President Trump took a swipe at Rep. Ted Lieu Tuesday, calling the California Democrat “one of the least respected” lawmakers and saying Mr. Lieu knowingly made a defamatory statement that the president wanted to rename the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool after himself.
Mr. Trump, who spent the final day of the midterm campaign on Monday talking about his renovations to the Reflecting Pool in front of the Lincoln Memorial, called Mr. Lieu on social media a “lightweight.”
He said Mr. Lieu made a “knowingly malicious, false, and defamatory statement” that Mr. Trump wanted to rename the iconic site as the “Trump Reflecting Pool.”
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Mr. Trump continued, “He posted on X, ’What are Trump and his Republican enablers focused on? Changing the name of the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool to the Trump Reflecting Pool. Punish them at the ballot box. Repudiate them. Vote.’”
The president said that Mr. Lieu “knows that I said it in a jocular manner, and added, immediately after, ’Don’t worry, I’m only joking.’”
He said all the reporters gathered at the Lincoln Memorial press conference laughed at his comment.
“But ’Lightweight’ Lieu, his new moniker, didn’t add the line that I’m only joking because he is a FRAUD. This was done at a News Conference, and even the Media was aghast that Lieu would have lied like that.”
Mr. Trump’s post about Mr. Lieu, whom he called a “third-rate” lawmaker, came after he unloaded on the Daily Mail in a previous social media post for misreporting his joke at the press conference.
He said the outlet “wrongly took my joke at a Presidential News Conference where the beautiful Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool was opened yesterday, and pretended it wasn’t a joke when I said, I’m going to name it, ’TRUMP.’”
He said, “Their dishonest, false headline states: ’Trump delivers final midterms speech to just 60 people at the renovated Reflecting Pool and threatens a major rename.’”
The president corrected the outlet saying it was not a final midterms speech but a news conference of only reporters that was closed to the public.
“My Final Midterms Speech was the day before in lowa and Kansas, where we had 50,000 people,” he said.
“This just shows you how FAKE the News is. I said, very clearly, ’I’m joking.’ The Fake News is so corrupt!”
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