Journalists, butt of Trump's joke about Russia finding Hillary's emails, dead certain he wasn't joking

As Twitchy has noted a number of times, the strain between the news media and Donald Trump started long before his election and looks certain to continue throughout his term, especially as a new front has opened in the ongoing war between the two, with the White House hosting selected briefings off-camera.

It wasn’t only the absence of TV cameras from today’s briefings that stirred up the press; add to that White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s insistence Trump was joking on the campaign trail last summer when he said he hoped Russia could find Hillary Clinton’s 33,000 deleted emails.

About those calls last summer for Russia to find Clinton's missing emails: Spicer says Trump "was joking at the time. We all know that."

— Jeff Zeleny (@jeffzeleny) June 26, 2017

.@kwelkernbc shoots back: "He was joking?" Says he said it on the stump as a candidate for president. https://t.co/NJ3kjAqt4A

— Adrian Carrasquillo (@Carrasquillo) June 26, 2017

Sean says Trump "was joking" (!!!) when he asked Russian to hack Hillary's emails during the campaign.

— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) June 26, 2017

Go-to-the-tape is always the smartest move. @kwelkernbc asked exactly the right question: Why did Trump ask Russia to hack Hillary?

— Glenn Thrush (@GlennThrush) June 26, 2017

But … if you do go to the tape, and lots of journalists have, you learn Trump didn’t “ask Russia to hack” Hillary; he said, in part, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.” In other words, if it was Russia behind the DNC hack, maybe those emails would turn up as well.

Here’s the thing: say what you will about Trump, but would he as a candidate literally ask the Russian government to commit espionage against his opponent during a press briefing? If his campaign was colluding with the Russian government to ensure his election, wouldn’t he just ask through those alleged back channels and not with TV cameras rolling?

The Washington Post’s Philip Bump, who annotated a transcript of the press conference headlined, “Donald Trump’s falsehood-laden press conference, annotated,” highlighted that very line with the simple note, “This caused a stir.”

Transcripts are a terrible tool for detecting sarcasm and wry humor, but there’s something about Trump’s “yes sir” at the end of his answer:

Why do I have to … get involved with Putin? I have nothing to do with Putin. I’ve never spoken to him. I don’t know anything about him other than he will respect me. He doesn’t respect our president. And if it is Russia — which it’s probably not, nobody knows who it is — but if it is Russia, it’s really bad for a different reason, because it shows how little respect they have for our country, when they would hack into a major party and get everything. But it would be interesting to see — I will tell you this — Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens. That’ll be next. Yes, sir…

What’s incredible is that the press doesn’t seem to get that they were the ones getting slammed. Yes, Trump was joking, at their expense: if he had the power to put Russian intelligence to work at will on behalf of his campaign, as the press seemed to suggest, why not hope agents were hard at work sifting through those emails about yoga and Chelsea’s wedding plans for some dirt?

Trump didn’t seem to think he’d done anything wrong, tweeting the line the following day:

If Russia or any other country or person has Hillary Clinton's 33,000 illegally deleted emails, perhaps they should share them with the FBI!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) July 27, 2016

Imagine the surprise, though, when the Clinton campaign’s senior policy advisor accused Trump of encouraging espionage. Hillary Clinton herself repeated the charge during the debates during the famous “No puppet!” exchange.

Clinton Campaign: Trump actively encouraged foreign power to conduct espionage against her: https://t.co/f17R8dJJt4 pic.twitter.com/rbdCUgORRO

— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) July 27, 2016

So … there’s the video clip and the transcript. Journalists seem certain Trump’s line was no joke, and they have lots and lots and lots of followers anxiously agreeing. Any dissenters?

https://twitter.com/AgencyMoritz/status/879417940961046528

You realize he didn't ask them to hack anything, right? The server was at the FBI by this point.

— John Sexton (@verumserum) June 26, 2017

https://twitter.com/dmartosko/status/879418152265928704

We keep reverting to "Russia hacked the election!"

— John Sexton (@verumserum) June 26, 2017

For as long as it works, yes.

Note: Trump never asked this. https://t.co/iTjPnbidtV

— John Sexton (@verumserum) June 26, 2017

This is the kind of thing that if Breitbart said it, the fact-checkers would descend and feast.

— John Sexton (@verumserum) June 26, 2017

This is what the Trump/Russia collusion narrative is now reduced to. Jokes he told at the debate on live TV in front of millions.

— Happy Thanksgiving & Epstein Didn't Kill Himself (@drawandstrike) June 26, 2017

In fact, the joke Trump told was about the Russian hackers finding Hillary's lost 30,000 emails. Which were under subpoena.

— Happy Thanksgiving & Epstein Didn't Kill Himself (@drawandstrike) June 26, 2017

FBI literally had Hillary's server when Trump joked about Russia hacking it…and everyone knows this

— 80% Unicorn Poop (@danielwwelsh) June 26, 2017

I watched that live- it was obvious it was a joke. He was referring to the MISSING emails ?Only ppl that don't get it are humorless.

— Sue♥️?? (@IndieSueVotes) June 26, 2017

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