‘Surprised you would ask:’ White House balks at question on Trump's bogus story
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt balked during a Thursday news briefing when a reporter sought clarification on a bizarre story shared by President Donald Trump this week, one riddled with factual impossibilities.
On Tuesday, Trump claimed during an event in Pennsylvania that his uncle, the late John Trump, a former professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, had a noteworthy student in one of his classes: Ted Kaczynski, an infamous mathematician and domestic terrorist better known as the Unabomber.
Trump went on to recount conversations with his uncle in which he asked about what kind of student Kaczynski was. The only issue, however, is that a basic timeline of events would make that conversation impossible.
“He said that Dr. Trump taught Ted Kaczynski; Ted Kaczynski was not identified as the Unabomber until 1996, 11 years after John Trump passed away, it would have been impossible for John Trump to have ever discussed the Unabomber with the president,” said Andrew Feinberg, White House correspondent for The Independent. “So what was he talking about?”
Leavitt balked at the question and, while ultimately dodging its substance, made clear she was displeased it had been asked at all.
“Andrew, with so many issues going on in the world, I'm a little bit surprised you would ask such a question, although I'm not sometimes coming from you, I will say,” Leavitt said.
“But I'm willing to give you an answer nevertheless. The president's uncle did, in fact, teach at MIT. He was a very intelligent professor, the president's very proud of his family. In fact, the president has a letter from his uncle on the MIT letterhead that sits in the Oval Office dining room, maybe we'll let you see it sometime.”
Leavitt would then go on to shut down Feinberg’s follow-up question. Trump’s story about his uncle and the Unabomber is hardly the first fictional story the president has shared, including claims that he witnessed the second plane hit the World Trade Center in 2001, despite being too far away at the time to have witnessed the event.
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