It wasn’t very stupid
The Post gives us the transcript of that Fox interview where Trump confirms that he tweeted about “tapes” and Comey in order to put pressure on him.
EARHARDT: Great. Big news today, you didn’t have — you said you didn’t tape James Comey. Do you want to explain that? Why did you want him to believe that you possibly did that?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Well, I didn’t tape him. You never know what’s happening when you see that the Obama administration, and perhaps longer than that, was doing all of unmasking and surveillance and you read all about it. And I’ve been reading about it for the last couple of months about the seriousness of the — and horrible situation with surveillance all over the place. And you’ve been hearing the word unmasking, a word you probably never heard before. So you never know what’s out there.
But I didn’t tape. And I don’t have any tape and I didn’t tape. But when he found out that I, you know, that there may be tapes out there, whether it’s governmental tapes or anything else, and who knows, I think his story may have changed. I mean you’ll have to take a look at that, because then he has to tell what actually took place at the events.
And my story didn’t change. My story was always a straight story. My story was always the truth. But you’ll have to determine for yourself whether or not his story changed. But I did not tape.
EARHARDT: So it was a smart way to make sure he stayed honest in those hearings?
TRUMP: Well, it wasn’t — it wasn’t very stupid, I can tell you that. He was — he did admit that what I said was right. And if you look further back, before he heard about that, I think maybe he wasn’t admitting that.
So you’ll have to do a little investigative reporting to determine that. But I don’t think it will be that hard.
Aaron Blake’s commentary:
This is Trump admitting what the White House apparently didn’t want to: That his tweet was meant to influence Comey (or at least that it had that [e]ffect).
There was little doubt that Trump’s initial tweet was a pretty thinly veiled threat to Comey, but it’s remarkable to see Trump admitting to his end-game here. And it harks back to that NBC News/Lester Holt interview in which Trump blurted out, after the White House spent two days arguing that he didn’t fire Comey over the Russia investigation, that Russia was on his mind when he did it.
He blurts these things out when he’s boasting…and he’s always boasting. The blurt about “the Russia thing” was when he was boasting that the decision was all his, it was his idea, he did, him him him, he’s the boss and he decides all the things. The blurt about the tweet is when he’s boasting about being not very stupid. Keep on boasting, Don.
Funny thing is, if he weren’t so thin-skinned, this all would’ve been easy to avoid. All he needed to do was, after winning the election, announce, “I am told we have reliable evidence that Russia was behind the leaks from the DNC. This is a serious charge, it will be investigated, and if true, there will be a response.” Follow this up by burning Flynn when the heat got too close. Bam–no obstruction, no admission of collusion, nothing anyone could pin on him.
But instead, he couldn’t deal with the idea that he had illegitimate help in his ‘great win’, so he had to try to shut it all down, and now he’s getting stuck, painting himself in a corner and not even realizing it.
If he weren’t so capable of extreme harm, I’d just sit back and watch the flame-out.
Not so much painting himself into a corner as sitting on a branch high in a tree and sawing it off between himself and the trunk. Just setting himself up for a big fall.
“It wasn’t very stupid”
I fucking love that he chose that phrasing, it encapsulates so much of what Trump is. His defensiveness, his insecurity causes him to defend his every action no matter how indefensible; a turd factory that polishes everything it excretes. But his self-flattering lies are hampered by his lack childish grasp of language, and so his wording implicitly confesses stupidity.
Oh, surely it’s a sign of his deep humility.
He’s still peddling this “Obama surveillance” horseshit?
Oh, thank you, Donnie, for teaching me a new word. Nobody has ever said ‘unmasking’ before!
What a fucking maroon.