Fox News’ Shep Smith goes off on Trump’s ‘baffling’ denial of Russian interference: ‘Big old boat load of weird to me’

Fox News host Shep Smith on Friday was dumbfounded by Donald Trump’s continued refusal to accept his own intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia interfered in the 2016 presidential election, calling the president’s denial a ‘big old boat load of weird.”

Smith played a clip of Trump speaking to reporters at the White House on Friday. Asked whether he brought up election interference during a Thursday phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Trump lashed out at the reporter;

You don’t really believe this. I spoke with president Putin of Russia yesterday. They are having massive fires in their forests. They have — I’ve never seen anything like it, it’s very big. I just offered our assistance because we are very good at putting out forest fires. If they should need it, I offered our assistance. We had a short talk but a good talk. I think we will be able to help them. These are massive fires like I haven’t seen and that was the primary importance. I think they very much appreciated.

“It’s one of the more baffling things of a baffling presidency,” Smith told Fox News host Chris Wallace. “There is no doubt that they are interfering and yet, he goes do you believe that? Yes I believe that. I believe everyone in intelligence apparatus. Is he the only one who doesn’t believe it or is he making it up?”

Wallace replied that Trump’s “initial reflex reaction” when asked about Russian interference is to push back because he sees it as an attempt to invalidate his presidency.

“I think when Donald Trump is presented with that, and his initial instinct is not that you are saying Russia interfered, but you are saying he didn’t win the election fair and square,” Wallace explained, before adding that “in fairness” to the president, “there is never been much of an indication certainly in the face of actual votes where they had to change the vote count in the 2016 election.”

“Nobody said that,” Smith replied. “But to deny that there is interference, it seems like you want to unite the country around the idea that we are under attack. That’s what intelligence agencies tell us. We need to all come together and get used to the idea that we have to prepare for this and to spend money for this and realize the Russians are not our friends. He doesn’t want to put out the fires in California anymore but we will help the Russians put out there fires? It’s a big old boat load of weird to me.”

Watch the video below, via Fox News: