President Donald Trumps pressekonferense torsdag ettermiddag var et fyrverkeri av frustrasjon. Her er Trump med egne ord:
Om hans kampanjemedarbeidere hadde kontakt med kilder i Russland:
«Russia is fake news. Russia — this is fake news put out by the media. The real news is the fact that people, probably from the Obama administration because they’re there, because we have our new people going in place, right now.»
Om han har personlige forbindelser til Russland:
«Well, I had nothing to do with it. I have nothing to do with Russia. I told you, I have no deals there, I have no anything. Now, when WikiLeaks, which I had nothing to do with, comes out and happens to give, they’re not giving classified information. They’re giving stuff — what was said at an office about Hillary cheating on the debates.»
«Which, by the way, nobody mentions. Nobody mentions that Hillary received the questions to the debates. Can you imagine — seriously — can you imagine if I received the questions? It would be the electric chair. OK, he should be put in the electric — you would even call for the reinstitution of the death penalty, OK.»
Om hvordan han vil håndtere Russland:
«If Russia and the United States actually got together and got along — and don’t forget, we’re a very powerful nuclear country and so are they. There’s no up-side. We’re a very powerful nuclear country and so are they. I have been briefed. And I can tell you one thing about a briefing that we’re allowed to say because anybody that ever read the most basic book can say it, nuclear holocaust would be like no other.»
Om det radioaktive grunnstoffet uranium:
«You know what uranium is, right? This thing called nuclear weapons like lots of things are done with uranium including some bad things.»
Om han vil samarbeide med Congressional Black Caucus — en gruppe afroamerikanske kongressmedlemmer — for å forbedre USAs storbyer (spørsmålet ble stilt av April Ryan, en svart kvinne som jobber for American Urban Radio Networks):
Trump: «Well, I would. I tell you what, do you want to set up the meeting?»
…
Ryan: «No — no — no. I’m not —»
Trump: «Are they friends of yours?»
Ryan: «I’m just a reporter.»
Trump: «Well, then set up the meeting.»
Om hans utsagn om «fake news» undergraver medienes pålitelighet:
«Look, I want to see an honest press. When I started off today by saying that it’s so important to the public to get an honest press. The press — the public doesn’t believe you people anymore. Now, maybe I had something to do with that. I don’t know. But they don’t believe you. If you were straight and really told it like it is, as Howard Cosell used to say, right?»
«Of course, he had some questions also. But if you were straight, I would be your biggest booster. I would be your biggest fan in the world, including bad stories about me. But if you go – as an example, you’re CNN, I mean it’s story after story after story is bad. I won. I won. And the other thing, chaos because zero chaos. We are running – this is a fine-tuned machine and Reince happens to be doing a good job but half of his job is putting out lies by the press.»
Om hans regjering kunne gjort noe annerledes da innreiseforbudet ble lansert:
«We had a bad decision. We’re going to keep going with that decision. We’re going to put in a new executive order next week some time. But we had a bad decision.»
«That’s the other thing that was wrong with the travel ban. You had Delta with a massive problem with their computer system at the airports. You had some people that were put out there, brought by very nice buses, and they were put out at various locations.»
«Despite that the only problem that we had is we had a bad court. We had a court that gave us what I consider to be, with great respect, a very bad decision. Very bad for the safety and security of our country. The rollout was perfect.»
Om hva han vil si til jøder i USA som er bekymret for voksende antisemittisme:
«So here’s the story, folks. Number one, I am the least anti- Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life. Number two, racism, the least racist person. In fact, we did very well relative to other people running as a Republican — quiet, quiet, quiet.»
«See, he lied about — he was gonna get up and ask a very straight, simple question, so you know, welcome to the world of the media. But let me just tell you something, that I hate the charge, I find it repulsive.»
«I hate even the question because people that know me and you heard the prime minister, you heard [Benjamin] Netanyahu yesterday, did you hear him, Bibi? He said, I’ve known Donald Trump for a long time and then he said, forget it.»
«So you should take that instead of having to get up and ask a very insulting question like that.»
Kilde: The New York Times