Liar to narcissist

Trump talked to the Times on the phone this morning.

Mr. Trump spoke to The New York Times by telephone three hours before he was set to be briefed by the nation’s top intelligence and law enforcement officials about the Russian hacking of American political institutions. In the conversation, he repeatedly criticized the intense focus on Russia.

“China, relatively recently, hacked 20 million government names,” he said, referring to the breach of computers at the Office of Personnel Management in late 2014 and early 2015. “How come nobody even talks about that? This is a political witch hunt.”

Ahhh yes, it’s a “political witch hunt,” because what valid reason could there possibly be to object to Russia’s meddling with the recent election?

In congressional testimony on Thursday, the intelligence officials rejected Mr. Trump’s longstanding skepticism about Russia’s cyberactivities and told lawmakers they had unanimously concluded that the Russian government used hacks and leaks of information to influence the American election.

It’s not “skepticism.” It’s denialism. It wasn’t skepticism when the tobacco CEOs said nicotine is not addictive, it’s not skepticism when anti-vaxxers babble about autism and mercury, it’s not skepticism when right-wing think tanks say global warming is bogus plus besides it’s a good thing. It wasn’t skepticism when Trump kept insisting that Obama wasn’t born in the US. Trump doesn’t do skepticism, he does assertion and denial.

Mr. Trump, who has consistently expressed doubts about the evidence of Russian hacking during the election, did so again on Friday. Asked why he thought there was so much attention being given to the Russian cyberattacks, the president-elect said the motivation was political.

“They got beaten very badly in the election. I won more counties in the election than Ronald Reagan,” Mr. Trump said during an eight-minute telephone conversation. “They are very embarrassed about it. To some extent, it’s a witch hunt. They just focus on this.”

Says the liar who was a noisy birther for years, and who said the Central Park five are guilty in October, despite the physical evidence that exonerated them.

Mr. Trump said he was looking forward to his meeting Friday afternoon about the hacking with Mr. Clapper; James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director; and other intelligence officials. He said that Mr. Clapper “wrote me a beautiful letter a few weeks ago wishing me the best.”

From Trump the liar to Trump the narcissist – the whole point of people is whether they say nice things about Trump or not.

It will be interesting to see what lies he tells after the intelligence briefing, which I believe is in progress now.

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