Business Insider is reporting on comments made by President Donald Trump at a joint press conference held at the White House, Thursday, with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who was making her first visit to the White House during his administration. A reporter asked Donald Trump if he regretted White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer's claim that the Government Communications Headquarters, a U.K. intelligence agency, worked together with former President Barack Obama to "wiretap Trump before the election." The GCHQ has called the allegations "utterly ridiculous."
At the press conference, Angela Merkel was described by a social media users as being able to "only look on in wonder," as President Trump suggested the he and the German chancellor "have something in common," with the president seemingly referring to 2013 reports that the National Security Agency, under the Obama administration, used the Berlin U.S.
embassy as a "listening station," a practice which has been described as "fairly standard practice," even among friendly nations. A German investigation into the reports was said to have later been dropped.
British connection first made on Fox News
The United Kingdom-GCHQ allegations were said to have first been made on Fox News by Judge Andrew Napolitano. With regard to the question of whether he regretted involving the GCHQ in his administration's Wiretapping allegations, the president told those gathered at the press conference that "you should be talking to Fox." Fox News has released a statement standing by the reporting. However, Shepard Smith has been quoted that the network "cannot confirm Judge Napolitano’s commentary." The Fox News host elaborated that the network has "no evidence of any kind," that the Trump campaign offices were the target of any type of surveillance operation during the 2016 presidential race.
"Angela Merkel can only look on in wonder as Donald Trump beclowns himself." https://t.co/ojtwkJlkWo pic.twitter.com/TXJfQSa00z
— Andrew Stroehlein (@astroehlein) March 17, 2017
"Very seldom," was how President Trump responded when asked if he ever regretted any of the tweets he posts. The president stated that he has a "tremendous group" of followers who listen to him on Twitter, and held up the social network as a way to "get around the media," when it is untruthful.
He said, "I like that." The president then moved on to his wiretapping tweets, and made the seeming comparison between his current situation, and that of Chancellor Merkel, in 2013.
Reporters laugh at president's 'something in common' assertion
Silence followed Trump's wiretapping comparison with Angela Merkel at the Washington, D.C.
press conference, followed by nervous giggling, at first, and then, wholesale laughter from the reporters gathered. Angela Merkel looked from Trump, to the giggling reporters, and back to Trump, with an expression of bewilderment on her face. Footage from Reuters then turns to Trump stating that the White House's assertion that the British may have been involved in a Trump Tower wiretap was simply a quote from a "very talented legal mind," presumably Judge Napolitano, who was responsible for the allegation.
