On a day when Donald Trump is trying to get the House to pass TrumpCare (I hope he fails, by the way) and the Senate’s business is overshadowed by the Gorsuch hearings, we have a new interview in which Trump plays the jackass. And nowhere is his jackassery more on display than in this comment:

But you would agree also that some of the things you have said haven’t been true. You say that Ted Cruz’s father was with Lee Harvey Oswald. Well that was in a newspaper. No, no, I like Ted Cruz, he’s a friend of mine. But that was in the newspaper. I wasn’t, I didn’t say that. I was referring to a newspaper. A Ted Cruz article referred to a newspaper story with, had a picture of Ted Cruz, his father, and Lee Harvey Oswald, having breakfast. That gets close to the heart… Why do you say that I have to apologize? I’m just quoting the newspaper, just like I quoted the judge the other day, Judge Napolitano, I quoted Judge Napolitano, just like I quoted Bret Baier, I mean Bret Baier mentioned the word wiretap. Now he can now deny it, or whatever he is doing, you know. But I watched Bret Baier, and he used that term. I have a lot of respect for Judge Napolitano, and he said that three sources have told him things that would make me right. I don’t know where he has gone with it since then. But I’m quoting highly respected people from highly respected television networks.

This is why it’s difficult for me to get that upset if there’s a bogus story about Trump in a newspaper or on TV. I still criticize such stories, out of a sense of intellectual honesty, but I don’t feel the same fervor that I feel when almost any other Republican is unfairly attacked. Because that’s the standard he sets: If it appears in some media outlet or even blog and it benefits me, I quote it. No matter how bogus the story obviously is, I quote it. And I never apologize, even if the story was clearly wrong.

That’s the standard you want to set? OK. Live by the bogus story, die by the bogus story.

I won’t feel sorry for you.

[Disclaimer]