He knows nothing
Yasmeen Serhan at the Atlantic has more details:
Morgan tweeted triumphantly late Thursday night that “President Trump has publicly apologized for retweeting far-right group Britain First.” But when the preview came out Friday morning, it wasn’t quite that. The four-minute clip showed Morgan pressing Trump on his controversial retweets of the far-right ultranationalist British political group “Britain First” in November—a move that prompted outrage in the U.K., and a rare rebuke from Trump’s British counterpart, Prime Minister Theresa May. But Trump’s response was more deflection than admission.
Morgan: You retweeted an organization called Britain First, one of the leaders, three times.
Trump: Well, three times. Boom, boom, boom. Quickly. Yeah.
Morgan: But this caused huge, huge anxiety and anger in my country because Britain First is basically a bunch of racist, fascist—
Trump: Of course I didn’t know that.
Morgan: Well that’s what I wanted to clarify with you. What did you know about them when you did those retweets?
Trump: Well I know nothing about them and I know nothing about them today, other than I read a little bit. And I guess—and again I’m in the United States so I don’t read as much about it. Perhaps it was a big story in Britain, perhaps it was a big story in the U.K., but in the United States, it wasn’t a big story.
Yes it was. He means it wasn’t a big story with his “base,” it wasn’t a big story on Fox News, it wasn’t a big story in his tiny brain. It’s his crap theory of mind yet again – he thinks what he knows is what everyone knows and what he doesn’t know is what everyone doesn’t know, with the possible exception of some weirdo foreigners far away somewhere over there [waves in a direction].
While Trump insisted in his conversation with Morgan that his retweets were not an endorsement of the group —“I wasn’t endorsing anybody, I knew nothing about them”—he stopped short of actually apologizing. The regret he offered was hypothetical and conditional.
Morgan: Can I get an apology out of you just for the retweets of Britain First? I think it would go a long way.
Trump: Here’s what’s fair: If you’re telling me they’re horrible people, horrible racist people, I would certainly apologize if you’d like me to do that. I know nothing about them.
Morgan: And you would disavow yourself of people like that?
Trump: I don’t want to be involved with people. But you’re telling me about these people, because I know nothing about these people.
Or about anything else.
I’d be extatic if he knew as much as “nothing.” One of his biggest problems is so much of what he thinks he knows* is simply not true; to me that counts as knowing LESS than nothing.
*There is also the possibility that he actually knows that some of these things aren’t true but is either playing to his base and/or he just doesn’t actually give a shit.
He may not have known what Britain First was like, but if he watched the videos he knew that they were likely to stir up hatred of Muslims. That in itself requires an apology.
Trump likes to shout ‘America First’ so he probably assumed that ‘Britain First’ share his values (sic).
He’s right!