president trump reiterates his campaign promise. mexico will pay for the wall. but if mexico is paying, why did the white house just ask congress for $18 billion to pay for it? hello, i m jake tapper in washington where the state of our union is, quote, like really smart. president trump is declaring himself, quote, a very stable genius this weekend after the release of an explosive new book claiming those around the president questioned his fitness for the job, seeing him as erratic and child-like. speaking to reporters at camp david where he was meeting with republican congressional leaders this weekend, president trump lashed out at critics and offered a full-scale defense of his own credentials. i went to the best colleges or college. i went to a i had a situation where i was a very excellent student. came out and made billions and billions of dollars. became one of the top business
legitimate investigation? i mean, i thought that the whole idea was we re supposed to believe that the fbi and the people at the justice department are men and women of integrity. well, we are, but if this is a decision, and i can t confirm even whether the justice department is conducting an investigation, i m just going on the published reports, but if they are investigating hillary clinton, it doesn t take a genius, let alone a stable genius, to see why. it s not because there is some new evidence that has come to light, it s because they re being badgered by the white house to do it. you simply cannot explain it i think any other way. and that is, thii think, deeply disturbing. that s not in isolation. if you look at the decision by the justice department to release these private text messages during an internal department of justice/inspector general investigation, that s inplus dented and th
but the portrayal of the president in the book is so contrary to reality, to the experience of those who work with him, to my own experience having spent the last two years with him, you know, on the campaign i had the chance to travel all across the country with the president on trump force one. it would be the president, me, dan scavino, hope hicks, a few other people going from rally to rally to rally to rally and i saw a man who was a political genius. we would be going down, landing, there would be a breaking news development and in 20 minutes he would dictate ten paragraphs of new material to address that event and then deliver flawlessly in front of an audience of 10,000 people. you were in the campaign during that trump tower meeting, i believe? just to answer the question because you were there and steve bannon was not, did any of those people from that meeting meet with president trump, as bannon says the chance that he didn t don jr. didn t walk
there are people on the left make fun of his hands. we know what they means. why they re thinking about that, i don t know. the personal attacks on this president are profound. and i think the president himself feels compelled to defend himself. they re so personal. and i think he sent out one of his most trusted aides today to defend him as well. it s so personal and visceral and hateful. i don t think i ve seen this kind of thing before. forget about how trashy this book is and what wolff had to do, all the lies he had to tell to even get into the white house to write this book, 2018 itself is looking good for this presidency. it s going to be difficult for the 2018 midterms, but if we continue to talk about this book and defend the fingerprint so, you know, against these visceral attacks, we re probably stuck in this rut. i think what s interesting about the miller interview, he did take special care to call trump a political genius many times, which i think is to push back on all
off on trade, military deals and everything else. it s the same trump who tapped into the pulse of millions and millions of americans right but there is no presidency that is one person. a phenomenon that was happening that you didn t see, a phenomenon was happening that the rest of the political class didn t see. all of these so-called political geniuses in washington, whether it be at the big lobbying firms or the only person who has called themselves a genius in the last week is a president. which happens to be a true statement. a self-made billionaire who revolutionized i m sure he s watching and he s happy you said that. . you can be condescending. i m not being condescending i m trying to get to the point that was a snide remark. why is that snide? look, you can be as conned sending as you want, it s part of your m.o., but, listen, you can have 24/7. i have no idea why you re attacking me steve bannon