In a contentious interview with NBC News’s Dasha Burns on Thursday, former President Donald Trump tried to distance himself from the ongoing controversy involving his visit to Arlington National Cemetery and the subsequent use of photos from the visit in his campaign materials.
When asked by Burns if his campaign should have released the photos and videos taken at Section 60 of the cemetery, Trump responded, “Well, we have a lot of people, you know, we have people, TikTok people, you know, we’re leading the internet. That was the other thing. We’re so far above her on the internet.”
When pressed on whether it was appropriate to share such images from a solemn location, Trump deflected, suggesting that the responsibility might lie with the Gold Star parents who had invited him, rather than his campaign.
“I don’t know what the rules and regulations are. I don’t know who did it. And it could have been them. It could have been the parents,” Trump said. “It could have been somebody else.”
Burns pointed out, “It was your campaign’s TikTok though, that put out the video.”
Trump responded,“I really don’t know anything about it. All I do is I stood there and I said, if you’d like to have a picture, we can have a picture if somebody did. If this was a set up by the people in the administration that, oh, Trump is coming to Arlington, that looks so bad for us,” further deflecting blame and alleging that the situation might have been orchestrated by others.
MSNBC host Katie Phang reacted to the interview, commenting, “Oh, wait, wait, wait. Trump is now saying that his campaign’s photo op was a setup.”
Watch the exchange below via MSNBC.
