Donald Trump did an interview with ABC News to mark his first 100 days back in office, which must have seemed like a good idea at the time.
The US President quickly remembered why he usually only does interviews with Fox News.
ABC’s Senior National Correspondent Terry Moran hit him with a number of fairly standard questions.
But because these questions were at least partially based in objective reality, Trump was infuriated by them – and by his inability to answer them.
Here’s how the interview meltdown went – and some other unhinged things that happened overnight in Trump world.
1. He keeps insisting an obviously photoshopped image is real
OK, so let’s start with the most remarkable part of the ABC News interview from last night.
Cast your mind back a couple of weeks, to when Trump posed for this photo.
That is Trump, in the Oval Office, holding up a picture of the hand of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the man the Administration accidentally deported to a Salvadoran torture prison, and have thus far refused to bring back despite the Supreme Court telling them they had to.
Mr Abrego Garcia, like many Americans, has tattooed knuckles – a marijuana leaf on his index finger, then a smiley face with crossed out eyes, a cross and a skull on his pinkie.
Trump’s picture is handily marked up to point out that marijuana starts with an M and smiley starts with an S…then it gets a bit confusing.
The cross, which one could imagine standing for a T at a push, is marked up as standing for a digit 1, with the skull for no adequately explained reason standing for a 3.
This is, of course, nonsense.
But what would be even more nonsense is if someone thought the “MS-13” text overlaid clumsily on top to “illustrate” the translation, was actually part of the tattoo.
Trump, obviously, thinks it is.
Here’s the transcript…
- Trump: Wait a minute, he had “MS-13” on his knuckles tattooed!
- Moran: He had some tattoos that are interpreted that way, but let’s move on.
- Trump: Wait a minute. Hey, Terry. Terry. Terry. Don’t do that.
- Moran: He did not have the letter “MS-13.”
- Trump: It says “MS-13.”
- Moran: That was photoshopped.
- Trump: That was photoshopped? Terry, you can’t do that. They’ve given you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you’re doing the interview. I picked you because, frankly, I had never heard of you, but that’s okay. But I picked you, Terry, but you’re not being very nice. He had “MS-13” tattooed. Terry. Terry. Do you want me to show you the picture?
- Moran: I saw the picture.
- Trump: And you think it was photoshopped? Well, don’t photoshop it, go look at his hand. He had “MS-13.”
- Moran: He did have tattoos that can be interpreted that way. I’m not an expert on them.
For the record, Terry Moran has had a distinguished journalism and broadcasting career, has been at ABC News for nearly 30 years, has covered and interviewed successive presidents since Clinton and played a key role in ABC’s 9/11 coverage.
2. The rest of the interview wasn’t any less testy – especially when Russia came up
As the fractious interview went on, Trump said he believes Vladimir Putin “wants peace”.
Moran asked: “Still, even while he’s raining missiles?”
“His dream was to take over the whole country,” Trump shot back. “Because of me, he’s not going to do that … you start hitting me with fake questions. You’re being dishonest.
:I don’t trust you. I don’t trust, I don’t trust a lot of people. I don’t trust you. Look at you. You come in all shooting for bear. You’re so happy to do the interview and then you start hitting me with fake questions.”
3. Trump told struggling Americans this is what they ‘signed up for’
Asked about concerns over his loco tariff policies, Trump was asked: “People who voted for you are saying they didn’t sign up for this – how do you answer that?”
Trump replied: “Well, they did sign up for it, actually. This is what I campaigned on.”
4. And he lied about what he said during the campaign
Pressed on whether Americans should expect some ‘hard times’, he claimed he had told people that during the campaign.
“I said that during my campaign,” he insisted. “We won a campaign by a lot … I said you’re gonna have a transition period.”
He absolutely did not say that during the campaign. In fact, he promised prices would drop on “day one.”
5. He downgraded ‘due process’ to ‘a process’
Asked whether even immigrants who are “bad guys” should get due process in the United States, as is demanded by the constitution, Trump paused, thought for a moment and replied: “Well, they get _a_ process, where we have to get them out.”
He also suggested he’d have to check with his lawyers to know whether every single person to be deported would get a hearing first.
6. Meanwhile, Hegseth “proudly” axed a “woke” programme inside the Defence department…that Trump put in place
Last night Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth tweeted: “This morning, I proudly ENDED the “Women, Peace & Security” (WPS) program inside the @DeptofDefense.
“WPS is yet another woke divisive/social justice/Biden initiative that overburdens our commanders and troops — distracting from our core task: WAR-FIGHTING.
“WPS is a UNITED NATIONS program pushed by feminists and left-wing activists. Politicians fawn over it; troops HATE it.
“DoD will hereby executive the minimum of WPS required by statute, and fight to end the program for our next budget.
“GOOD RIDDANCE WPS!”
Of course, it wasn’t a “Biden initiative.” The Women, Peace and Security Act was passed in 2017, during the first Trump administration, and was supported by the then-President.
Last month Marco Rubio wrote that he was “very proud” to have co-sponsored the bill in the Senate, boasting it was “the first law passed by any country anywhere in the world – focused on protecting women and promoting their participation in society.”
Which brings us onto…
7. How’s that lettuce holding up, Pete?
Asked in the ABC News interview whether he had “100% confidence” in Pete Hegseth, Trump said: “I don’t have 100% confidence in anything. It’s a stupid question. Look, you don’t have 100% confidence. Only a liar would say they had 100% confidence.
“I don’t have 100% confidence that we’ll finish this interview.”
8. Also, he joked about wanting to be Pope
Asked who his number one choice for the next Pope would be, Trump quipped: “I would like to be Pope. That would be my number one choice.”
This was, of course, a joke. But in the beginning, so were running for a third term and annexing Canada…
9. Trump went on a long rant about how he saved showers and toilets
Last month, Trump signed an executive order scrapping restrictions on shower heads that were designed to save water. Which might not be a bad idea considering how prone to rampant wildfires America has been of late.
Still, Trump is inordinately proud of this particular rule-change, because it means he personally can have a nice shower again. Also, paper straws, sinks and gas stoves.
“Did you just see what I did?” He told a 100-days rally in Warren Michigan. “Straws. I wiped out the paper straws. Your sink. You ever tried buying a new sink and no water comes out? Your shower heads, your toilets, the whole thing. It’s a disaster. We now have it so you can have as much water as you want, because it’s not an environmental problem.”
Expanding on the shower thing, he said: “You used to take them off but now you can’t because they’re welded in. But now you don’t have to worry about that because we’ve opened up your faucets and we’ve opened up…especially me. I don’t like taking a shower where the water goes “drip…drip, drip onto my luxuriant hair.