Jake Tapper lays out how White House reaction to Trump’s contradictory tweets proves they'd 'deny the nose on your face'

CNN’s Jake Tapper tore into Donald Trump on Thursday after the president issued two contradictory tweets on the Foreign Surveillance Act (FISA) and the White House subsequently tried to insist doing so did not sow chaos in Washington, D.C.

“President Trump throwing a proverbial wrench into a debate over a controversial national security bill this morning and illustrating better than any bestseller ever could one of the biggest challenges for this presidency: his own impulse control, which may sometimes seem reckless,” Tapper began.

The CNN host explained that the White House, earlier this week, was onboard with reauthorizing FISA, saying the bill is necessary to “collect critical intelligence on terrorist organizations, weapons proliferators, and other foreign adversaries that is vital to keeping the nation safe.”

“But then, then this morning, President Trump went to one of his primary sources of misinformation, Fox and Friends with commentators he seems to trust more than senior members of his own administration,” Tapper said.”And it was there, at Fox and Friends, that he heard this message at 6:47 A.M.”

Tapper played a clip of Judge Andrew Napolitano imploring Trump not to support FISA, which the Fox News legal analyst described as the basis of the president’s “woes.” Tapper noted Napolitano seemed to be providing credence to the claim that “there was unconstitutional domestic surveillance of then citizen Donald Trump, which we have no evidence for.”

As Tapper explained, shortly after Napolitano’s remark, Trump sent a tweet “seeming to lobby against this authorization,” that “caused a lot of confusion on Capitol Hill.” Trump later sent another tweet telling lawmakers to “get smart” and vote for the FISA bill.

“Asked about the confusion today, press secretary Sarah Sanders denied that it existed,” Tapper said.

“This is now standard practice of this White House, to deny the nose on your face. Of course there was confusion, Republicans on capitol hill said there was confusion, and that's the very reason why President Trump felt the need to send out the second tweet to clear up the confusion,” the host explained.

“Now beyond the merits of the legislation and there is a good debate to have over this surveillance legislation—one we've had many times on this show—beyond that, we are left once again with a very clear illustration of a problem,” Tapper continued. “The president, not particularly informed on a specific subject, fueled by his own sense of grievance, tweeting against his own administration's position. This has all happened before, relying on Fox and Friends over his own FBI and CIA directors and national security advisor when it comes to national security issues, issues they insist are life and death. whatever you think of Michael Wolff and the book Fire and Fury and the sourcing of all that, look up, witness these facts, they’re playing out right in front of you.”

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