When talking to reporters about the story of John McCain’s name being obscured on the naval vessel named for him, President Donald Trump on Thursday treated the news as true.

To reporters, Trump said “I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t involved. I would not have done that,” and added ” somebody did it because they thought I didn’t like him.”

But late in the afternoon he tweeted with a different take.

The Navy put out a disclaimer on the McCain story. Looks like the story was an exaggeration, or even Fake News – but why not, everything else is! — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 30, 2019

Presumably, the disclaimer to which he is referring is that the Navy said ultimately they did not take any action to hide the name or the ship, despite confirming the idea came up. “We didn’t do anything to obstruct the name of the ship,” a Navy official told CNN. “The Wall Street Journal piece refers to a photo of a tarp covering the ship, that photo was taken Friday, May 24, the tarp was removed the following day.”

The Navy also sent a tweet clarifying that no effort was made to block the ship or John McCain’s name.

The name of USS John S. McCain was not obscured during the POTUS visit to Yokosuka on Memorial Day. The Navy is proud of that ship, its crew, its namesake and its heritage. — Navy Chief of Information (@chinfo) May 30, 2019

That information was already reported prior to President Trump speaking to reporters Thursday morning, but it’s not clear there were any other “disclaimers” since then.

The disclaimers, and for that matter Trump’s tweet, do not exclude that the conversations took place. Only that it was not obscured or blocked. But as a standalone tweet, it is certain to make some people think the entire story was made up and that the Navy confirmed it. Which is probably the actual intent: casting the doubt without specifying it.

A lot of that has been going around lately.

[U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Matthew R. White/Released]

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