On Sunday's 60 Minutes on CBS, Trump sat down for an interview with Norah O'Donnell to discuss the incident that had happened at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. When the subject of the alleged gunman's manifesto came up, Trump did the most bigly self-own in history:
O'DONNELL: The so-called manifesto is a stunning thing to read, Mr. President.
He appears to reference a motive in it. He writes this quote, "Administration officials, they are targets." And he also wrote this, "I'm no longer willing to permit a pedophile rapist and traitor to coat my hands with his crimes."
What's your reaction to that?
TRUMP: Well, I was waiting for you to read that because I knew you would, because you're horrible people. Horrible people.
Yeah, he did write that. I'm not a rapist. I didn't rape anybody.
O'DONNELL: Oh, you think he was referring to you?
TRUMP: Excuse me. I'm not a pedophile. You read that crap from some sick person. I got associated with stuff that has nothing to do with me. I was totally exonerated. Your friends on the other side of the plate are the ones that were involved with, let's say, Epstein or other things. But I said to myself, you know, I'll do this interview and they'll probably... I read the manifesto, you know, as a sick person. But you should be ashamed of yourself for reading that because I'm not any of those things.
O'DONNELL: Mr. President, these are the gunman's words.
TRUMP: Excuse me. You shouldn't be reading that on 60 Minutes. You're a disgrace. But go ahead. Let's finish the interview.
Boy, that's a pretty defensive response for a man claiming innocence. Or to be more exact, falsely claiming innocence.
Granted, there have been many people in Trump's circle who have been accused of committing some horrific crimes, yet Trump automatically takes a defensive posture. That's not exactly the actions of an innocent person. And attacking the messenger does nothing to make him look less guilty.
Trump has already been adjudicated to be a rapist. And many more women have claimed that Trump raped them as well.
It also follows that if he would lie about something as easily refuted as that, he might lie about other things as well. Of course, if he is innocent of being a pedophile, releasing the Trumpstein, er, the Epstein files ought to clear up any doubt on that. Yet he has refused to release the files, despite being legally required to release them.
The fact that we have a lying choad for president is bad enough. But the fact that there are so many people willing to ignore the facts right in front of their faces and continue to support him is just madness. It's going to take a long time and a lot of hard work to get this country back into order.
