President Donald Trump Dodges Reporters’ Questions Aboard Air Force One, Blames Turbulence

President Donald Trump’s recent flight was off to a bumpy start.

As the 79-year-old president answered questions from the pool of reporters aboard Air Force One on his way back to the White House from his weekend in Florida at Mar-a-Lago, he blamed turbulence to sidestep some of what he was being asked.

“It’s going to be very rough in about 10 minutes, so we’ll have to go a little bit quickly,” he prefaced the pool before starting a Q&A on Sunday, January 11. “They just said, ‘Very, very rough.’”

When Trump was pressed about global issues, including anti-government protests in Iran and the United States’ military operation in Venezuela, he appeared to use turbulence as an excuse.

“Are you going to go to Venezuela, or is Secretary [of State Marco] Rubio going to go to Venezuela?” one person asked, to which Trump replied: “At some point. We’re doing well. Venezuela is really working out well.”

When asked about meeting with Delcy Rodríguez, the acting president of Venezuela following the capture of Nicolás Maduro, he said, “At some point I’ll meet. She’s been very good.”

However, when Trump was asked when he would meet with Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado, the Apprentice alum didn’t answer at all.

“I’m looking for something to grab here because it’s going to get rough, and I don’t seem to be in a very… I think you did this to me,” he told the pool of reporters. “You put me in a position where there’s absolutely nothing to grab.”

Trump then said he was “looking for something to grab” and that “it’s not going to be” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt, who was standing behind him.

A few minutes earlier, Trump didn’t even address a question posed to him by a CNN reporter because he considers the longtime respected organization to be “fake news.”

When he asked the reporter what outlet she was with, she responded, “I’m with the U.S. White House TV pool. I’m wondering are you being briefed on options…”

Before she was able to finish her question, Trump asked her to clarify which network she was reporting for, to which she said CNN.

“Why don’t you say I’m with CNN? She says, ‘I’m with the White House pool,’” he told the group. “You’re with CNN. You’re with fake news because CNN is fake news.”

“Go ahead,” he asked someone else. “Give me a question.”