This Transcript of The New York Times Interview With Donald Trump Is Insane

Are We Looking at a President Whose Grasp on Reality Is Slipping? 

On Wednesday President Donald Trump sat down with two top reporters from The New York Times. Later that day the newspaper printed a story from that interview that quickly exploded: The President of the United States, citing and offering zero evidence, accused former Obama National Security Advisor Susan Rice of a crime, just as he had done to her boss one month prior. And while doing so, Trump also ran to the defense of Bill O’Reilly, after the Times revealed the Fox News host and his bosses had paid five women a total of about $13 million in response to their allegations of sexual harassment from O’Reilly.

But there’s so much more. Late Wednesday evening the Times published a partial transcript of the interview between Trump, White House correspondents Maggie Haberman and Glenn Thrush,  It’s insane.

A few stunning excerpts, like this:

TRUMP: Elijah Cummings [a Democratic representative from Maryland] was in my office and he said, “You will go down as one of the great presidents in the history of our country.”

HABERMAN: Really.

TRUMP: And then he went out and I watched him on television yesterday and I said, “Was that the same man?”

Someone should get Cummings to confirm or deny.

Here’s the Susan Rice accusation, which sounds like an agent pitching a novel:

TRUMP: I think the Susan Rice thing is a massive story. I think it’s a massive, massive story. All over the world, I mean other than The New York Times.

HABERMAN: We’ve written about it twice.

TRUMP: Huh?

HABERMAN: We’ve written about it twice.

TRUMP: Yeah, it’s a bigger story than you know. I think —

HABERMAN: You mean there’s more information that we’re not aware of?

TRUMP: I think that it’s going to be the biggest story.

THRUSH: Why? What do you think —

TRUMP: Take a look at what’s happening. I mean, first of all her performance was horrible yesterday on television even though she was interviewed by Hillary Clinton’s P.R. person, Andrea Mitchell [the NBC News journalist]. Course you’ve been accused of that also.

HABERMAN: Mostly by you, though.

TRUMP: No, no, no. Mostly by a lot of people. So you know, we’ll see what happens, but it looks like it’s breaking into a massive story.

THRUSH: What do you think are — what other shoes are there to drop on this?

HABERMAN: Yeah, what else could we learn on this?

TRUMP: I think you’re going to see a lot. I think you’ll see a lot.

HABERMAN: In terms of what she did and in terms of [unintelligible]?

TRUMP: I think in terms of what other people have done also.

HABERMAN: Really?

TRUMP: I think it’s one of the biggest stories. The Russia story is a total hoax. There has been absolutely nothing coming out of that. But what, you know, what various things led into it was the story that we’re talking about, the Susan Rice. What’s happened is terrible. I’ve never seen people so indignant, including many Democrats who are friends of mine. I’ve never seen them acting this way. Because that’s really an affront on them, you know, they are talking about civil liberties. It’s such an affront, what took place.

THRUSH: What other people do you think will get ensnared in this? Can you give us a sense? How far this might extend —

HABERMAN: From the previous administration.

TRUMP: I think from the previous administration.

THRUSH: How far up do you think this goes? Chief of staff?

TRUMP: I don’t want to say, but —

THRUSH: President?

TRUMP: I don’t want to say, but you know who. You know what was going on. You probably know better than anybody. I mean, I frankly think The Times is missing a big thing by not writing it because you’re missing out on the biggest story there is.

Did you catch that?

“I don’t want to say, but you know who.”

He’s referring to President Obama. Trump has become obsessed with his predecessor. 

And, “I frankly think The Times is missing a big thing by not writing it because you’re missing out on the biggest story there is.” He’s trying to get the Times to focus away from the Russia story. He even says it: “The Russia story is a total hoax.”

Another excerpt, which is actually about infrastructure:

TRUMP: Well, we’re working — you know when people said, when you guys, because you know we have a very solid administration. We have some very, very good people. This man was the president of Goldman Sachs. I mean, he was, like, the president of Goldman Sachs.

HABERMAN: I’m very familiar with his work.

TRUMP: And believe me, they wanted him. But he wanted to do something more important. As he said, as big as Goldman Sachs are, it was —

HABERMAN: This is bigger.

Trump the illusionist:

HABERMAN: You said you expect Democrats — I have two questions I want to ask you. You raised both of them. You expect that you will have Democratic support, but you have not spoken to [Senator Chuck] Schumer in weeks, so how do you expect — I don’t mean on public health care but on infrastructure.

TRUMP: No, because they are desperate for infrastructure. That’s the thing that they want second to — that would be their second number — that would be their second request.

HABERMAN: What do you think their first is?

TRUMP: I know it, but I can’t tell you it.

And then this stunning claim:

TRUMP: We want to see what happens with health care first. Because health care will affect taxes. Because, if we get the health care that we want, we’re going to end up with great health care and we’re going to end up actually with a saving. And the saving will go toward a tax reduction.

HABERMAN: How do you deal with the House Freedom Caucus on an infrastructure bill, given that they seem to feel empowered right now?

TRUMP: Well, they’re all friends of mine, Maggie. And you see that. They go out there and say, “We love our president.” You know, I mean, they’re all friends of mine. I won their districts, some of them, by 48 percent, 42 percent, 45 percent. They’re all friends of mine. They’ve been great. Uh, I think you’re going to see it coming together. You’re already seeing it. I think you saw it yesterday.

Are we looking at a president whose grasp on reality is slipping? 

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Image by Michael Vadon via Flickr and a CC license