CBS
President Donald Trump and CBS anchor John Dickerson.
President Donald Trump abruptly concluded an interview with John Dickerson following the CBS anchor's repeated questions about the president's unfounded claims that President Barack Obama personally ordered surveillance of Trump Tower.In an interview that aired Monday, Dickerson pressed the president to explain his March tweets claiming that Obama wiretapped Trump during the 2016 election.
"You're the president of the United States. You said he was 'sick and bad' because he had tapped you," Dickerson said during an interview in the Oval Office.
"You can take it any way you want," Trump replied.
"I'm asking you," Dickerson said. "Because you don't want it to be fake news. I want to hear it from President Trump."
The president insisted that he had his own opinions and that Dickerson could draw his own conclusions about what Trump meant.
"But I want to know your opinions," Dickerson said. "You're the president of the United States."
"Okay, it's enough. Thank you. Thank you very much," Trump said, walking away from Dickerson.
The "Face The Nation" host told "CBS This Morning" that Trump wanted him to leave after the exchange.
"I think it was pretty clear that I was to move myself out or I was to be moved along," Dickerson said.
Though the president has stood by his assertion, the intelligence community has not supported Trump's claim, and the White House has wavered on whether the president's tweets should be interpreted literally.
Trump said in March that he felt vindicated by House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes' claim that some Trump officials may have incidentally collected data from Trump associates, though Nunes' statement differed significantly from Trump's original assertion.
A liberal group filed a lawsuit last month against the Department of Justice and the FBI to release classified information that would support or disprove the president's claim.
Disclosure: The author of this post briefly worked for Dickerson as a researcher.