Over the weekend, Donald Trump sat down for an interview with CBS Face the Nation. And if there was one message he was trying to deliver it was …
Trump: Obamacare is dead. … Obamacare, John, is dead, ... Obamacare doesn't work. … I'll tell you who doesn't cover preexisting conditions. Obamacare. You know why? It's dead.
But that wasn’t the only time the previous resident of the White House came up in Trump’s interview. Because there are few things Donald Trump likes more than blaming things on Barack Obama.
Trump: I just heard where General Flynn got his clearance from the Obama administration. … And when he went to Russia, I didn't realize this, when he went to Russia, it was 2015, and he was on the Obama clearance. When General Flynn came to us, as you now know, he already had the highest clearance you can have. I think the same clearance as the president of the United States would have. He had this really high clearance.
So Donald Trump didn’t believe that Barack Obama was born in America, didn’t think he was competent, and called him a liar on innumerable subjects, but Trump completely trusted Obama so much that he didn’t bother to vet his national security advisor. Makes total sense.
But while he’s certain that Obama is the root of all evils, there are some subjects where Donald Trump is a lot less certain. Like who was behind the hacking into DNC servers and personal email accounts.
Trump’s Greek chorus of both enemies and supporters is a part of every interview. They were singing loudly on the subject of the Obama administration renewing Michael Flynn’s security clearance.
Trump: Why - why wasn't this reported months ago? But I watched one of your other competitors and they were devastated by this news — … Because, you know what, that kills them. That's the end of that subject.
It was reported months ago. It was always known. Who did Trump watch who was so “devastated” to discover something everyone already knew? How is this the end of any subject? What in hell is he talking about? And why does no reporter ever ask Trump who “they” are?
Trump: The relationship I have with China, it's been already acclaimed as being something very special, something very different than we've ever had.
Acclaimed by who? Trump met President Xi once briefly, and most of that meeting seems to have involved Trump getting a 10-minute history of North Korea and Xi getting a missile warning over a piece of chocolate cake. Great, great cake.
Trump: The numbers just came out for Obama's last year, 1.6 GDP. That means nothing. That's, like, 1 percent GDP. So, I have gotten to know, as you know, and getting -- I really get along with a lot of other countries. So, I talk to the heads of countries. How are you doing? Not well. Not well. Why? GDP is 8 percent. GDP is 9 percent. We are doing poorly. GDP -- our GDP is like, 1 percent.
What countries would that be? The only country that managed GDP growth above 9 percent in 2016 was Iraq. Was Donald chatting with the Ayatollah? China’s growth rate was 6.9 percent, so it wasn’t Xi ‘complaining’ about 9 percent growth. It wasn’t Germany, which had 1.8 percent. It wasn’t the Brexiting UK, which also had 1.8 percent. It sure didn’t come up during his chat with Justin Trudeau, since Canada’s growth was less than that of the United States. It absolutely didn’t come up in that talk with Vladimir Putin, since Russia’s growth wasn’t growth at all. They had a negative change in GDP. But as with so many statements, no one follows up with Trump makes these wild claims.
And finally, CBS’ John Dickerson got down to a few questions about Russia. Or at least, tried to.
Dickerson: You don't think it's phony that they, the Russians, tried to meddle in the election? You believe that.
Trump: That I don't know. I don't know.
Dickerson: You don't know or you do know?
And here comes an astounding string of BS that has only grown worse since the election. Rather than accepting any of the information from the 17 intelligence agencies of the U.S. government, Trump has only modified his beliefs to adopt more conspiracy theories sourced from Alex Jones and Breitbart.
Trump: Well, I have a - a problem. You have Podesta, who, by the way, I understand has a company with his brother in Russia, Hillary's husband makes speeches in Russia, Hillary did a uranium deal with Russia, nobody ever talks about that, but I don't know because the FBI was not allowed by Podesta to go in and check all of the records and their servers and everything else that you would normally have to check. That's number one. Number two, knowing something about hacking, if you don't catch a hacker, OK, in the act, it's very hard to say who did the hacking. With that being said, I'll go along with Russia. It could have been China. It could have been a lot of different groups. But it could have been —
Dickerson: So President Donald Trump is ambivalent about - or not ambivalent, you're just not sure?
Trump: No, I'm not - no. We have to find out what happened. I'd love to find out what happened.
Damn it, Dickerson. You cut Trump off before he could get to the 400-pound kid in his parent’s basement.
Trump is still denying not just that he was connected to the Russians, but that the Russians were involved in the election hacking at all. Instead he’s making convoluted claims about John Podesta and tossing shade at his pal Xi.
He’s 100 days in, and 100 percent as deceptive as ever.