Imma get a video up as soon as one is available, but I think you’re going to be hearing about “President Trump’s February 16 Press Conference” somewhere down the road, perhaps as a citation in a legal filing.
To his credit, he took the hard question. And the big news, when all is said and done, is that Trump would have authorized Flynn to discusses sanctions. But then he gave a weak denial about election contacts with Russia. Okay, so two big moments. Okay, there were others.
One of favorites was how he asked a black female reporter if she knew that Congressional Black Caucus and then told her to set up a meeting, like she was in his secretarial pool.
He went to use lie about his “largest electoral college win since Reagan”. When a reporter told him he was wrong, and how can he be so inaccurate and yet complain about “fake news”, he just dismissed it — “well, somebody told me that”
Some of it was oddly self-serving and bizarre. Like saying that the White House was running like a “well-oiled machine” and that the roll out of his travel ban went smoothly (it was the 9th Circuit that was chaotic). Several times, he went back to Hillary Clinton, who really hasn’t been on anybody’s mind much (and certainly wasn’t asked about)
At other times it was outright scary, like when he mused about how he’d like to take out that Russian ship in international waters. That would be a clear cause for war, with us on the wrong side. At another point, he went on a long tangent about nuclear holocaust, as if he had just learned about its horrors.
Jake Tapper gets the win for the best immediate response:
.@jaketapper reacts to Donald Trump’s news conference: It was unhinged.. it was wild https://t.co/Ezi1b5j4VC https://t.co/ZDII92SgGm
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) February 16, 2017
Anyway, here’s the transcript via NY Times:
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Open in new tab Here’s some info on how it came about:
Source says it was @POTUS‘s idea — “100%” https://t.co/57lFSyQbli
— Jeremy Diamond (@JDiamond1) February 16, 2017