Trump doubles and triples down on his stupidity. Tim Miller of The Bulwark take on it:
Trump MELTS DOWN in His Most Humiliating Interview Ever
Most humiliating? That’s a tall order. In this case, Trump is too stupid to be humiliated.
There was a picture put out several days ago of tattoos on the hand of the Maryland guy that was shipped to the prison in El Salvador. The tattoos were like a pot leaf, smilely-type face, cross, and skull. It was supposed to be code for “MS 13”: marijuana for “M”, smilely for “S”, cross for “1”, and apparently the skull had three dots–the eye and nose holes that stood for “3”.
“M”, “S”, “1”, and “3” were added to the photo of the knuckles above each tattoo, probably using PhotoShop.
Trump apparently thinks these Photoshopped letters and numbers are the guy’s actual tattoos and was quite insistent on it, even when the interviewer wanted to gently move along.
This article shows Trump with the tattoo photo:
Trump tells ABC interviewer he has ‘never heard of him’ in testy White House exchange
The pair clashed a number of times during the interview, notably over a discussion of deported El Salvador native and Maryland father Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and evidence — or lack thereof — that he was a member of the MS-13 gang.
Trump pointed to an image of Abrego Garcia that he claimed showed him with gang tattoos on his knuckles. The image, however, shared by the president previously, has been sharply challenged – with critics claiming the photo had been digitally altered.
“Wait a minute, wait a minute. He had MS-13 on his knuckles,” Trump replied. Moran tried several times to move the interview on to the next topic, to no avail. “It says MS 13,” Trump said.
“That was Photoshopped,” Moran replied, provoking a bemused response from the president.
…
When Moran tried once again to move the interview along, Trump challenged him again.
“Do you want me to show you the picture?” he said, to which Moran replied: “I saw the picture.”
It could be “interpreted that way … I want to turn to Ukraine,” Moran added.
“No, no, no, no,” Trump persisted. “He had MS, as clear as you can be, not interpreted … This is why people no longer believe the news.”
The letters “MS” have not previously been seen on photos of Abrego Garcia’s hands.
I’ve recently seen pictures in the news of actual gang members with “MS 13” tattooed on their bodies in huge letters and numbers. They’re not shy about it and are not using coded tattoos on their fingers.
I knew Trump was incredibly stupid, but this level of dumb-assery is impressive.
