During a press gaggle on the White House lawn while en route to speak in Indianapolis, President Trump on Friday let off a string of rants about vaccinations, his purported youth, and the fact that he really never told White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller.
“How old is too old to be president?” one reporter asked.
“I think that I just feel like a young man,” Trump replied. “I’m so young! I’m the youngest person. I am a young, vibrant man. I look at Joe [Biden], I don’t know about him. I don’t know about him. I would never say anyone else is too old. I know they’re all making me look very young, both in terms of age and in terms of energy.”
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Trump also defended his comments about the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, after which he said there was “blame on both sides” for violence that led to the death of counter-protester Heather Heyer.
“If you look at what I said you will see that that question was answered perfectly,” Trump said.
“I was talking about people that went because they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E. Lee, a great general,” he added. “Whether you like it or not, he was a great general.”
And on the worst measles outbreak in recent U.S. history, Trump added: “They have to get their shots. The vaccinations are so important. This is really going around now. They have to get their shots.”
Earlier Friday morning, Trump sent off several tweets, claiming he is “the greatest hostage negotiator,” that no money was paid to North Korea for Otto Warmbier’s imprisonment and torture, and calling billionaire donor/impeachment enthusiast Tom Steyer a “weirdo.”
When talk turned to the 448-page report written by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and submitted to Congress by Attorney General William Barr, President Trump defended himself once again against one of the more controversial claims contained in the document: that he ordered White House counsel Don McGahn to fire Mueller.
“I never told Don McGahn to fire Mueller,” Trump told the reporters “If I wanted to fire Mueller, I would have done it myself. I had the right to. And frankly, whether I did or he did, we had the absolute right to fire Mueller. In the meantime, I didn’t do it. I’m a student of history. And I see what you get when you fire people and it’s, uh, not good. But there would have been nothing wrong with firing him. Legally, I had absolute right to fire him. But I never told Don McGahn to fire Mueller.”
“And by the way, and Mueller finished out his report: No collusion, and no obstruction!”
“This is a pure political witch hunt,” he added. “We did nothing wrong.”
“If I’m guilty of anything, it’s that I’ve been a great president.”
And with that, he boarded Marine One to travel to speak to the National Rifle Association convention.
