WASHINGTON — Recycling an incendiary and unsubstantiated charge, President Trump on Friday joked that he and visiting German Chancellor Angela Merkel may have one thing in common: being spied on by Barack Obama’s administration.
“As far as wiretapping, I guess, by, you know, this past administration, at least we have something in common perhaps,” Trump said at a joint press conference with the German leader. His remark drew laughter from some in the audience, a mix of reporters and aides to the president and the chancellor.
Merkel gave her host a quizzical look.
He appeared to be referring to revelations in 2013 that the Obama administration had listened to Merkel’s cellphone conversations. The disclosure inflamed U.S-Germany relations, and angered Merkel, who was born in what was then East Germany and experienced life under its feared secret police, the Stasi.
Trump had been asked by a German reporter about his March 4 claim that Obama personally ordered spying on him and Trump Tower. The reporter also asked whether Trump thought it was a mistake for White House press secretary Sean Spicer to cite a Fox News analyst’s claim that Obama used British intelligence to do surveillance on the future president.
“We said nothing,” Trump said. “All we did was quote a certain very talented legal mind who was the one responsible for saying that on television. I didn’t make an opinion on it. That was a statement made by a very talented lawyer on Fox. And so you shouldn’t be talking to me, you should be talking to Fox.”
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