Trump loses it in X-rated Oval Office rant at TIME reporters as president turns on his own Supreme Court picks and makes telling admission about gas prices
Donald Trump erupted at TIME reporters in a profanity-laced Oval Office tirade, complaining they had not asked him ‘one f***ing positive question’ during an hour-long sit-down.
The blow-up came near the end of the interview, after he was pressed on whether he would pardon members of his administration before leaving office.
It capped a string of questions on his media crackdown, his White House ballroom and the fate of the Kennedy Center, which he dismissed as ‘all negative.’
He then scolded the reporters for failing to quiz him on Venezuela, where he boasted of ‘another war that we already won’ after US forces ousted Nicolas Maduro in January, even though they had already asked him about it earlier in the interview.
The president also turned on the three justices he put on the Supreme Court, conceding he regrets nominating Neil Gorsuch, Brett Kavanaugh and Amy Coney Barrett.
‘I gave them the position of a lifetime, and they vote against me often,’ Trump told the magazine.
His anger has been simmering since February, when the high court ruled 6-3 that an emergency economic powers law gave him no authority to unilaterally impose his sweeping tariffs. The ruling opened the door to as much as $175 billion in refunds owed to importers.
The court then handed him a second defeat in June, with Barrett joining Chief Justice John Roberts and the three liberals to strike down his order ending birthright citizenship, while Kavanaugh voted to block it under federal law.
‘Well, I hope I get a decent story. I don’t think—you know, it’s hard to get a good story. Every question’s a hit. I don’t know what the hell’s wrong,’ Trump told the TIME reporters
His anger has been simmering since February, when the high court ruled 6-3 that an emergency economic powers law gave him no authority to unilaterally impose his sweeping tariffs
Trump grumbled that the court’s liberal wing will ‘stick like glue’ while his own picks drift, and said the tariff ruling should have included a clause sparing the government from handing the money back.
Pressed on the soaring cost of living, he made a telling admission: ‘The only thing I have to get down now is the gas.’
Fuel costs spiked after Tehran answered the opening US and Israeli strikes in February by shutting the Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway responsible for carrying one-fifth of the world’s energy supply.
The national average for regular gasoline now sits at $4.46 despite a gallon costing under $3 before the war began.
Trump insisted oil prices will tumble once Iran signs a deal, yet he rejected Tehran’s latest ceasefire offer to reopen the strait over the weekend as simply ‘not good enough.’
GOP insiders, meanwhile, privately fear that the rising energy costs caused by the president’s war could cost Republicans their majorities in the House and Senate during the midterm election.
Trump waved off his sagging approval ratings as ‘fake,’ insisting he would beat anyone running today by 20 points and branding pollsters ‘almost as corrupt as the writers.’
As aides moved to wrap up the session, he was still holding up old photographs of a crumbling White House.
The national average for regular gasoline now sits at $4.46 despite a gallon costing under $3 before the Iran war began
‘Well, I hope I get a decent story. I don’t think—you know, it’s hard to get a good story. Every question’s a hit. I don’t know what the hell’s wrong,’ Trump concluded.
Trump’s 56th TIME magazine cover shows him posing in front of his new helipad on the South Lawn of the White House. Construction work on the new ballroom can be seen in the background.
‘Trump’s way,’ the headline says.
The cover marks a record-breaking number for any president, with Trump now surpassing Richard Nixon, who set a huge tally during the Watergate scandal.
