This exchange on Russia from President Trump’s February 17th press conference doesn’t hold up terribly well, not particularly the portion on Paul Manafort and Trump’s business dealings in Russia or lack thereof.
Q President Trump, since you brought up Russia, I’m looking for some clarification here. During the campaign, did anyone from your team communicate with members of the Russian government or Russian intelligence? And if so, what was the nature of those conversations?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, the failing New York Times wrote a big, long front-page story yesterday. And it was very much discredited, as you know. It was — it’s a joke. And the people mentioned in the story — I notice they were on television today saying they never even spoke to Russia. They weren’t even a part, really — I mean, they were such a minor part — I hadn’t spoken to them. I think the one person, I don’t think I’ve ever spoken to him. I don’t think I’ve ever met him. And he actually said he was a very low-level member of, I think, a committee for a short period of time. I don’t think I ever met him. Now, it’s possible that I walked into a room and he was sitting there, but I don’t think I ever met him. I didn’t talk to him, ever. And he thought it was a joke.
The other person said he never spoke to Russia, never received a call. Look at his phone records, et cetera, et cetera. And the other person, people knew that he’d represented various countries, but I don’t think he represented Russia — but knew that he represented various countries. That’s what he does. I mean, people know that. That’s Mr. Manafort, who’s, by the way — who’s, by the way, a respected man. He’s a respected man. But I think he represented the Ukraine, or Ukraine government, or somebody. But everybody — people knew that. Everybody knew that. So these people — and he said that he has absolutely nothing to do and never has with Russia. And he said that very forcefully. I saw his statement. He said it very forcefully. Most of the papers don’t print it because that’s not good for their stories.
So the three people that they talked about all totally deny it. And I can tell you, speaking for myself, I own nothing in Russia. I have no loans in Russia. I don’t have any deals in Russia. President Putin called me up very nicely to congratulate me on the win of the election. He then called me up extremely nicely to congratulate me on the inauguration, which was terrific. But so did many other leaders — almost all other leaders from almost all other countries. So that’s the extent.
Russia is fake news. Russia — this is fake news put out by the media. The real news is the fact that people, probably from the Obama administration because they’re there — because we have our new people going in place right now. As you know, Mike Pompeo is now taking control of the CIA. James Comey at FBI. Dan Coats is waiting to be approved. I mean, he is a senator, and a highly respected one. And he’s still waiting to be approved. But our new people are going in.
And just while you’re at, because you mentioned this, Wall Street Journal did a story today that was almost as disgraceful as the failing New Times’s story yesterday. And it talked about — you saw it, front page. So, Director of National Intelligence just put out — acting — a statement: “Any suggestion that the United States intelligence community” — this was just given to us — “is withholding information and not providing the best possible intelligence to the President and his national security team is not true.”
So they took this front-page story out of The Wall Street Journal — top — and they just wrote the story is not true. And I’ll tell you something, I’ll be honest — because I sort of enjoy this back and forth, and I guess I have all my life, but I’ve never seen more dishonest media than, frankly, the political media. I thought the financial media was much better, much more honest. But I will say that I never get phone calls from the media. How do they write a story like that in The Wall Street Journal without asking me? Or how do they write a story in The New York Times, put it on front page? That was like that story they wrote about the women and me — front page. Big massive story. And it was nasty.
And then they called. They said, “We never said that. We like Mr. Trump.” They called up my office — we like Mr. Trump; we never said that. And it was totally — they totally misrepresented those very wonderful women, I have to tell you — totally misrepresented. I said, give us a retraction. They never gave us a retraction. And, frankly, I then went on to other things.
