President Trump asserted that Barack Obama was outsmarted by Russian president Vladimir Putin, drawing an outraged response from a reporter in the G7 summit press pool who effectively called Trump a liar.
“Why do you keep using the misleading statement that Russia outsmarted President Obama when other countries have said the reason why Russia was kicked out [of the G8] was very clearly because they annexed Crimea?” asked a reporter. “Why keep repeating what some people would see as a clear lie?”
“Well, I know you like President Obama,” Trump began. “It was annexed during President Obama’s term. If it was annexed during my term, I would say, ‘Sorry folks, I made a mistake.'”
“President Obama was pure and simply outsmarted. They took Crimea during his term. That was not a good thing — it could have been stopped . . . but President Obama was unable to stop it, and that’s too bad.”