An abridged history of the Trump administration defending baseless claims
White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany on Wednesday sought to defend the president’s baseless claim that a 75-year-old man who was seen knocked to the ground by police in Buffalo, N.Y., last week during a protest over George Floyd’s death was a member of antifa and that the incident was “a setup.” Watch an abridged history of instances of President Trump and his administration attempting to use a similar defense.
Video Transcript
- Yesterday, the president, Kayleigh, was-- tweeted out that this Buffalo protest, the 75-year-old who was shoved to the ground by a police officer, might have been part of ANTIFA and a provocateur in order to get that type of reaction, just to paraphrase. Could you expand on that? Does the president think that this guy is part of ANTIFA?
KAYLEIGH MCENANY: So the president was raising questions based on a report that he saw. There are questions that need to be asked. In every case, we can't jump on one side without looking at all the facts at play. There are a lot of questions in that case. In fact, you had 56 police officers who resigned in protest of how their fellow officers were treated. So I think we need to ask why those officers resigned, what happened, what facts were on the ground, and the president was just raising some of those questions.
- Your tweets about the woman who died, who you're suggesting that Joe Scarborough was responsible?
DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, a lot of people suggest that, and hopefully someday people are going to find out. It's certainly a very suspicious situation, very sad-- very sad and very suspicious.
- Government officials in London today rejected White House claims that the alleged wiretapping on a new-- on Trump Tower-- on Trump organization-- or members of your campaign was-- that British intelligence was either responsible for it or involved in it.
DONALD TRUMP: We said nothing. All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television. I didn't make an opinion on it. That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox, and so you shouldn't be talking to me. You should be talking to Fox.
BILL O'REILLY: Is there any validity to the criticism of you that you say things you can't back up factually? And as the president, if you say, for example, that there are 3 million illegal aliens who voted and then you don't have the data to back it up, some people are going to say, that's irresponsible for a president to say that. Is there any validity to that?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, many people have come out and said I'm right. You know that?
BILL O'REILLY: I know, but you've got to have data to back that up.
DONALD TRUMP: Let me just tell you-- let me just tell you-- it's really a bad situation. It's really bad. And--
BILL O'REILLY: So you think you're going to be proven correct in that statement?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, I think I already have. A lot of people have come out and said that I am correct.
BILL O'REILLY: Yeah, but the data has to show that 3 million illegals voted.
DONALD TRUMP: Look, forget that. Forget all of that.
All I did is out the fact that on the cover of the "National Enquirer," there's a picture of him and crazy Lee Harvey Oswald having breakfast. Now, Ted never denied that it was his father. Instead, he said, Donald Trump, I had nothing to do with it. This was a magazine that, frankly, in many respects, should be very respected. They got OJ. They got Edwards. They got this. I mean, if that was "The New York Times," they would have gotten Pulitzer Prizes for their reporting.
BILL O'REILLY: When you tweet out a thing-- and this bothered me, I got to tell you-- you tweeted out that whites kill by blacks-- these were statistics you picked up from somewhere-- at a rate of 81%, and that's totally wrong. Whites killed by blacks is 15%, yet you tweeted it was 81%.
DONALD TRUMP: Bill, I didn't tweet. I retweeted somebody that was supposedly an expert--
BILL O'REILLY: Yeah, but you don't want to be--
DONALD TRUMP: --and who's also a radio show.
BILL O'REILLY: Why do you want to be in that zone?
DONALD TRUMP: Well, look, hey Bill, Bill, am I going to check every statistic? I get millions and millions of people @RealDonaldTrump, by the way.
BILL O'REILLY: You've got to. You're a presidential contender. You've got to check it.
DONALD TRUMP: I have millions of people. You know what? Fine. But this came out of radio shows and everything else.
BILL O'REILLY: Oh, come on. Radio shows?
DONALD TRUMP: All it was was a retweet. I didn't say-- excuse me-- all it was is a retweet. It wasn't from me. And it did. It come out-- came out of a radio show and other places because you see all the names.
BILL O'REILLY: Look, you know I'm looking out for you, right? You know that? Yeah, I'm looking out for you. I look out for every honest politician. I don't care what party they're in.
- A few years ago, you led the birther movement. You sent investigators out to Hawaii to find out whether or not Obama, which you said, was not born here.
DONALD TRUMP: Well, I don't know--
- And it turned out to not be true--
DONALD TRUMP: Well, I don't know.
- --so why should they believe you here?
DONALD TRUMP: According to you, it's not true. I don't know. You know--
- He released his birth certificate.
DONALD TRUMP: You know, if you believe that, that's fine. I don't care. It's an old subject.
