Facing reporters on Air Force One as he traveled to his weekly event at Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump gave a long, confusing explanation after his account posted and then deleted a video that showed Barack Obama and his wife as apes. The video was racist.
When asked who sent the video and if anyone would be fired, Trump said he didn’t know.
“Oh, I didn’t make a mistake,” he said.
“I didn’t know. I looked at it. I saw it, and I just looked at the first part,” he said. “It was about voter fraud… Georgia. There’s a lot of voter fraud. 2020 voter fraud.” The part that was offensive? “I didn’t see the whole thing… there was some kind of that people don’t like. I wouldn’t like it either, but I didn’t see it.”
Trump said the video was “really about voter fraud and the machines, how crooked it is, how disgusting it is,” adding, “I guess somebody didn’t and they posted and we took it down.”
He claimed it disappeared “as soon as we found out about it,” while saying, “They don’t like to talk about that post.”
When Republicans asked for an apology, Trump refused.
“Oh, I didn’t make a mistake,” he said. The video, he argued, was “a takeoff… from The Lion King,” a “very strong post in terms of voter fraud.” If people had “the sense to take it down,” he shrugged, they would have. He then name-dropped Sen. Tim Scott: “Tim was great… He understood that 100%.” was great… He understood that 100%.”
Pressed for a message to Americans offended by the video, Trump had none.
“I didn’t know about it… I really have no message,” he said, before pivoting to self-praise. “We were a laughingstock all over the world. And now we’re a country that’s respected more than we’ve ever been respected before… maybe like never before.” He even cited royalty: “The king of Saudi Arabia said it in front of the Senate.” Conclusion? “We’re the hottest country anywhere in the world.”
Finally, asked whether taxpayers should foot the bill for his tax lawsuit, Trump promised charity.
“Well, anything I win, I’m going to give 100% to charity.” When told it still costs the public, he waved it away: “They give away $40 billion a year… So anything I win from that.”
The main idea was clear: he “just passed it on,” “didn’t see” the racism, won’t apologize, and changed the subject.
In Trump’s America, the scandal isn’t the post.
It’s the excuse: “I just looked at the first part.”
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