President Donald Trump seemed chipper enough when he called into his favorite morning show on Thursday for the first time in more than a year. “I picked a very, very special day because it’s Melania’s birthday,” he said.
But within minutes, the president was railing against the “horrible” Iran deal and lamenting the fact that his personal doctor Ronny Jackson was forced to withdraw his nomination for VA secretary.
The three hosts could barely get a word in edgewise, let alone questions, over the course of the 30-minute interview. Though they did get Trump to admit for the first time that he did stay overnight in Moscow in 2013 when the alleged “pee tape” was supposedly recorded. “I went to Russia for a day or so... of course I stayed there,” the president said.
As time went on, it seemed that Trump was saying more and more as Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt, and Brian Kilmeade were saying less and less. Trump ranted against “sleepy-eyes Chuck Todd” for questioning his deal with Kim Jong Un and then pivoted to attacking the panels on CNN for criticizing him on a nightly basis.
“When you look at some of the others, you look at, like CNN, they’ll have a council of seven people, and of the seven people, everyone of them is against me,” Trump screamed. “I'm saying, where do they even find these people?”
“I'm not your doctor, Mr. President, but I would recommend you watch less of them,” Kilmeade interjected.
When Trump replied, “I don't watch them at all,” Doocy joked: “Well that makes it easy.”
By the last few minutes of interview, it seemed as if the hosts had given up altogether, occasionally trying to half-heartedly remind the president that they were running out of time. And since there was no video of Trump to see, viewers were left looking at their faces staring blankly into the camera as the president could be heard shouting in the background about Robert Mueller’s “witch hunt” against him and yet another relitigation of the 2016 election.
The hosts looked like deer in headlights as Trump’s voice rose. “You look at the corruption at the top of the FBI, it’s a disgrace!” he screamed. “And our Justice Department, which I try to stay away from, but at some point I won’t, our Justice Department should be looking at that kind of stuff, not the nonsense of collusion with Russia. There is no collusion with Russia and everyone knows it.”
“We could talk to you all day, but it looks like you have a million things to do,” Kilmeade said finally after Trump had stopped talking. “We’ll see you next Thursday, Mr. President,” he said with a laugh.
