Katy Tur unloaded on Trump for his laughable claim that he misspoke at his press conference with Putin.
Video:
Tur said
To get more stories like this, subscribe to our newsletter The Daily.
I almost jumped the gun because it’s laughable. It is ludicrous that he is trying to explain that away by saying I just forgot to say one word. It’s as if he expected us or thinks that we’re all wearing blindfolds and had earplugs in for the rest of that news conference and for his interview with Sean Hannity later at night and for his tweets and all the behavior that he’s shown and expect us to believe that that was a tiny misspeak that he did, that he meant to say not, instead he said would. That’s ludicrous. Last night on Sean Hannity he was asked about Putin’s denial and said, quote, Putin was extremely strong and powerful in his denial. Once again, siding with Vladimir trump also said in the news conference yesterday that the U.S. Has been foolish for investigating Russian collusion and we are all to blame. And the probe is ridiculous.
He called it a witch hunt. He called the probe a witch hunt yesterday, yesterday morning. He said our relationship has never been worse now, that changed four hours ago, and that he can’t make decisions on foreign policy to appease partisan critics. It’s ludicrous. It’s ludicrous for him to expect us to believe it. You have to wonder what’s been going on behind the scenes at the white house today and how many people have gone up to the president and said, you need to fix this.
Notice he was reading from typed remarks. It reminded me a lot of what happened in Charlottesville after he said the both sides thing and he said there were a lot of fine people marching with the white supremacists He read from prepared remarks. He read them. He couldn’t speak from the heart about racism. A day later, hours later, whatever it was, he walked that back again and went back to his true feelings which was that he felt that both sides were to blame and that there were very fine people. Watch for what the president says in the coming hours. Watch for what the president says tomorrow. I don’t think anybody can call this a clarification or in any way argue that it mitigates the disastrous news conference that happened yesterday.
Trump was trying to play the American people for fools
Trump thinks that the American people are idiots. Changing one word does not change the entire meaning and tone of the press conference. The way for Trump to fix this was to clearly state that Russia attacked the 2016 election and that he supports new actions against Russia, and he will implement increased funding to protect our election system.
Trump did none of those things. He said that he agreed with the intel community, but added that it could have been Russia or someone else. He said that he would protect US elections but didn’t outline a plan to do so, or offer increased funding. He also didn’t mention any action against Russia for their crimes.
The president can’t fix this. The press conference with Putin was a defining moment, and only the Kool-Aid drinkers in the Trump cult are going to believe that he misspoke for the rest of the country it was the moment that could mark the beginning of the end of his presidency.
For more discussion about this story join our Rachel Maddow and MSNBC group.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
