graphics to expose his points.
LOOK : Trump insists, and with a map, that Alabama was in the possible Dorian course
Roberts referred CNN to the Fox News public relations department when a comment was requested, which did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comments.
The White House also did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comments. Trump has defended his tweet several times throughout the day on Twitter, repeatedly criticizing the media for covering his statements and his use of a seemingly altered graphic that shows the path of the storm that runs to Alabama.
“Just as I said, it was originally projected that Alabama would be hit. Fake news denies it! ”Trump tweeted Thursday, along with National Weather Service charts last week, days before his tweet, showing that Alabama had a small chance of experiencing some Dorian effects. By the time Trump tweeted, those forecasts had changed.
LOOK : Why Trump's explanations about Dorian's forecast in Alabama don't match
A White House aide familiar with the Oval Office meeting with Roberts said Trump also expressed his dissatisfaction over the skeptical Fox News presenter report, Shepard Smith, on the Alabama map.
The president summoned Roberts "to return the blow to Shepard Smith," said the White House aide.
Roberts said in his email that he told the president that by the time he tweeted the warning from Alabama and other storm states - 10:51 am ET Sunday - Dorian's projected trajectory had moved much further east and no longer included Nowhere in Alabama.
The president "seemed to agree that the forecast's trajectory had moved, but he was adamant that at some point Alabama was at risk," Roberts wrote. "He also recalled that sometimes in the past the forecast tracks have changed dramatically."
MIRA : Mayor of London criticizes Trump for playing golf while there is a hurricane alert in several states of the country
As the president’s national and anti-terrorism security adviser, Rear Admiral Peter Brown said in a statement issued Thursday afternoon, Roberts said that on his visit to the Oval Office he learned that Trump had been shown Sunday a graphic showing Hurricane Dorian moving north through Florida and touching the southeastern tip of Alabama with strong tropical storm winds.
A White House source told CNN on Thursday that Trump personally ordered Brown to issue the statement. Brown reports to national security adviser John Bolton, but Bolton did not ask Brown to publish the statement, the source said.
CNN's Jeff Zeleny contributed to this report.
Fox News Hurricane Dorian
