Who on Donald Trump’s staff thought this was a good idea? Trump decided to hold a freewheeling news conference, only the second lengthy one he has held since taking off office. The hour and twenty-minute long event is being called “weird,” “rambling,” “not coherent,” but as the Washington Post’s Josh Dawsey said the “presser was Trump at his core.”
In a normal world, there should be a medical team waiting to transport Trump to the psych ward after the kind of behavior we just saw displayed at that press conference.#PresidentLoco
— Ana Navarro-Cárdenas (@ananavarro) September 26, 2018
Here is some of what was covered.
ON ACCUSATIONS AGAINST KAVANAUGH
“This is one of the highest quality people that I have ever met. and everybody that knows him says the same thing. And these are all false, to me. These are false accusations in certain cases, and certain cases even the media agrees with that. I can only say that what they have done to this man is incredible.”
“I only say this — 36 years. No charge. No nothing.”
ON WHY TRUMP TAKES THE ACCUSATIONS PERSONALLY
“I’ve had a lot of false charges made against me. I‘m a very famous person. unfortunately. I‘ve been a famous person for a long time. But I’ve had a lot of false charges made against me. Really false charges. I know friends that have had false charges. People want fame, they want money, they want whatever. So when I see it, I view it differently than somebody sitting home watching television where they say, oh, Judge Kavanaugh, this or that. It’s happened to me many times.”
Trump says women who have accused him of sexual misconduct were paid off. “They took money to say bad things about me.”
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) September 26, 2018
Asked again about the accusations against him, Trump says, "I've been accused. I've been accused. FALSE accusations." Trump says it's "four women." Then says "maybe more." Then says "four or five." (It's more than a dozen.)
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 26, 2018
ON GEORGE WASHINGTON
“Look, if we brought George Washington here and we said, we have George Washington, the Democrats would vote against him. Just so you understand. And he may have had a bad past, who knows, you know?”
ON ROD ROSENSTEIN
“We’ve had a good talk. He said he never said it. He said he doesn’t believe it. He said he has a lot of respect for me. And he was very nice and we’ll see. And he’s a member of the Trump Administration. In that sense. It’s the justice department. I would certainly prefer not doing that. There was no collusion. There was no obstruction.”
BIG:" "I would certainly prefer not doing that" @realDonaldTrump when asked if he would fire dag Rod Rosenstein. "I may delay…." meeting tomorrow because he does not want to interfere with Kavanaugh
— Kelly O'Donnell (@KellyO) September 26, 2018
HIS TREATMENT OF THE MEDIA
“A lot of the people sitting here are fake.”
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) September 26, 2018
.@weijia tried to ask her question. Trump interrupted her. Then he went into monologue about his grievances with NYT reporting on his own accusers. Then Weijia, again, tried to ask her question. Trump told her, "Please sit down." But she held onto the mic and asked her question.
— Philip Rucker (@PhilipRucker) September 26, 2018
ON PEOPLE LAUGHING AT HIM AT THE UN
"That was fake news," @realDonaldTrump says of the laughter heard yesterday at the #UNGA. I was there, it happened. It started out as a low groan that turned into chuckles.
— Nikki Schwab (@NikkiSchwab) September 26, 2018
"They weren't laughing at me, they were laughing with me, we were having fun," Trump says of UN leaders laughing after he bragged about his administration's accomplishments.
— Josh Dawsey (@jdawsey1) September 26, 2018
ON TURNING DOWN A MEETING WITH CANADIAN PRIME MINISTER JUSTIN TRUDEAU
“We’re very unhappy with the negotiations and the negotiating style of Canada. We don’t like their representative very much. They have taken advantage — I love Canada, by the way. I have so many friends. I have everybody. So many friends. but that has nothing to do with this.”
! Asked if he turned down a meeting with Trudeau, Trump says, “Yeah, I did.” Asked why, he says, “Because his tariffs are too high and he doesn’t seem to want to move and I told him forget about it. And frankly we’re thinking about just taxing cars coming in from Canada.”
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) September 26, 2018
ON NORTH KOREA
Trump says Obama was on the verge of war with North Korea that would have killed millions of people.
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) September 26, 2018
ON IRAN
.@POTUS: "Iran is going to come back and make a deal…or maybe not. Deals, you never know." "
— Anita Kumar (@anitakumar01) September 26, 2018
Watch the full news conference above.