#DerangedDonald cannot stay off the twitter machine today, tweeting while he watches US Open golf on television. More idiotic was Trump trying to imply that impeachment is illegal by misquoting AOC. And then there’s the unedited transcript of George Stephanopoulos interviewing Trump.
This unedited version is interesting because of how Trump tries to bully his way through the interview, unlike the more receptive Fox News ones.
STEPHANOPOULOS: The other thing we're hearing from these-- again, these are voters who support you, still say they're proud of you. They wish you'd cut back on the tweets.
TRUMP: You know, I have it both ways. I have a very unfair press. It's a fake news. It's a corrupt news. I have people that are so dishonest. I mean, I had a case of it recently with the New York Times where they're writing things knowing it was wrong. Knowing. If I don't put it out-- I don't call it tweets. I call it social media. If I don't use social media, I do not get the word out. I have some people that do say that, but I have far more that say-- just today in the-- in the speech I had a woman, "Please don't stop tweeting. Please. That's the only way you're getting the message out." I have so many people that would go-- that would be very unhappy if I ever stopped. And it's not tweet. It's social media. I put it out, and then it goes onto your platform. It goes onto ABC. It goes onto the networks. It goes onto all over cable. It's an incredible--
STEPHANOPOULOS: So for you, it's just--
TRUMP: --way of communicating.
STEPHANOPOULOS: --a tool you're never going to give up?
TRUMP: Well, it's-- it-- how can I communicate like that? I put one out this morning. And as soon as I pressed the button, they said, "We have breaking news." Every network, every station. "We have breaking news." They read my tweet. Why is that bad? And when I'm treated badly by the press-- and nobody's ever been treated badly like me. When I'm treated so badly--
STEPHANOPOULOS: You know that every president says that.
TRUMP: I-- I disagree. Look, it's been acknowledged. Although they do say Abraham Lincoln was treated really badly. I must say that's the one. If you can believe it, Abraham Lincoln was treated supposedly very badly. But nobody's been treated badly like me. And this way I can fight the dishonest media, the corrupt media, the fake news.
[...]
STEPHANOPOULOS: You called Robert Mueller honorable, why the switch?
TRUMP: I’m not switching or anything. I would hope he is honorable. But you know what, he gave us no collusion and that was a very big thing.
STEPHANOPOULOS: He did not say that.
TRUMP: And frankly, frankly, he did say that. He said there was no collusion. George, read the report.
STEPHANOPOULOS: He said he explicitly didn’t look at collusion-- I did. He said there was insufficient evidence that said there was a conspiracy. I read every page.
TRUMP: Excuse me, read the report, read the conclusion of the report, just read it. Ok, I mean look you are one that said Donald Trump is not going to win and then you smiled when I got into the race, and you laughed. You and Maggie Haberman would laugh ‘haha’ that was so funny and I will give your deputy chairman of the DNC credit. Because he looked at the two of you and said, sorry to tell you but Donald Trump is going to win.
[...]
TRUMP: In fact I was, I didn’t consider that pursuing a deal when you don’t even have a site. Do you know how many people, how many things I look at? You didn’t even have a site in Moscow, they didn’t know what they were doing in Moscow, there was virtually no work done on it by me certainly, by me. By the way, by my son, by Don. And, I’m looking at things all over the world. When you will see my financial statement, at some point I assume it’s going to be released, you’ll be very impressed by the job I’ve done. Much, much bigger, much, much better than anybody--
STEPHANOPOULOS: Which financial statement?
TRUMP: Uhh, they’re after my financial statement. Now, they should be after everyone else’s financial statement but, uhh, they are after, the Senate, they’d like to get my financial statement. At some point, I hope they get it--
STEPHANOPOULOS: You going to turn it over?
TRUMP: No, at some point, I might, but at some point I hope they get it because it’s a financ--, it’s a fantastic financial statement. It’s a fantastic financial statement. And let’s do that over, he’s coughing in the middle of my answer.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah. Okay.
TRUMP: I don’t like that, you know, I don’t like that.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Your chief of staff.
TRUMP: If you’re going to cough, please leave the room. You just can’t, you just can’t cough. Boy oh boy. Okay, do you want to do that a little differently than uhh--
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yep, thank you.
TRUMP: So at some point--so at some point, I look forward to, frankly, I’d like to have people see my financial statement because it’s phenomenal--
STEPHANOPOULOS: It’s up to you--
TRUMP: No, it’s not up to me. It’s up to lawyers, it’s up to everything else. But they’re asking for things that they should never be asking for, that they’ve never asked another president for. They want to go through every deal that they’ve ever done, they’ve--what they’re doing is a disgrace.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You know other presidents have turned over their tax returns.
TRUMP: They’re trying to do: step, step, step. They want to keep it going as long as possible to try to demean and hurt as much as possible so they can possibly win the presidential election. They’re not going to win the presidential election. Nobody’s done, in two and a half years, the job I’ve done as president. The economy is one of the best in the history of our country. Taxes are lower than they’ve been, almost ever, almost ever, certainly in the last fifty years. We’ve done a job with the vets. We’ve done a job with just about everything, even Obamacare, it was almost terminated, except for one vote by John McCain, but it was almost terminated. If it would’ve been terminated, we would have great--
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