A look at Donald Trump's strange view of N.J. by way of Twitter, television and interviews

It's safe to say that President Donald Trump has never been New Jersey's greatest booster.

In his view, New Jersey is where a lone-wolf troll, sitting in the basement of his mother's home, may have orchestrated the fake news operation to disrupt the 2016 election.

Trump has cast the state as teeming with thousands of terrorist sympathizers.

Trump, the casino mogul whose eyes once flashed with dollar signs at Atlantic City's possibilities, once likened the city to "downtown Beirut." That's hardly the high energy optimism of the local Chamber of Commerce.

And several times, Trump has given voice to the sour, Jersey exiles who seek refuge in low-tax states in the South. Jersey, in his view, is a state to escape.

This is not to say Trump hasn't said positive things about the Garden State when it suits his business interests. After all, Jersey is where he came to build his short-lived casino empire and manicure his elite golf courses. And it is a place he even once considered for his eternal resting place.

But New Jersey is also a place Trump has portrayed with his colorful, off-the-cuff theories and by spinning "alternative facts" as his one of his top advisers, the Jersey-bred aide Kellyanne Conway once described them.

And in doing so, Trump perpetuates the stereotype of Jersey as a backwater, where weird and shadowy people toil in obscurity.

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That was the image Trump cast in 2016, when he sought to dispute the suggestion that Russia had masterminded a cyber-disinformation and hacking campaign during the election.

"It could be Russia. And it could be China,'' Trump told Time Magazine in December 2016 as he tried to downplay suspicions of Russian involvement. " And it could be some guy in his home in New Jersey. I believe that it could have been Russia and it could have been any one of many other people."

It was a classic example of Trump's defuse-by-deflection style of damage control -- muddy the waters by naming other potential suspects. But Robert Mueller III, the special counsel probing possible collusion with the Trump campaign, didn't buy the Jersey guy argument (or a similar Trump theory that the hacking of Democratic National Committee emails may been the handiwork of "some guy who weighs 400 pounds sitting on their bed.)

Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian organizations for orchestrating an effort to sow discord and chaos into the campaign and tilt the election on behalf of then-candidate Trump. It's safe to say that Mueller's investigators won't be knocking on doors in North Jersey anytime soon looking for cyber conspirators.

Trump doesn't mind trashing New Jersey when it serves his political advantage. As he courted anti-immigrant hardliners in Alabama in November 2015, Trump claimed to have seen "thousands and thousands" of Muslims on 9/11 cheering from Jersey City as the World Trade Center buildings crumbled.

But when challenged, Trump admitted that he didn't personally see any celebrations and that he recalled seeing television news reports at the time. No evidence has ever emerged to back up the claim of a large-scale celebrations. State and federal authorities also could not confirm the reports.

Yet, that didn't stop Trump from doubling down, and at one point, conflating New Jersey with reports of other anti-American demonstrations in other parts of the world at the time. By the time he got going, Trump implied that even Paterson was a hotbed of pro-terrorist jubilation. His insistence helped Trump earn the devotion of anti-immigrant hardliners.

"You have a huge Muslim population in Paterson and different places and Jersey City -- an unbelievable large population,'' Trump told NBC's Chuck Todd. "If they are going to be doing it at soccer games.... and all around the world it was being done."

Trump is hardly the first figure to perpetuate a poor image of the Garden State. His long-time pal, former Gov. Chris Christie, was known to play up the stereotype of New Jersey as a land of Tony Soprano-like goons.

Trump hasn't always peddled a dark vision of New Jersey. As he expanded his casino holdings in the 1980s, Trump was bullish on Atlantic City. It was a turbo-charged Trump sales pitch that envisioned Atlantic City moving into the next phase of its renaissance. It was not just going to be a resort lined with swanky new casinos, he promised.

“Ten years down the line,” he told New Jersey Monthly in 1987. “Atlantic City is going to be a truly great place. You’ll see a cleaned-up, beautiful seaside town, with new housing for the poor and middle class, and open space. In a decade, Atlantic City is going to shock and surprise a lot of people.”

But history proved otherwise. Trump left behind a trail of bankruptcy, stiffed contractors and a sense of betrayal. The city is now scrambling to survive. For many people, the shock and surprise is over Atlantic City's rapid collapse.

And while Trump may have been the bombastic Atlantic City salesman in 1987, he could also cast the casino city in less flattering terms, as he did in a 1989 legislative hearing, where he tried to tried to persuade lawmakers to loosen gaming regulations. Trump also worried about the city's image.

"You can have the most beautiful casino-hotel in the world, but it isn't enough if people have to go through downtown Beirut to get there,'' he said.

Despite the negative assessments, New Jersey remains a crucial outpost in Trump's political and business universe. The Trump National golf course in Bedminster has become one of two weekend getaways, a kind of Camp David of the Northeast. The town has become accustomed to the traffic delays, the protests and the swarms of reporters.

It's clearly a prized possession. During a state visit to Seoul, Korea last November, Trump paused to praise a Korean golfer who had recently won the U.S. women's golf tournament at Trump National.

Trump was so fond of the property that he considered being buried at the club and even went to extensive lengths to win state and local approvals for a private cemetery plot. He eventually decided that Florida would be better. Now, veterans and club members can buy plots at the site in New Jersey.

Still, Trump may have inadvertently revealed the rationale for choosing Florida during a December 2015 attack on Christie in the run-up to the New Hampshire primary for president.

His friend "Chris" was surging in the polls and Trump decided it was time to attack him. And in doing so, he cast New Jersey in less-than flattering terms.

"It's a disaster. I have property over there. The taxes are ...I'll use an expression -- they're coming out of my ears,'' Trump told an audience in South Carolina. "Tremendous taxes over there."