"Oh, boy. I am fully expecting a completely unhinged social media post from Donald Trump following what might be one of the most disastrous interviews I've ever seen him have with Kristen Welker of Meet the Press.
Not only did he eventually storm out of the interview, he seems to think that James Comey was the head of the FBI during the January 6th attack on our Capitol, still seems confused as to who was president on that day (spoiler alert: it was him), and he largely proved that all his bullsh*t about "rigged elections" is totally made up because, when she pressed him on the fact that he's yet to provide any evidence for his claims, he just spiraled into unhinged talking points and wouldn't address her questions.
I rarely suggest anyone listen to anything he says because he's incredibly difficult to listen to, but this is 100% worth the watch.
Here's part of the exchange where Welker presses him on his January 6th lies:
Welker: "Do you think anyone who attacked police officers on January 6th should get taxpayer money?"
Trump: "I wouldn't be inclined to say so, but I have to see it. I can tell you this: 97% of those people, you look at them, the FBI or whoever it was, because you had a lot of crooked cops, you had dirty cops. Comey was a dirty cop. A guy like Bolton was a dirty cop."
Welker: "But there is no evidence that people who..."
Trump: "Wait a minute. You think Comey was a straight cop?"
Welker: "We had 170 people who pleaded guilty to assaulting police officers."
Trump: "Comey was a dirty cop."
Welker: "But the people who assaulted police officers..."
Trump: "Listen to me. They had FBI agents ushering them into the building. They had FBI saying, 'Go into the building.' Those people are walking around, they're looking, 'Oh, isn't this nice?' They were being ushered into the building."
Welker: "There's no evidence of that, sir. There's no evidence of that."
Trump: "Try looking at the tapes one time!"
After Trump went on another short rant, of course evoking his obsession with Biden, Welker pressed him further about the lack of evidence that January 6th was some kind of inside job carried out by "crooked cops."
Welker: "Just to be very clear, there's no evidence of what you're saying."
Trump: "There's a lot of evidence. Listen to me — there's tremendous evidence. There's nothing but evidence."
Welker: "Well, it's not been presented in a court of law."
And this is where Trump really started to go off the rails.
Trump: "The election was rigged. It was a dirty election. And it's happening again right now in California."
Welker: "Do you have evidence to support that?"
Trump: "All I have to do is look."
Welker: "But that's not evidence."
Trump: "They're crooked just like you're crooked. Your press is crooked. And Meet the Press is crooked."
So, let's summarize this insanity a bit, shall we?
When asked about the January 6th attack, Trump started citing James Comey and John Bolton — neither of whom was involved with the FBI or any part of our government on that day. In fact, Comey had not been the head of the FBI for nearly four years. Yet, for some reason, Trump invoked his name when it was his own handpicked director, Christopher Wray, who was running the FBI at the time.
And the only reason I can think of for bringing up Bolton's name is reports that Bolton plans to plead guilty to mishandling classified documents, as if that has anything to do with the January 6th attack.
I also still love how he seems to forget that he was the president on January 6, 2021, when this attack took place. It wasn't Barack Obama or Joe Biden — it was him. Yet when he pushes all of this absurdity, he conveniently omits that part and implies that someone else was president that day to better build a case for his totally made-up conspiracy.
Then, as Welker pressed him on the fact that he's made all these claims but has never produced any actual evidence for any of them, he went back to his go-to talking points to whine about "rigged elections."
Which brings me back to a point I've been making for a while now.
The fact is, as things stand today, Trump is the president and has seemingly unlimited resources at his disposal. If all this evidence exists that he's spent years claiming is out there, then where is it? We're over one-third of the way through his presidency, and he's produced nothing despite having his handpicked sycophants running everything. Yet not only has he failed to produce any of the "overwhelming" evidence that the 2020 election was stolen, he hasn't even proven that a single state was "rigged."
But he "sees what's going on" and "people are telling him" — because, you know, that's apparently more credible than actual evidence.
It's so utterly ridiculous. This isn't a complex situation, either. If all this evidence Trump has spent years claiming exists is, in fact, real, then let's see it. What's he waiting for? He's the president. The FBI is run by his little minion Patel. The DOJ is currently being run by his personal attorney. There's nothing preventing Trump from proving the biggest scandal in American history — that a presidential election was stolen.
Yet he hasn't, because it's all a lie.
If you have some time, watch the interview. It's worth seeing him squirm, look foolish, and invoke the names of people who clearly had nothing to do with anything on January 6th because he literally can't defend the gibberish he's relying on his supporters to be gullible enough to believe."
