On Thursday, President Trump posted a video clip from this morning’s edition of Fox & Friends meant to prove that despite all evidence to the contrary, he has in fact “recognized Russian Meddling MANY TIMES.”
There’s just one problem, however — the 54-second video Trump posted actually shows him repeatedly contradicting the U.S. intelligence community’s unequivocal consensus conclusion that Kremlin-connected hackers and agents interfered in the election on his behalf.
The video begins with a clip from the press conference then-President-elect Trump held on January 11, 2017.
“Trump recognized Russian Meddling MANY TIMES” pic.twitter.com/T8MERS93wI
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 19, 2018
“As far as hacking I think it was Russia, but I think we also get hacked by other countries and other people,” Trump said, in a claim that’s inconsistent with the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia, and Russia alone, was responsible for hacks of Democratic targets and the ensuing WikiLeaks pro-Trump propaganda campaign.
In the clip from his January 2017 presser, Trump went on to attempt to downplay Russian hacking by making a comparison between a 2015 hack of the Office of Personnel Management that China was suspected to be responsible for, and the hacks involved in the 2016 election interference campaign.
“I can say that when we lost 22 million names and everything else that was hacked recently, they didn’t make a big deal out of that,” Trump claimed. “That was something that was extraordinary. That was probably China. We have much hacking going on.”
The video then cuts to a clip of Trump’s remarks during a news conference in Poland on July 6, 2017, in which he again sounded a skeptical note about the intelligence community’s conclusion.
“Well, I think it was Russia, and I think it could’ve been other people in other countries,” Trump said. “It could have been a lot of people [that] interfered… I think it was Russia, but I think it was probably other people and/or countries.”
The clip ends with remarks Trump made at the White House on March 6 of this year in which he once again questioned the intelligence community’s conclusion.
“Well, the Russians had no impact on our votes whatsoever, but certainly there was meddling, and probably there was meddling from other countries and maybe other individuals,” Trump said.
In short, in a video meant to prove that he takes the intelligence community’s conclusion about Russian interference seriously, Trump contradicts the intelligence community’s conclusion no fewer than a half-dozen times.
Trump spent the week trying to walk back comments he made during his joint news conference with Putin on Monday, in which he indicated he accepts the Russian president’s denials of involvement in election interference, even though they are at odds with the conclusions of his own intelligence agencies.
A day later, Trump made an absurd attempt to explain away the controversy by claiming that when he said “I don’t see any reason why it would be” Putin who interfered in the election, what he really meant to say was “I don’t see any reason why it wouldn’t be.”
But even while he was trying to walk his comments back, Trump indicated he still doesn’t accept the intelligence community’s conclusion. After saying that “I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place,” the president immediately indicated he was lying.
“It could be other people also,” Trump said. “There’s a lot of people out there.”