Trump makes false claims about his 'Russia if you're listening' plea during Pennsylvania rally

‘Trump has recast the delivery and response of his 2016 press conference in an effort to distort the media’s coverage. We rate this statement False,' fact-checking group says

Donald Trump made another false statement on Saturday night during his latest rally in battleground Pennsylvania, claiming he uttered his “Russia, if you’re listening” line in 2016 about the contents of Democratic emails as a campaign rally joke rather than the press conference where he actually said it.

Days later, Wikileaks published reams of emails from then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton and other top party officials.

The president also falsely claimed his comments then were “cut off” by the US media. To the contrary, news networks still play them and did over and over during the 2016 election cycle.

This is what Mr Trump said during a July 2016 press conference: "Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," referring to emails from a private e-mail server while she was Secretary of State under the Obama administration. 

Then-candidate Trump wasn’t finished with his plea that day.

“I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens,” he said to unnamed Russians.

It is true that Mr Trump talked about Wikileaks and Ms Clinton’s use of the server at campaign rallies, but the initial plea came during a press conference.

Saturday night was not the first time Mr Trump has claimed that he was just joking that Russia should find and publish the emails.

"Remember this thing, ‘Russia, if you're listening’?’ Remember, it was a big thing, in front of 25,000 people. ‘Russia if you're…’ It was all said in a joke," Mr Trump said on 29 February, 2019, at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) outside Washington. "They cut it off right at the end so that you don't then see the laughter, the joke. And they said, ‘He asked. He asked for help.’ Right?"

He kept going that day in National Harbor, Maryland.

“Russia, if you're listening… A very famous — they cut that thing so quick at the end because they didn't want to hear the laughter in the place and me laughing. It was just ‘boom.’ These are really dishonest people,” he claimed to boos from the audience.

The independent fact-checking organization PolitiFact has ruled his “joking” and “being sarcastic” claims as “false.” 

“Trump delivered his comment (around minute 13:30 on the C-SPAN video) with a straight face. We didn’t hear any laughter after what he said; it was news,” the organisation wrote in March. "

“The laughter was not cut. The full video shows that no laughter followed,” PolitiFact determined. “Trump has recast the delivery and response of his 2016 press conference in an effort to distort the media’s coverage. We rate this statement False.”