Trump claims his plea for Russia to hack Clinton’s email was a ‘joke’

President Donald Trump on Saturday revisited his infamous 2016 appeal to Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails, arguing that he was just joking and criticizing the press for taking his comments seriously.

“Because with the fake news, if you tell a joke, if you’re sarcastic, if you’re having fun with the audience…if you say something like, Russia, please if you can, get us Hillary Clinton’s emails. Please, Russia, please. Please, get us the emails, please,” Trump said during a speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Maryland.

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“So everybody is having a good time, I’m laughing, we’re all having fun. Then that fake CNN and others say, ‘He asked Russia to go get the emails. Horrible,’” Trump continued, adding, “These people are sick, and I’m telling you, they know the game and they play it dirty, dirtier than anybody has ever played the game.”

Trump is still under fire for his 2016 campaign plea to Russia in which he appeared to ask the foreign power to recover the emails from Clinton’s private email server when she was secretary of State.

“Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing,” Trump said in July 2016. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press.”

Prosecutors for special counsel Robert Mueller later said that Russian spies began trying to hack into Clinton’s server after Trump’s plea.

Trump’s rollicking, unscripted speech gave the president a chance to reconnect with his conservative base after a miserable week in which his much-touted summit with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un ended in failure and his former personal lawyer delivered explosive testimony to Congress.

“You know I’m totally off script right now,” Trump said at one point. “And this is how I got elected, by being off script.”

Trump delighted in the adoration of the crowd, pointing to onlookers and applauding as Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” blared on the speakers. At one point, the president wrapped his arms around an American flag on the stage, mugging for the cameras as he held the hug for a moment.

The speech marked Trump’s third consecutive appearance as president at the gathering of conservative leaders.

Before Trump spoke, the television screens in the room played a contentious interview between American Conservative Union Chairman Matt Schlapp, the organizer of the conference, and CNN anchor Chris Cuomo. At one point, Cuomo said the president “lies all the time.” Schlapp shot back, “Not true.”

At one point, as the CPAC crowd looked on, CNN flashed a chyron that said, “Conservatives fail to call out Trump’s repeated lies.”

Schlapp later introduced the president, making a point to stress the crowd size at the event, a metric that the president obsesses over. “We’re so full that even our overflow rooms have overflow rooms,” Schlapp said.

“Even in the midst of nuclear diplomacy, Mr. President, we are happy that when you walked away, you walked here to be with us,” Schlapp added later.