Trump’s ludicrous tattoo tirade ought to raise a lot of questions
It’s Trump in a microcosm – terribly, insistently wrong -- and a great case study for journalists to explore
It’s not just that he said something breathtakingly stupid and wrong, it’s that he wouldn’t let it go.
In an interview Tuesday with ABC News’s Terry Moran, Donald Trump repeatedly insisted that the Maryland man his administration wrongly rendered to an El Salvadoran prison has the letters and numbers “MS-13” tattooed on his knuckles.
He does not.
Trump went on and on about it, even trying to bully Moran into agreeing with him.
The Photograph
Let’s review how we got here: On April 19, Trump posted a photograph of Kilmar Abrego Garcia’s left hand, with “MS-13” digitally superimposed over the tattoos on his knuckles, which are actually a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, a cross and a skull.
Whoever altered the photo presumably was trying to indicate that those images signified “MS-13”, to advance the argument that Abrego Garcia is a gang member – something he’s never been charged with or even formally accused of, and which his family denies.
But Trump – despite the obvious alteration -- apparently took it all extremely literally. He said as much in an April 22 interview with Time magazine: “And in fact, he had a tattooed right on his—I'm sure you saw that—he had it tattooed right on his knuckles: MS-13.”
The Time interviewers didn’t bother to correct him. Evidently neither did anyone on his staff.
The Interview
In the ABC News interview, Trump didn’t just adamantly insist on his version of reality, he demanded that Moran agree. (Moran, for his part, kept trying to change the subject rather than asking the obvious follow-up questions, which was a big mistake.)
You’ve got to read this entire exchange. Here’s the full transcript. Here’s the video. Moran had asked about Abrego Garcia, whose return from El Salvador the Supreme Court has ordered Trump to facilitate. Trump acknowledged to Moran that he could make it happen, but said he has chosen not to. Then Trump brought up the tattoos:
TRUMP: And you'll pick out one man, but even the man that you picked out --
MORAN: He's got --
TRUMP: -- he said he'd -- wasn't a member of a gang. And then they looked, and --
MORAN: Alright.
TRUMP: On his knuckles -- he had MS-13 --
MORAN: Alright. There's dis -- there's a dispute over that --
TRUMP: Well, wait a minute. Wait a minute. He had MS-13 --
MORAN: Well --
TRUMP: -- on his knuckles tattooed.
MORAN: -- he -- he -- he -- it didn't say-- oh, he had some tattoos that are inper -- interpreted that way. But let's move on
TRUMP: Wait a minute.
MORAN: I want --
TRUMP: Hey, Terry. Terry. Terry.
MORAN: He -- he did not have the letter --
TRUMP: Don't do that -- M-S-1-3 -- It says M-S-one-three.
MORAN: I -- that was Photoshop. So let me just--
TRUMP: That was Photoshop? Terry, you can't do that -- he had -- -- he-- hey, they're givin' you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you're doin' the interview. I picked you because -- frankly I never heard of you, but that's okay --
MORAN: This -- I knew this would come --
TRUMP: But I picked you -- Terry -- but you're not being very nice. He had MS-13 tattooed --
MORAN: Alright. Alright. We'll agree to disagree. I want to move on --
TRUMP: Terry.
MORAN: -- to something else.
TRUMP: Terry. Do you want me to show the picture?
MORAN: I saw the picture. We'll -- we'll -- we'll agree to disagree --
TRUMP: Oh, and you think it was Photoshop. Well --
MORAN: Here we go. Here we go.
TRUMP: -- don't Photoshop it. Go look --
MORAN: Alright.
TRUMP: -- at his hand. He had MS-13 --
MORAN: Fair enough, he did have tattoos that can be interpreted that way. I'm not an expert on them. I want to turn to Ukraine, sir --
TRUMP: No, no. Terry --
MORAN: I-- I want to get to Ukraine--
TRUMP: Terry, no, no. No, no. He had MS as clear as you can be. Not "interpreted." This is why people --
MORAN: Alright.
TRUMP: -- no longer believe --
MORAN: Well.
TRUMP: -- the news, because it's fake news --
MORAN: When he was photographed in El Sal -- in-- in El Salvador, they aren't there. But let's just go on --
TRUMP: He is --
MORAN: They aren't there when he's in El Salvador.
TRUMP: --there -- oh, oh, they weren't there --
MORAN: Take a look at the photograph --
TRUMP: But they're there now, right?
MORAN: No. What --
TRUMP: But they're there now?
MORAN: They're in your picture.
TRUMP: Terry.
MORAN: Ukraine, sir.
TRUMP: He's got MS-13 on his knuckles.
MORAN: Alright. I --
TRUMP: Okay?
MORAN: -- we'll -- we'll take a look at it --
TRUMP: It's -- it's -- you do such a disservice --
MORAN: We'll take a look. We'll take a look at that, sir --
TRUMP: Why don't you just say, "Yes, he does," and, you know, go on to something else --
MORAN: It's contested.
Believe it or not, Trump brought the subject up again later, after Moran asked if he trusts Vladimir Putin:
TRUMP: I don't trust you. I don't trust -- I don't trust a lot of people. I don't trust you. Look at you. You come in all shootin' for bear. You're so happy to do the interview.
MORAN: I am happy --
TRUMP: And then you start hitting me with fake questions. You start tellin' me that a guy -- whose hand is covered with a tattoo --
MORAN: Alright. We're back to that.
TRUMP: -- doesn't have the tattoo, you know.
MORAN: Alright.
TRUMP: I mean, you're being dishonest.
MORAN: No, I'm not --
TRUMP: Let -- let-- let me just tell you --
MORAN: No, I am not, sir.
I particularly loved it when Trump insisted that "This is why people no longer believe the news, because it's fake news." He had it exactly backwards, of course. This is why people no longer believe him.
The Questions
So. This raises a lot of questions, does it not?
First of all, there’s the question of whether Trump actually believes what he’s saying, or whether he’s intentionally lying.
He could be lying – either hoping to get away with it, or as a way to show that he can make something true (at least among the Fox News crowd) just by insisting upon it. As one Bluesky poster put it: “It’s just lying as a demonstration of power. We know they’re lying, they know we know they’re lying, and we know they know we know they’re lying. They’re grinning at us, lying, saying ‘What are you gonna do about it?’”
He could be such a narcissist that whether something is true or not doesn’t matter to him: if he says it, it is so. As another Bluesky poster put it, “Narcissists will believe whatever is convenient for them psychologically, especially when trying to avoid narcissistic breaks.”
But maybe he actually believes he's telling the truth. Then the question is: How can he be so gullible? How can he be that stupid?
Either he’s a liar or an idiot – or both. He certainly can’t be neither.
Then there are a ton of process questions. Who altered the photograph in the first place? Was it presented to him as an actual, unaltered photograph? When he reached that conclusion, why did no one set him straight? When he stated it as fact to Time magazine, why did no one point out his mistake? Is everyone in his orbit afraid to correct him?
These are important questions. In a lot of ways, this is Trump in a microcosm: Terribly, insistently wrong, with no one who can or will set him straight, with no ability to self-correct – and a meanspirited bully, to boot.
That makes it a great case study for journalists to explore, rather than ignore.
Same goes, by the way, for Attorney General Pam Biondi’s insistence at Wednesday’s cabinet meeting that fentanyl seizures since January had saved "258 million lives". The entire population of the United State is 331 million.
Who told her that? What’s wrong with her that she could possibly believe it’s true? Why did no one on her staff point out the math on Tuesday, when she posted on Twitter that the seizures had saved over 119 million lives? Who gave her the new number and why?
Lying is central to the Trump administration, and it shouldn’t be overlooked because it’s inconvenient, or relegated to fact-check sidebars. It should be the subject of ongoing, investigative coverage. Starting now would be good.
---------------------
Kudos to the Wall Street Journal, for at least running a story about Trump and the tattoos -- and to Mehdi Hassan for his video entitled "Is This the Most Insane Thing Trump Has Ever Said?"
I worry that the debate about whether or not he personally was a gang member of obscures the larger point, which is that even gang members deserve due process. Trump often works obscures the real issue in just this way.
Why isn't Moran getting the obvious criticisms that you an other media critics point out regularly: That Moran was more interested in "moving on" than actually pinning Trump down on a single point of "truth". Moran owed it to his audience to fully hash out this issue that Trump continually lied about and determine what the truth was: Was this a real tattoo or did Trump misinform the people? I'm befuddled that Moran didn't want to settle that issue before "moving on". Dan, you've advocated the same thing in the past.