At Thursday night’s NBC News town hall, host Savannah Guthrie confronted U.S. President Donald Trump for retweeting conspiracy theories, telling him, “You’re the president; you’re not someone’s crazy uncle.”
The NBC News anchor had asked the president to explain why he had retweeted yet another absurd conspiracy about former president Barack Obama on Tuesday.
“Why would you send a lie like that to your followers? You retweeted it,” Guthrie asked.
“That was a retweet. That was an opinion of somebody and that was a retweet. I’ll put it out there. People can decide for themselves,” Trump replied.
“I don’t get that. You’re the president, you’re not like someone’s crazy uncle who can retweet whatever,” Guthrie shot back.
This particular conspiracy theory — that Trump’s predecessor in the White House had ordered the killing of SEAL Team 6 — was one of many Trump amplified to his 87 million followers on Tuesday.
It’s something he’s persistently done throughout his presidency, using his huge platform to spread false and obscure claims from unverified accounts that sometimes only have a few followers. After repeatedly amplifying disinformation, Trump then defends himself by saying he is simply passing it along.
The moment blew up on social media. Many of the president’s critics praised Guthrie for calling the president out.
But Mary Trump, the president’s niece and author of a critical tell-all book about Donald Trump, reminded Guthrie that her claim wasn’t entirely true: