June 12, 2019: President Trump Says He Would Take Help from a Foreign Power to Win Again in 2020

 

6/12/19: President Trump sits down for an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos. The first segment airs today. 

Another “Fake News” story results when ABC releases tape of Trump’s lips moving and all the absurdity spilling out.

 

____________________ 

“Putin has won!” 

Kirill Dmitriev, Russian wealth fund manager

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Having spent the last three years denying that he or anyone on his campaign ever met with Russians, Trump makes clear. Would he like to meet with Russians (again) to swing the 2020 election? 

He would. 

Here’s the transcript of his remarks, related to hypothetical foreign interference in the next U.S. election. We have once again added an “interpreter” to help you grasp every orange-hued nuance. Below, Stephanopoulos is quizzing the president:

 

ABC NEWS CHIEF GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: You’re a fighter. You, you, it feels like you’re in a constant kind of churn. 

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, uh, my life has always been a fight. And I enjoy that I guess, I don’t know if I enjoy it or not, I guess – sometimes I have false fights, like the Russian witch hunt. That’s a false fight. That’s a made-up hoax. And I had a fight that – 

INTERPRETER: The following Trump aides and buddies from 2016 have admitted meeting with Russians during the campaign: Michael Flynn, George Papadopoulos, Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, Roger Stone, Rick Gates, Felix Sater, Paul Manafort, George Nader, and Michael Cohen. 

Not quite a baker’s dozen, but a start.

 

STEPHANOPOULOS: – the first line of his report says they had a systematic attempt at interfere [sic] in our elections. 

President Trump: They did, but not me. And they also said, okay, that we rebuffed them. Okay? 

INTERPRETER: The Mueller Report does not say his campaign “rebuffed” the Russians. (See list above.) The report does say Manafort was working on a “backdoor deal” to benefit the Russians while serving as Trump’s campaign chair.

 

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well they said you’re – 

TRUMP: – that the Trump campaign. Excuse me. The campaign, the Trump campaign rebuffed them. We had nothing to do with Russia. Hillary Clinton had much more to do with Russia than anything having to do with our campaign. It said very specifically that, not only we didn’t have to do, but we rebuffed them [emphasis added throughout]. Now, anything having to do with Russia had nothing to do with our campaign. 

INTERPRETER: The president is lying. What the Mueller Report says is this: “The investigation also identified numerous links between the Russian government and the Trump Campaign. The social media campaign and the GRU hacking operations [Russian military hacking] coincided with a series of contacts between Trump Campaign officials and individuals with ties to the Russian government.” 

And: “Russian outreach to the Trump campaign continued into the summer of 2016…”

 

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, Paul Manafort. 

TRUMP: Paul Manafort, they have Paul Manafort on taxes and many other things. Nothing to do with our campaign. 

INTERPRETER: Trump is lying again. He must have been practicing to get ready for this show. He’s in rare form. They have Manafort on witness tampering in 2018, involving his key Russian contact, Konstantin Kilimnik. Kilimnik was also indicted but fled to Russia. Does Trump really not know this? Manafort cheated the U.S. government out of millions. Investigators have him working on that “backdoor deal” in 2016.

 

STEPHANOPOULOS: Giving polling information to the Russians. 

TRUMP: I don’t know anything about that. What difference does polling information make? It doesn’t matter. He was maybe trying to do something for an account or something. Who knows? But they said specifically that there was nothing to do, and we, in fact, rebuffed them –­ 

INTERPRETER: “Who knows?” This was his campaign. Was he saying he didn’t know what was going on during his campaign?

 

STEPHANOPOULOS: – they said there were hundreds – 

TRUMP: It’s a phony – 

STEPHANOPOULOS: – what they said is that – 

TRUMP: They also said that there were bloggers in Moscow and they said specifically, about the bloggers in Moscow, had nothing to do with Trump, had nothing to do with the – and there were like 32 or 36 bloggers. We have nothing to do with bloggers in Moscow. I’ll tell you, you talk about collusion, take a look at the collusion with the Democrat party and Facebook and Google and Twitter. That’s called collusion, that’s called real collusion. Not where somebody buys some ads and the other thing, having to do with Russia, they were also helping the Clinton campaign, you know that? It wasn’t just Trump. And Putin, I will say this: if he had it, it was up to him. He would much rather have Hillary Clinton be president right now. And all of these countries would rather have Biden or anybody else but Trump.

 

STEPHANOPOULOS: He said the Russian government was trying to help elect you. He said that explicitly. 

TRUMP: Well he might’ve said that after I won because it’s a smart thing to say, okay? Because frankly – 

INTERPRETER: Nope. In the hours after Trump’s victory became clear, Kirill Dmitriev, a Russian wealth fund manager with close ties to the Russian president, emailed Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary of the Russian Federation. 

“Putin has won!” his email read.

 

 

 

“Give me a break, life doesn’t work that way.”

 TRUMP: Mueller said that we rebuffed Russia, that we pushed them away, that we weren’t interested. Read the report. 

INTERPRETER: Clearly, the president has not read the report. The Mueller Report notes on page nine that “…the investigation established that several individuals affiliated with the Trump Campaign lied to the [Special Counsel’s] Office, and to Congress, about their interactions with Russian-affiliated individuals and related matters. Those lies materially impaired the investigation of Russian election interference.”

 

STEPHANOPOULOS: I have read the report. On that though, your son Don Jr. is up before the Senate Intelligence Committee today, and again, he was not charged with anything. In retrospect though, do you think – 

TRUMP: – I mean not only wasn’t he charged, if you read it, with all of the horrible fake news, I mean, I was reading that my son was going to go to jail. This is a good young man. That he was going to go to jail and all of these horrible stories. And then the report comes out and they didn’t even say – they hardly even talked about him. 

INTERPRETER: Don Jr. lied about the purpose of the meeting he took with the Russians. He said it was about adoption. Dad helped write a letter, supporting that lie. Sarah Sanders told reporters the president had nothing to do with the letter. The president’s lawyers eventually admitted he did. That’s some serious, sequential lying.

 

STEPHANOPOULOS: But should he have gone to the F.B.I. when he got that email? 

TRUMP: Okay, let’s put yourself in a position: you’re a congressman, somebody comes up and says, “Hey I have information on your opponent.” Do you call the F.B.I.? 

STEPHANOPOULOS: If it’s coming from Russia you do. 

TRUMP: You don’t – I’ll tell you what. I’ve seen a lot of things over my life. I don’t think in my whole life I’ve ever called the F.B.I. In my whole life. I don’t – you don’t call the F.B.I. You throw somebody out of your office, you do whatever you do – 

STEPHANOPOULOS: Al Gore got a stolen briefing book. He called the F.B.I. 

TRUMP: Well, that’s different. A stolen briefing book. This isn’t – this is somebody who said, “We have information on your opponent.” Oh, let me call the F.B.I. Give me a break, life doesn’t work that way. 

INTERPRETER: Ellen Weintraub, chair of the Federal Election Commission is clear in response to the president, issuing the following statement, first noting, “I would not have thought that I needed to say this.” 

Let me make something 100 percent clear to the American public and anyone running for public office: It is illegal for any person to solicit, accept, or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a U.S. election. This is not a novel concept. Electoral intervention from foreign governments has been considered unacceptable since the beginnings of our nation. Our Founding Fathers sounded the alarm about “foreign Interference, Intrigue, and Influence.” They knew that when foreign governments seek to influence American politics, it is always to advance their own interests, not America’s. Anyone who solicits or accepts foreign assistance risks being on the wrong end of a federal investigation. Any political campaign that receives an offer of a prohibited donations [sic] from a foreign source should report that offer to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

 

STEPHANOPOULOS: The FBI Director says that’s what should happen. 

TRUMP: The FBI Director is wrong. Because, frankly, it doesn’t happen like that in life. Now, maybe it will start happening. Maybe today you think differently. But two or three years ago, if somebody comes into your office with oppo research – they call it oppo research – with information that might be good or bad or something, but good for you, bad for your opponent, you don’t call the FBI. I would guarantee you that 90 percent, could be 100 percent, of the congressmen or the senators over there, have had meetings – if they didn’t they probably wouldn’t be elected – on negative information about their opponent. They don’t – 

INTERPRETER: Trump, a man with no moral compass, is projecting. Let’s look at a few reactions from Republicans. 

Sen. Mitt Romney disagrees. Accepting help, as Trump suggests, “would be totally inappropriate and it would strike at the heart of our democracy.” 

Sen. Susan Collins concurs. The “proper action” if offered foreign help would be to “call the F.B.I.” 

Sen. Lindsey Graham takes issue with the president. “I think that’s wrong. I’ve been consistent on this. If a public official is approached by a foreign government offering anything of value ... the right answer is ‘no.’” 

 

STEPHANOPOULOS: From foreign countries? 

TRUMP: Possibly. Possibly. But they don’t call the F.B.I. You don’t call the F.B.I. every time you hear something that maybe – now, you see the people. The meeting, it also sounds to me – I don’t know anything about that meeting – but it sounds to me like it was a big nothing. That meeting was a big nothing. But I heard about my son, who is a great young man, going to jail over a meeting where somebody said, “I have information on Hillary Clinton.” She’s the one that should be in jail. She deleted 33 – 

STEPHANOPOULOS: She should be in jail? 

TRUMP: She deleted 33,000 emails from – sent by the United States Congress. They gave a subpoena to Hillary Clinton for 33,000 emails. After the subpoena was gotten, she deleted them. That’s called obstruction. And her lawyer should also be looked at because her lawyer – she’s got to have the greatest lawyer on earth because she does that, he did the deleting, supposedly. Not only did they delete, but they acid washed them. 

STEPHANOPOULOS: That’s been investigated. 

INTERPRETER: The President of the United States has just said he’d accept help from a foreign government to win an election. 

This is exactly the kind of suspected behavior that led to the investigation of his 2016 campaign. Trump might as well be a rapist claiming, “I didn’t rape that woman; but if I had the chance again, I would.” 

Let’s quote a few more Republican responses. 

“Generally speaking, it’s a part of, in the case of like Russia, it’s an effort to disrupt our elections,” said Sen. Thom Tillis. “My first call would be to the F.B.I., my second call would be somebody to corroborate the information.” 

“I was just surprised he wouldn’t say he would immediately turn it over to F.B.I. or DOJ,” added Sen. James Lankford. 

Sen. Cory Gardner said foreign opposition “should be turned over to the FBI, plain and simple.” 

Sen. Joni Ernst agreed. “I’d definitely alert the authorities.” 

“You don’t ever want to take foreign money, that’s illegal. And the next route to money is information,” said Sen. Johnny Isakson. “So if you take information from somebody that’s foreign and it’s involved in your campaign, you’re inviting the risk of inviting foreign money into your campaign.”

 

STEPHANOPOULOS: Your campaign this time around, if foreigners, if Russia, if China, if someone else offers you information on opponents, should they accept it or should they call the FBI? 

TRUMP: I think maybe you do both. I think you might want to listen, there’s nothing wrong with listening. If somebody called from a country, Norway, “we have information on your opponent.” Oh, I think I’d want to hear it. 

STEPHANOPOULOS: You want that kind of interference in our elections? 

TRUMP: It’s not an interference, they have information. I think I’d take it. If I thought there was something wrong, I’d go maybe to the FBI. If I thought there was something wrong. But when somebody comes up with oppo research, right, they come up with oppo research. Oh, let’s call the FBI. The FBI doesn’t have enough agents to take care of it, but you go and talk honestly to congressmen, they all do it, they always have. And that’s the way it is. It’s called oppo research. 

INTERPRETER: Trump’s son and half a dozen aides listened to Russian offers of help in 2016. They never notified anyone. And we’re talking about Russia, a hostile foreign power, not Norway (Trump’s favorite country for immigrants). 

Stephanie Douglas, a former executive assistant director of the F.B.I. national security branch, disagrees. “If President Trump is willing to entertain a conversation, foreign intel services love that,” she tells reporters. “It just makes him more vulnerable, and it makes the job of the F.B.I. much harder.” 

And the F.B.I. has plenty of agents.

The Trump campaign did NOT rebuff the Russians.