Donald Trump tells 'Time' he can predict the future

Impact

The president of the United States thinks he can predict the future.

In an interview with Time released on Thursday, President Donald Trump defended his record on false statements by asserting that some of them eventually come true.

"I predicted a lot of things, Michael. Some things that came to you a little bit later," Trump told the Time reporter. "But, you know, we just rolled out a list. Sweden. I make the statement, everyone goes crazy. The next day they have a massive riot and death and problems."

Trump was referring to an incident in February when he told a crowd at a campaign style rally in Florida, "You look at what's happening in Germany, you look at what's happening last night in Sweden — Sweden, who would believe this?"

In reality, nothing had actually happened the previous night in Sweden. However, that evening in America Fox News aired a dubiously edited video clip of two Swedish police officers appearing to express concern about immigration in the country. The officers later objected to the way that their opinions had been portrayed in the clip.

Two days after Trump's comments, a small riot broke out in an immigrant neighborhood in Sweden. Contrary to Trump's assertion in the Time interview, nobody died.

But consider Trump's line of reasoning for a second. After bemoaning a non-existent incident in Sweden, the president retroactively justified his mendacity by citing something that happened two days later. Trump would have you believe that when he instructed Americans to "look at what's happening last night in Sweden" he was simply "predicting" something that was going to happen two days later.

And that's not the only instance he's claiming he "predicted."

When asked about his March 4 tweet asserting that former President Barack Obama had his "wires tapped," Trump once again claimed vindication based on something that happened after the fact.

"Members of the Donald Trump transition team possibly including Trump himself were under surveillance during the Obama administration following November's election. House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes told reporters, wow," Trump said in the interview, likely reading from a news article about himself. "So that means I'm right."

Nunes's actual claim was much more opaque about how the level of surveillance around Trump campaign officials and whether or not the president himself had been the subject of that surveillance.

When reporters brought up the fact that Nunes had previously said there was no evidence of Trump's claim, Trump said that was because the information was new.

"Well, he just got this information," Trump explained. "This was new information. That was just got. Members, of, let's see, were under surveillance during the Obama administration following November's election. Wow. This just came out. So, ah, just came out."

So again, information that "just" came out proves that something Trump said nearly three weeks ago. 

Despite the fact that Trump had just claimed psychic abilities, Time reporters declined to follow up with several important questions. Would he promise to only use his powers for good? If there's a terror attack, does the president know in advance? Can he also bend cutlery with his mind? 

Those questions will have to be reserved for a future interview.