President Trump—who spent the weekend unleashing incendiary tweets as deadly violence roiled Portland, Oregon—continued promoting bizarre conspiracy theories Monday night. He launched baseless attacks against his political opponents and suggested that the police officer who shot Jacob Blake in Kenosha, Wisconsin, may have simply “choked,” like players in a golf tournament.
The explosive remarks came during an interview with Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that aired just hours after he refused to condemn the 17-year-old charged with killing two protesters in Kenosha last week. The Fox interview is all but certain to fuel more anger and division as the president prepares to travel to Kenosha on Tuesday, despite pleas from the Democratic governor to cancel the visit. Here are some of the worst moments from his sit-down with Ingraham.
Trump says Biden is being controlled by people in “the dark shadows”
In one of the strangest moments of the interview, as Trump ranted about people “controlling” Joe Biden, Ingraham asked Trump to identify the individuals that he believed to be “pulling Biden’s strings” in order to transform the famously moderate former vice president into a radical, left-wing extremist. It appeared to be a soft-ball question—Ingraham suggested former Obama administration officials as one possibility—but the president swung and missed.
“People that you’ve never heard of,” Trump said instead. “People that are in the dark shadows.”
That proved even too much for Ingraham, who interrupted to say that the remark sounded like a conspiracy theory. But Trump descended further, mysteriously alluding to “thugs” in “black uniforms” that had supposedly attempted to travel from a “certain city” with the intent of inflicting violence at the Republican National Convention. “There were like seven people on this plane like this person, and then a lot of people were on the plane to do big damage,” he said. Trump said the incident was “under investigation” but declined to offer further details, telling Ingraham that he’d tell her more “sometime.”
Trump praises his supporters as “tremendous” while accusing Democrats and the media of inciting violence
“My supporters are wonderful, hard-working, tremendous people,” Trump told Ingraham. “They turn on their television set and they look at a Portland or they look at a Kenosha…They’re looking at all of this, and they can’t believe it.”
Ignoring his own record of inflaming tensions and promoting violence, Trump went on to repeatedly blame Democrats and the media for the current unrest. At one point, Fox News showed a montage of Democrats encouraging Americans to stand up to the Trump administration—apparently as evidence that Democrats were guilty of inciting violence. The montage included three Black lawmakers—Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.), Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), and Rep. Ayanna Presley (D-Mass.)—along with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.).
Later, when Ingraham asked why Gov. Tony Evers and other Democratic officials in Wisconsin didn’t want Trump to visit, Trump pointed, without evidence, to a cover-up. “They don’t want the media to cover what’s really going on in blue-state America,” he said.
Trump says the police officer who shot Blake may have simply “choked” under pressure
In a moment that appeared to downplay the actions of the police officer who shot Blake, Trump compared the officer to a “choker” struggling under the pressures of a golf tournament.
“Shooting the guy in the back many times, I mean, couldn’t you have done something different?” Trump asked rhetorically. “Couldn’t you have wrestled him?” He then paused to suggest that Blake could have been going for a weapon during the encounter—seemingly to provide an excuse for the officer—before repeating his “choker” comparison.
“You could be a police officer for 15 years and all of sudden you’re confronted,” Trump continued. “You’ve got a quarter of a second to make a decision. If you don’t make the decision and you’re wrong, you’re dead. People choke under those circumstances, and they make a bad decision.”
