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Comment by trymas | Hacker News Reader

Not OP, but https://time.com/5582741/donald-trump-never-met-doesnt-know/

It was almost a meme on his last presidency. If there’s a scandal involving someone from inner circle - trump’s replies often were “I barely know him/her”/“Never met him/her”, etc.

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Separately, he'll not-infrequently claim he doesn't remember recently saying something insane/stupid when a reporter asks him about it a day or two later. Sometimes he'll kinda smirk when he does it, so I'm pretty sure this one's also him lying, not genuinely forgetting, at least much of the time (if he's really forgetting all of these, that's a separate serious problem). In these cases, also, he rarely gets much push-back, so it's another example of "yes he's bullshitting, but also we're letting him get away with it and get what he wants, so why would he stop?"

Aha ok, but I don't think it's very applicable to this situation. The people he has denied to know he might have met them once or twice, but it's not like part of his administration. This situation is different.

> “I don’t know who Putin is,” “I have no relationship with Putin” and “I don’t know Putin.”

Good examples and I believe that’s a Bill-Clinton-under-oath use of carnal “is”. Nobody has the patience to wonder whether it’s true or false that Trump knows of the existence of Putin. Bill Clinton didn’t get away with it, so I’m willing to say this is specific to Trump.

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