CARLSON: So, 51,000 people retweeted that. So a lot of people thought that was plausible, they believe you, you’re the President — you’re in charge of the agencies. Every intelligence agency reports to you. Why not immediately go to them and gather evidence to support that?
TRUMP: Because I don’t want to do anything that’s going to violate any strength of an agency. We have enough problems.
And by the way, with the CIA, I just want people to know, the CIA was hacked, and a lot of things taken — that was during the Obama years. That was not during us. That was during the Obama situation. Mike Pompeo is there now doing a fantastic job.
.. I don’t honestly understand how or why pushing for that investigation would “violate any strength of an agency.”
It doesn’t. The one and only think Trump does well is turn a conversation into spaghetti so that by the time you get to the end of an answer, you’re not even sure what the question was.
.. if you watched the Bret Baier and what he was saying and what he was talking about and how he mentioned the word wiretap, you would feel very confident that you could mention the name.
.. So: Bret Baier mentioned the word “wiretap.” That gave Trump the confidence that he could tweet that he was wire-tapped by the former president.
.. You had great press all week, bipartisan, and then you let off this tweet, and immediately, people say —
TRUMP: No, it wasn’t that tweet. They had other things —
CARLSON: You can’t back up what you say.
TRUMP: Excuse me. I had a very successful night. Joint session, it was very successful. I got reviews even from people that I would never think I was going to get good reviews. I got great reviews.
.. I have my own form of media.
.. I mean, let’s see whether or not I prove it. I just don’t choose to do it right now. I choose to do it before the committee, and maybe I’ll do it before the committee. Maybe I’ll do it before I see the result of the committee. But I think we have some very good stuff.
.. if they’re not going to do me the honor and the public the honor of spreading my word accurately as it was meant
.. No matter what you do, no matter how good — no matter how great it is, they don’t report it in a positive fashion.
,, I probably wouldn’t be here — I’m not talking about Twitter, because it’s really Twitter, Facebook, and lots of other things, OK. But I might not be here talking to you right now as President if I didn’t have an honest way of getting the word out.
Donald the Menace
But it also reflected a cold view of the incentives the new administration would face: as working-class voters began to realize that candidate Trump’s promises about jobs and health care were insincere, foreign distractions would look increasingly attractive.
.. But the war with China will, it seems, have to wait. First comes Australia. And Mexico. And Iran. And the European Union. (But never Russia.)
.. There was also a curious contrast between the response to Iran and the response to another, more serious provocation: Russia’s escalation of its proxy war in Ukraine. Senator John McCain called on the president to help Ukraine. Strangely, however, the White House said nothing at all about Russia’s actions until Nikki Haley, the United Nations ambassador, issued a condemnation late Thursday night to the Security Council. This is getting a bit obvious, isn’t it?
.. Peter Navarro, head of Mr. Trump’s new National Trade Council, accused Germany of exploiting the United States with an undervalued currency. There’s an interesting economics discussion to be had here, but government officials aren’t supposed to make that sort of accusation unless they’re prepared to fight a trade war. Are they?
.. No, what we’re hearing sounds like a man who is out of his depth and out of control, who can’t even pretend to master his feelings of personal insecurity. His first two weeks in office have been utter chaos, and things just keep getting worse — perhaps because he responds to each debacle with a desperate attempt to change the subject that only leads to a fresh debacle.
Trump Administration’s Strained Relationship With Media Continues
President Donald Trump and members of his new administration including press secretary Sean Spicer tangled with the news media in the first days following the inauguration, which may foreshadow an extension of a combative relationship. WSJ’s Shelby Holliday reports. Photo: Associated Press