Donald Trump was given a gift. He was interviewed by Tucker Carlson of Fox News. While not a sycophant like Sean Hannity, Carlson is still going to provide a relatively friendly atmosphere for the President. It should have been a home run for President Trump instead he flailed about and didn’t do himself any favors. Not only did he ramble, he outright lied as well.

Check it out:

Here is a partial transcript:

Carlson: So on March 4th, 6:35 in the morning, you’re down in Florida, and you tweet, the former administration wiretapped me, surveilled me, at Trump Tower during the last election. How did you find out? You said, I just found out. How did you learn that?

Trump: Well, I’ve been reading about things. I read in, I think it was Jan. 20th, a New York Times article where they were talking about wiretapping. There was an article. I think they used that exact term. I read other things. I watched your friend Bret Baier the day previous where he was talking about certain very complex sets of things happening, and wiretapping. I said, wait a minute, there’s a lot of wiretapping being talked about. I’ve been seeing a lot of things. Now, for the most part, I’m not going to discuss it, because we have it before the committee and we will be submitting things before the committee very soon that hasn’t been submitted as of yet. But it’s potentially a very serious situation.

Carlson: Why not wait to tweet about it until you can prove it? Don’t you devalue your words when you can’t provide evidence?

Trump: Well, because the New York Times wrote about it. Not that I respect the New York Times. I call it the failing New York Times. But they did write on Jan. 20th using the word wiretap. Other people have come out with…

Carlson: Right, but you’re the president. You have the ability to gather all the evidence you want.

Trump: I do. I do. But I think that frankly we have a lot right now. And I think if you watch—if you watched the Bret Baier and what he was saying and what he was talking about and how he mentioned the word “wiretap,” you would feel very confident that you could mention the name. He mentioned it. And other people have mentioned it. But if you take a look at some of the things written about wiretapping and eavesdropping… and don’t forget I say wiretapping, those words were in quotes. That really covers—because wiretapping is pretty old-fashioned stuff—but that really covers surveillance and many other things. And nobody ever talks about the fact that it was in quotes, but that’s a very important thing. But wire tape covers a lot of different things. I think you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks.

This is where President Trump makes me nervous. He’s used the “Other people have said it” excuse for unfounded allegations he’s said before.  For example, in the case of supposed voter fraud, he stated in an interview with ABC News, “lots of people are saying they saw things happen.” It’s as if he believes as long as he thinks somebody is levying an accusation of some kind, it’s safe for him to repeat it.

Also, what is it with him and “things?” In the course of a little over a minute, the President said “things,” eight times. “We’re submitting things.” What things? It makes almost no sense and Carlson should have followed up on that.

The worst part is President Trump flat out lies about the “quotes.” Look at what he says:

“…and don’t forget I say wiretapping, those words were in quotes.” 

He follows up with, “And nobody ever talks about the fact that it was in quotes, but that’s a very important thing.”

His statement is a flat out lie. Nobody ever talks about his tweets about wiretapping to be in quotes because everybody can see there were no quotes. 

** Update: Trump used quotes in two of the tweets and in others he did not:

In this one and this one he did.

But he also tweeted specifically about his phones being “tapped.” –  “I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”  and “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

He made specific allegations about his phones being tapped which would not cover “a lot of different things.”

Carlson gave Trump an opening to say, “I misspoke” or “Yeah, I may have gone too far there” but instead the President lied to make it appear as if people misunderstood and what he said was correct. Why? Because they’ll be “submitting things before the committee.”