President Trump has found a new obsession to justify his efforts to pressure a foreign country to probe his political rival: corruption.
“I don’t care about politics, I don’t care about anything! I care about corruption!” he shouted from the White House lawn on Friday morning, repeating the word 30 times throughout the exchange with reporters– just in case it didn’t sink in the first 29.
“Everything to me me is about corruption, we want to find out what happened with 2016, and as you know there’s a lot of work going on with that. I don’t care about Biden’s campaign, but I do care about corruption,” he said. “His campaign, that’s up to him. Politics, that’s up to them. I don’t care about politics. Politics, as I think I made clear, and yesterday somebody asked me a question and I give an answer. But always in the form of corruption. What I want to do — and I think I have an obligation to do it, probably a duty to do it, corruption. We are looking for corruption.”
Trump's new favorite word: corruption pic.twitter.com/psRzalTXW5
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) October 4, 2019
When Trump was asked whether he had asked any foreign leaders to investigate corruption allegations against someone who was not a political opponent, Trump had a simple answer: “You know, we would have to look.”
Trump is asked if he's called for investigations into corruption cases that don't involve political opponents: "You know, we would have to look." pic.twitter.com/oORM2zjrfo
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) October 4, 2019
Trump already tweeted that same sentiment earlier Friday morning, arguing that it was his duty as president to investigate corruption and said it had “NOTHING” to do with politics or Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign.
As President I have an obligation to end CORRUPTION, even if that means requesting the help of a foreign country or countries. It is done all the time. This has NOTHING to do with politics or a political campaign against the Bidens. This does have to do with their corruption!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) October 4, 2019
Trump has veered to this defense in the past 24-hours, an apparent attempt to justify his blatant calls for at least two foreign governments to investigate one of his top political rivals in 2020.
Meanwhile, Trump still profits from his real estate empire, which his two adult sons are running while he’s in office. Just this week, news broke that a foreign government booked a bloc of hotel rooms at Trump properties that went vacant.
