This Is One of the Most Surreal Bits from Donald Trump’s Bizarre Press Conference

“I tell this to people all the time.”


From Donald Trump’s first press conference in six months, at Trump Tower on Wednesday morning, this clip must surely rank among the most surreal. The event was meant to put to rest questions about Trump’s potential conflicts of interest, by listing steps he plans to take to separate himself from his businesses. He also came the closest he’s ever been to acknowledging the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia meddled in the election.

But when Trump started talking about unverified details from Russia’s alleged dossier on his behavior in a Moscow hotel room, things got weird.

Watch the clip above. Here’s the relevant portion of the transcript, from the New York Times:

TRUMP: Lemme just tell you what I do. When I leave our country, I’m a very high-profile person, would you say? I am extremely careful.

I’m surrounded by bodyguards. I’m surrounded by people. And I always tell them—anywhere, but I always tell them if I’m leaving this country, “Be very careful, because in your hotel rooms and no matter where you go, you’re gonna probably have cameras.” I’m not referring just to Russia, but I would certainly put them in that category.

And number one, “I hope you’re gonna be good anyway. But in those rooms, you have cameras in the strangest places. Cameras that are so small with modern technology, you can’t see them and you won’t know. You better be careful, or you’ll be watching yourself on nightly television.”

I tell this to people all the time.

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WE CAME UP SHORT.

We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

So we urgently need this specific ask, what you're reading right now, to start bringing in more donations than it ever has. The reality, for these next few months and next few years, is that we have to start finding ways to grow our online supporter base in a big way—and we're optimistic we can keep making real headway by being real with you about this.

Because the bottom line: Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism Mother Jones exists to do. The only investors who won’t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its future—you.

And we hope you might consider pitching in before moving on to whatever it is you're about to do next. We really need to see if we'll be able to raise more with this real estate on a daily basis than we have been, so we're hoping to see a promising start.

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