WASHINGTON — Could it have been the 45th?
President Trump’s Monday claim that he spoke with one of his predecessors who regretted not attacking Iran stoked continued intrigue on Tuesday after spokespeople for all living ex-presidents denied contact.
“Look, for 47 years, no president was willing to do what I’m doing, and they should have done it a long time ago,” Trump said during a Monday afternoon meeting of the Trump-Kennedy Center board.
“And yet every president knew. I’ve spoken to a certain president, who I like, actually, a past president, a former president. He said, ‘I wish I did it, I wish I did,’ but they didn’t do it. I’m doing it.”
Taken at face value, Trump’s statement left only four options: Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden.
Context clues hinted heavily that it was Clinton.
Reporters asked Trump for a name immediately, but Trump said: “I can’t tell you that. I don’t want to embarrass him. It would be very bad for his career, even though he’s got no career.”
Trump later said in the Oval Office that it wasn’t Bush.
Asked if it was Clinton, Trump said, “I don’t want to say. I don’t want to say.”
“It’s somebody that happens to like me. And I like that person, who’s a smart person. But that person said, ‘I wish I did it,’ OK, but I don’t want to get into who, OK. I don’t want to get them into trouble,” Trump said.
The president’s declaration that it was a “smart” person ruled out Biden — whom Trump has derided as mentally incompetent, including going so far as putting an image of an autopen in place of his face along the White House colonnade.
Trump’s remark that he likes the ex-president also is notable.
Trump has accused Obama of leading shadowy efforts to undermine his presidency, including the distracting first-term probe into whether he conspired with Russia in the 2016 election.
Trump accused Obama of “treason” and sedition last year, saying, “Obama led, was trying to lead a coup.” Trump accused Obama of leaking “classified information” last month — a crime — by saying aliens were real.
Clinton too has found himself Trump’s target, with the Republican inviting four women who had accused the Democrat of sexual misconduct to a 2016 debate with Hillary Clinton, where Trump declared: “There’s never been anybody in the history of politics in this nation that’s been so abusive toward women.”
Trump more recently expressed fonder feelings for Bill Clinton, who was forced to sit for a congressional deposition after new revelations about his ties to the late sex-trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, with whom Trump also was formerly friends.
In fact, his wording about Clinton has been quite similar to his description of the unidentified predecessor, whom Trump said Monday “I like.”
“It bothers me that somebody’s going after Bill Clinton,” Trump told NBC News last month. “See, I like Bill Clinton. I still like Bill Clinton.”
Aides for Clinton, Bush, Obama and Biden all said the ex-presidents had not spoken with Trump recently, per the Associated Press.
Their denials stoked further intrigue.
It remains unclear if one of the ex-leaders’ spokespeople was uninformed or untruthful.
An improbable, but conceivable, alternative is that Trump himself was speaking creatively about himself, owing to his own unique status as both the 45th and 47th president.
