President Trump refused to back off his unfounded allegations that former president Barack Obama last year wiretapped his phones in Trump Tower when asked about the subject during a joint news conference Friday with German chancellor Angela Merkel.
After a German reporter asked Trump about the allegations, the president turned to Merkel and said “at least we have something in common perhaps.”
Merkel was angered by reports in 2010 that the National Security Agency had tapped her phone with the permission of Obama.
During Friday’s news conference, Trump also passed on an opportunity to apologize to Britain, whose leaders are seething over White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s reference Thursday to unproven allegations that Britain’s main surveillance agency spied on Trump at Obama’s request.
Trump suggested responsibility for those comments rests with Fox News, not the White House.
In trying to justify Trump’s initial allegations from nearly two weeks ago, Spicer read press clips to reporters on Thursday, including one from Fox News that featured Judge Andrew Napolitano, a former New Jersey Superior Court judge and a regular commentator for Fox News.
Napolitano told Fox that three intelligence sources had said that Obama “went outside the chain of command” and used Britain’s GCHQ so “there’s no American fingerprints on this.”
Trump said Friday that Fox had quoted “a very talented legal mind,” adding: “You shouldn’t be talking to me, you should be talking to Fox.”
Trump, who made his initial allegations about Obama through messages on Twitter, also told the German reporter that he “very seldom” regrets his tweets.
“I can get around the media when the media doesn’t tell the truth, so I like that,” Trump said.
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