President Donald Trump sat down with Time Magazine on Wednesday for an interview centered on the idea of “truth,” which prompted the President to fiercely defend some of the most baseless and bizarre claims he has made both on the campaign trail and while serving in office.
Trump repeatedly insisted throughout the interview that he has great instincts and that his political predictions tend to come true, while brushing off questions about whether he knew there was any truth to his statements at the time he actually made them.
Below are the wildest moments from Trump’s interview with Time.
“A wiretapping is, you know today it is different than wire tapping”
Asked about his infamous tweet accusing President Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower, the President insisted that he did not mean that he was literally wiretapped and cited a Wednesday press briefing from House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA) as vindication.
“When I said wiretapping, it was in quotes. Because a wiretapping is, you know today it is different than wire tapping. It is just a good description. But wiretapping was in quotes. What I’m talking about is surveillance,” Trump told Time.
Asked if FBI Director James Comey’s testimony before Congress that there was no evidence to back Trump’s claim undermined the President’s credibility, Trump said: “No, I have, look. I have articles saying it happened. But you have to take a look at what they, they just went out at a news conference. Devin Nunes had a news conference. I mean I don’t know, I was unable to see it, because I am at meetings, but they just had a news conference talking about surveillance.”
Trump later read from a news story about Nunes’ statements and crowed, “so that means I’m right.”
Anthony Weiner “had it, all of Hillary’s email on his thing”
The President said that he predicted the FBI would find emails potentially connected to the agency’s probe into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server on a laptop belonging to Anthony Weiner, the estranged husband of Clinton’s closest aide and confidante, Huma Abedin.
“Huma [Abedin] and Anthony [Weiner], you know, what I tweeted about that whole deal, and then it turned out he had it, all of Hillary’s email on his thing,” Trump told Time.
“I’m not saying” GCHQ wiretapped me, “I’m quoting highly respected people” who said so
Trump defended his administration’s decision to cite Fox News analyst Andrew Napolitano’s unfounded claim that a British spy agency, GCHQ, conducted surveillance of Trump on President Obama’s behalf.
“I have a lot of respect for Judge Napolitano, and he said that three sources have told him things that would make me right. I don’t know where he has gone with it since then. But I’m quoting highly respected people from highly respected television networks,” Trump told Time.
When Time’s Michael Scherer pointed out that Presidents traditionally do not share information they cannot verify, Trump shirked responsibility.
“Well, I’m not, well, I think, I’m not saying, I’m quoting, Michael, I’m quoting highly respected people and sources from major television networks,” he said.
“Name what’s wrong!”
Asked if he was worried about his credibility should any of his anonymously-sourced claims were later proven wrong, Trump challenged Scherer, “Name what’s wrong! I mean, honestly.”
“I talked about Sweden” and “two days later, they had a massive riot”
Trump defended comments he made in February about a non-existent terror incident “last night in Sweden,” even after conceding that comment did not refer to any real event.
“I talked about Sweden, and may have been somewhat different, but the following day, two days later, they had a massive riot in Sweden, exactly what I was talking about, I was right about that,” Trump said.
Asked about the fact that he did not refer to an event that actually had happened, Trump continued to defend the claim.
“No I am saying I was right. I am talking about Sweden,” he said. “I’m talking about what Sweden has done to themselves is very sad, that is what I am talking about. That is what I am talking about. You can phrase it any way you want. A day later they had a horrible, horrible riot in Sweden and you saw what happened.”
“I have people say it was more than” 3 million votes that were illegally cast in 2016
“I think I will be proved right about that too,” Trump said when asked about his unsubstantiated claim that there were three million “illegal” votes cast in the 2016 election by undocumented immigrants.
Trump also told Scherer that “I have people say it was more than” three million votes that were illegally cast in the election he won.
The President said some of those votes may have come from people who improperly registered to vote.
“Well now if you take a look at the votes, when I say that, I mean mostly they register wrong, in other words, for the votes, they register incorrectly, and/or illegally. And they then vote. You have tremendous numbers of people,” Trump said, adding that he was forming a committee to investigate the matter.
“I’m president, and you’re not”
Asked once more at the end of the interview about his credibility, Trump told Scherer: “Hey look, in the mean time, I guess, I can’t be doing so badly, because I’m president, and you’re not.”
Is it irresponsible for any journalist to publish an endless stream of lies? Even if it’s being fact checked in real time?
Just horrifying. There is no ability for rational critical thinking in evidence here.
The only thing we can hope for is that he will bring down, not only himself (that’s almost a given), but also the party that set the stage for and then aided and abetted his rise.
In this context it’s not so much broadcasting Trump’s lies as showcasing the endless stream of self-justification and reinforcement for his lies and fantasies. It’s showing the bizarre, pathological way his mind works, much as Captain Queeg’s outburst at the Caine trial didn’t persuade anyone of anything but his pettiness, incompetence, and instability. This isn’t like the normalization most of the press did from the beginning; it’s more like a belated but still-welcome effort at abnormalization IMHO.
Right, it’s letting his craziness speak for itself. It’s like showing a picture of a child who is starving to death. You don’t need a caption saying “This is horrible.”
But at the same time it explains his appeal to his fanbase, who “like the way Trump thinks”, because so many ill-informed people think this way, themselves.