Trump claims he would ‘have to look at foreign dirt on opponents' to know if it was bad

Donald Trump has said he would have to look at “foreign dirt” on his opponents so he could check if it was bad.

On Thursday, the president said he would accept damaging information on a 2020 election rival from a foreign country, such as China or Russia, in an interview for ABC.

And on Friday – on his birthday – Trump rang up Fox & Friends to rant for 50 minutes about Iran, his Democratic 2020 opponents and his controversial comments.

When host Steve Doocy asked about accepting “dirt from Russia or any foreign country", Trump replied:

First of all, I don’t think anyone would present me with anything bad because they know how much I love this country…

Number two: If I was… and of course you have to look at it because, if you don't look at it, you're not going to know if it's bad. How are you going to know if it's bad?

But of course, you give it to the FBI or report it to the attorney general or somebody like that.

Obviously, there’s a very simple problem with that idea – it’s not Trump’s job to assess damaging information, it’s the FBI’s job.

And more importantly, the head of the Federal Election Commission explained yesterday that it is illegal for anyone to “solicit, accept or receive anything of value from a foreign national in connection with a US election”.

The president’s argument for illegal election interference doesn’t work well when you apply it to other situations either…

It doesn’t look like the 2020 election is going to be any less stupid than 2016.

More: Twitter is mocking Trump by using his birthday to celebrate Barack Obama instead