Trump Says He Enjoyed ABC Interview, Blasts ‘Fake News Media’ For Trying To ‘Dissect & Distort Every Word’
In a series of Twitter messages posted on Saturday, President Donald Trump discussed his interview with ABC News’s George Stephanopoulos.
The full interview has not been broadcast yet, but ABC has been releasing excerpts for the past few days. Stephanopoulos had seemingly unprecedented access, and a chance to discuss a number of pressing issues with the president. As previously reported by The Inquisitr, the two men discussed everything from foreign election meddling to alleged UFO sightings.
What stood out, generating immense controversy, was Trump’s suggestion that he would gladly accept damaging information about a political opponent, even if it came from a foreign entity. The president, who has been accused of collaborating with the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential election, also said that he would not report such interactions to the FBI.
But, according to Trump, the media is misrepresenting him, again.
“I enjoyed my interview with @GStephanopoulos on @ABC. So funny to watch the Fake News Media try to dissect & distort every word in as negative a way as possible,” the president tweeted, before claiming that the special’s name, President Trump: 30 Hours, is “misleading,” because he “personally spent only a small fraction of that time doing interviews.”
“I do have a few other things to do, you know!” Trump joked, concluding the tweets with an announcement. The president, he revealed, will likely be doing “many more” similar interviews “in order to get the word out” about his accomplishments. According to Trump, this would qualify as “Earned Media,” because he has managed to build “one of the best Economies in the history” of the United States.
In an interview with ABC News, President Trump said there would be nothing wrong with accepting incriminating info about an election opponent from foreign governments https://t.co/aPpfzGVjzy
— NYT Politics (@nytpolitics) June 13, 2019
Although Trump claims to have “enjoyed” the interview, some clips released so far show that it was quite adversarial, if not confrontational. As The Hill reported, a clip of a heated exchange between Trump and Stephanopoulos shows the president insulting and belittling the host, while dodging questions about Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
During the exchange, Stephanopoulous repeatedly pressed Trump on not answering questions from Mueller’s office. The president explained that he had answered, in writing, questions pertaining to possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, but the host kept pointing out that he had not answered questions related to obstruction of justice.
Mueller failed to find proof of a Trump-Russia conspiracy, but laid out in his report numerous instances of potential obstructions of justice by the president.
Watch what happens when @GStephanopoulos repeatedly presses Trump on why he refused to answer questions about obstruction. pic.twitter.com/YKJ37i4NXH
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) June 14, 2019
Seemingly annoyed by Stephanopoulous, Trump insulted and belittled the reporter, calling him a “little wise guy.”
“George, you’re being a little wise guy, okay, which is, you know, typical for you,” he said.
