"You shouldn't read that on the TV show '60 Minutes.' You're a disgrace."
Trump's words came after CBS's Norah O'Donnell quoted from a manifesto that authorities say the 31-year-old shooter sent to his family shortly before he opened fire, which said the targets were representatives of the Trump administration, whom the suspected perpetrator accuses of pedophilia and rape.
Reading "garbage"?
"You are terrible people. Yes, he wrote that. I - I am not a rapist," said an outraged president and continued.
"Excuse me. I'm not a pedophile. Are you reading that garbage from a sick person? I get drawn into things that have nothing to do with me."
Before the exchange, Trump had described the suspected shooter, an engineering-trained teacher who lived in California, as radicalized, sick and "anti-Christian." When O'Donnell said the man had posted "anti-Trump" messages on social media, the president became angry again and criticized her for using that term.
He also suggested other topics that he thought CBS should cover.
Like Lincoln
During the long interview, Donald Trump also spoke positively about the White House Correspondents' Dinner, which he attended for the first time as president on Saturday. He praised the security measures and his wife Melania Trump's actions when the shots, which did not injure anyone, were fired. He said the extra seconds it took to get him out of the room "was a bit on him."
"I wanted to see what was going on. I didn't make it easy for them," Trump said, adding that he wanted to stay upright when the bodyguards wanted him on the floor.
When asked why he was attacked again, Donald Trump compared himself to President Abraham Lincoln, who abolished slavery and was assassinated in 1865 by a political opponent.
"They're after influential presidents. They're trying to get presidents who get things done."
