President Donald Trump spent nearly two minutes arguing that a photoshopped image was real during an interview with ABC News on Tuesday.

During a discussion about the deportation of illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, Trump referenced a photograph of Garcia’s knuckles, which showed his real tattoos – a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, a cross, and a skull – below the letters “MS13,” which had been edited on.

While the photo attempted to make the case that the symbols on Garcia’s hand were code for “MS-13,” Trump appeared to take the edited letters literally, believing that they had also been tattooed onto Garcia’s knuckles.

“You’ll pick out one man, but even the man that you picked out, he said he wasn’t a member of a gang, and then they looked and on his knuckles he had MS-13,” said Trump during the interview.

After ABC News’ Terry Moran replied, “There’s dispute of that,” the interview devolved into an argument:

Trump: Wait a minute, he had “MS-13” on his knuckles tattooed!

Moran: He had some tattoos that are interpreted that way, but let’s move on.

Trump: Wait a minute. Hey, Terry. Terry. Terry. Don’t do that.

Moran: He did not have the letter “MS-13.”

Trump: It says “MS-13.”

Moran: That was photoshopped.

Trump: That was photoshopped? Terry, you can’t do that. They’ve given you the big break of a lifetime. You know, you’re doing the interview. I picked you because, frankly, I had never heard of you, but that’s okay. But I picked you, Terry, but you’re not being very nice. He had “MS-13” tattooed. Terry. Terry. Do you want me to show you the picture?

Moran: I saw the picture.

Trump: And you think it was photoshopped? Well, don’t photoshop it, go look at his hand. He had “MS-13.”

Moran: He did have tattoos that can be interpreted that way. I’m not an expert on them.

Trump protested, “No, no. He had MS, as clear as you can be. Not interpreted. This is why people no longer believe the news because it’s fake news.”

Moran pointed out, “Well, when he was photographed in El Salvador, they aren’t there, but let’s just go on. They aren’t there in El Salvador. Take a look at the photograph.”

“They weren’t there, but they’re there now, right?” asked Trump, to which Moran replied, “No!”

Despite the back-and-forth, Trump refused to believe that the “MS-13” label had been edited onto the photo, concluding, “He’s got MS-13 on his knuckles. Okay? You do such a disservice. Why don’t you just say, ‘Yes, he does,’ and you know, go on to something else?”

Trump held up the same edited photo of Garcia’s hand in the White House this month after Democrats protested his deportation to El Salvador, which reportedly took place due to an administrative error.

“This is the hand of the man that the Democrats feel should be brought back to the United States, because he is such ‘a fine and innocent person,'” declared Trump. “They said he is not a member of MS-13, even though he’s got MS-13 tattooed onto his knuckles, and two Highly Respected Courts found that he was a member of MS-13, beat up his wife, etc.”

Photos of Garcia in El Salvador following his deportation show that while the symbols of a marijuana leaf, a smiley face, a cross, and a skull are tattooed onto his knuckle, the letters “M” and “S,” and the numbers 1 and 3 are not.

  • oxjox@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    Here’s an example of how I perceived something incorrectly based on social media.

    All the posts I saw were about how “MS13” was photoshopped on his hand - as if to suggest they were actual tattoos.

    Apparently, what I’ve only just now inferred from watching this video, the overlayed text shown in the photo is a label for each of the real tattoos.

    So, on one hand (no pun intended), you have a story about Trump believing photoshopped letters are real tattoos and on the other hand you have a story about whether the interpretation of the tattoos is correct to be MS13 related.

    This reporter did a shit job. Trump offered to get the picture out and he blew the chance to get the facts straight on this hot topic - do you believe the letters “MS13” are actually tattooed on his hand or are you saying they’re the interpretation of the tattoos below them.

    EDIT: rewatching the video and caught the moron saying “he had MS as clear as you can be. Not interpreted.” I mean… ya know, I honestly worry that we will ever come out of this in a good shape. Will we ever again have respect for the office of the presidency? Can we ever again elect someone who represents the best of us?

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      US presidents haven’t been “the best” for a long, long time. Obama was remotely respectable, if you can ignore all the drone strikes. I understand that being the leader of a country means you sometimes have to make uncomfortable decisions but he was a bit quick with the kill orders ,so to speak.

      Having said that, look at the bushes (especially the second, ugh), Ronald Reagan, etc.

      The US needs to rebuild its democracy from the ground up.

      • oxjox@lemmy.ml
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        18 hours ago

        It could just be because I’m older or because we have the internet now but when I was growing up, becoming the president of the United States was the most high profile, respected, and rewarding jobs someone could aim for. It was the “gold standard”. Now, I can’t imagine anyone saying to their kid, “you can be anything you want one day, even the president”. The office of the president is a joke.

        Even if someone I were to fully support became president, everything is fucked now. The country is so polarized that there’s just a winning team and a losing team. There is no president who can bring everyone together and make things “great again”. No matter what a president does, the media and the citizens of the internet are going to twist reality to make all actions and statements support their narrative. I don’t see a way out of it.

      • HobbitFoot @thelemmy.club
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        18 hours ago

        Reagan was able to act as a respectable president. His administration did horrible things, but at least he could act as someone respectable.

      • Revan343@lemmy.ca
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        1 day ago

        The US needs to rebuild its democracy from the ground up.

        I am sure that some of the successor states of the US will do so