But there are only two possibilities about a story Trump told in an interview he recorded on Thursday: either he remembered something or made something up.
Trump was reflecting with Dave Portnoy, the controversial founder of the Barstool Sports website, on how he improved his life before announcing his presidential bid. As he did in March, Trump spoke of an incident that he said took place at a New York City charity gala after he became a politician in 2015.
“Something happened: I was entering a thing called the Robin Hood Foundation. I will never forget it,” Trump said in the interview, which Portnoy published on Friday.
“It was almost the night I advertised or whatever. My wife looked at me and said, ‘You know, I hear people boo.’ And she was with me for a long time, we’ve been together a long time, she said, ‘Some people They are booing. “I said,” Yes, but some people are also clapping. Crazy. “I said no.” She said, “You know what, I’ve been with you a long time. I’ve never heard anyone boo you. “This was right after I started being a politician. And it meant something, because I said, you know, it’s the first time in my life that they boo me.”
Done first: This story could not be true: Trump has not attended the Robin Hood Foundation gala since 2011. Also, the 2015 gala was held in May, a month before Trump announced his candidacy, so even if he were gone, he couldn’t have been booed there for his immigration posts as a new candidate, since he reclaimed in March. Also, Trump I had been booed men public in multiple occasions before 2015.
MSNBC presenter Stephanie Ruhle, who sits on the anti-poverty foundation’s Prominent Donor Leadership Council, has publicly said that Trump did not attend the gala in 2015, a star-studded event that raised $ 101 million. Ruhle tweeted in March that Trump’s story about being booed was “completely made up.”
Another person affiliated with the foundation, who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity, confirmed that Trump had not attended the gala since 2011.
Just to be sure, we spoke to seven attendees at the 2015 dinner party in March, including singer Jenna Esposito, former Obama administration deputy social secretary Ebs Burnough, and Dr. Mahek Shah, who said they did not recall Trump being there.
Trump tells a lot of deliberate lies, but perhaps he could have been mistaken for this, as he was booed elsewhere in New York after launching his candidacy in 2015. He was also booed during a poorly received quasi-comic speech at the Charity Dinner for Alfred E. Smith in New York City in October 2016, though that was long after he announced his candidacy.
Still, the Trump account has evolved over time. He told a very similar boo story to the New York Times after his election in November 2016, except he didn’t name the Robin Hood Foundation gala as the venue, he put the incident “about two years ago” instead of 2015, And he said it happened “just after I started thinking about politics” rather than after he announced his candidacy.
Trump has tried to make mental acuity a major issue in the campaign, repeatedly suggesting that Democratic opponent Joe Biden has lost his powers. Trump taped the interview with Portnoy just a day after a Fox News interview in which he bragged extensively about his alleged ability, in a cognitive test he says he performed, to remember five words in order: “Person, woman, man, camera , TV.”
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