President Donald Trump gave a rambling answer on Thursday when asked about his investigation into former President Joe Biden.
A reporter asked Trump in the Oval Office whether he has uncovered any “evidence” of anything being signed without Biden’s knowledge. This comes one day after Trump announced an investigation into Biden’s actions as president, alleging aides hid his predecessor’s “cognitive decline” and abused the autopen without his knowledge.
Trump responded by first dodging the question.
“Well, I don’t think Biden would know whether or not he signed it,” Trump said.
The reporter clarified the question: “I’m asking if you’ve uncovered any information.”
Trump then gave a babbling response, saying that he has not uncovered any evidence but that he knows the “human mind.”
“No. But I’ve uncovered, you know, the human mind. I was in a debate with the human mind. And I didn’t think he knew what the hell he was doing. So, you know, it’s just one of those things, one of those problems,” Trump replied.
It’s unclear what Trump meant by having a debate with the “human mind.”
He continued to rail against Biden, repeating unsubstantiated claims that executive actions were authorized without Biden’s permission during his term.
“We can’t ever allow that to happen to our country, the danger our country was in. And I know some of the people that work with him, radical left, horrible people. And I could give you the name of some of the people that use the autopen...but I know some of the people that use that autopen, and those are not the people that had the same ideology as Joe Biden,” he said.
Trump then repeated the false claim that Biden did not win the 2020 election despite there being no evidence of widespread voter fraud.
“These were radical left lunatics that used that and they didn’t get elected. He didn’t get elected either,” he said.
Trump ordered the investigation into Biden’s administration on Wednesday over the use of the autopen, which has been used by presidents, including Trump, for decades.
The order marked a significant escalation in Trump’s targeting of political adversaries and could lay the groundwork for arguments by the Republican that a range of Biden’s actions as president were invalid.
Biden responded in a statement Wednesday night: “Let me be clear: I made the decisions during my presidency. I made the decisions about the pardons, executive orders, legislation, and proclamations. Any suggestion that I didn’t is ridiculous and false.”
The Justice Department under Democratic and Republican administrations has recognized the use of an autopen to sign legislation and issue pardons for decades, Trump presented no evidence that Biden was unaware of the actions taken in his name, and the president’s absolute pardon power is enshrined in the U.S. Constitution.
“This conspiracy marks one of the most dangerous and concerning scandals in American history,” Trump wrote in a memo. “The American public was purposefully shielded from discovering who wielded the executive power, all while Biden’s signature was deployed across thousands of documents to effect radical policy shifts.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Stories by Lauren Sforza
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