We’ve absolutely all been there: Someone says something so absolutely insane that you begin to question your own sanity when you hear it. Usually it’s something innocuous, like your wife blaming you for forgetting to take out the kitchen trash when it was clearly HER TURN, or your husband blaming the dog (across the room) for the heinous smell everyone’s choking.

But sometimes it’s the president saying something batsh*t crazy, and sometimes that thing is in direct contradiction to what they said before.

That was the case with CNN’s fact checker, Daniel Dale, after Trump’s appeal in the E. Jean Carroll sexual assault and defamation case. The after-hearing impromptu press conference went on so long that the network called Dale back into the room twice to provide real-time commentary on his unbelievable claims.

It was the second trip into the room on Inside Politics where we got to see his flabbergasted reaction to the most ridiculous thing Trump’s said so far.

The former president at one point during the tirade, which featured him continuing to insist he didn’t even know Carroll at the time of the incident and ripping his own legal team a new one for losing today’s case, said that the infamous photo of him WITH HIS VICTIM that’s been around since the beginning could have been generated by AI.

We join his conversation with Dana Bash:

“DANA BASH: Who else would we be bringing in right now but Daniel Dale, who was listening closely to Donald Trump. Daniel, you have a fact check. And I know that you’re zeroing in on one particular claim about a photograph.

DANIEL DALE: Yeah. So a lot of repeated claims and a lot of repeat nonsense. But one thing, I think at least, was new.

He claimed that this now-famous photo of him with E. Jean Carroll could have been AI generated.

That is just completely bananas! He has never, uh, claimed that before.

This photo has been in circulation since 2019, and he himself has appeared to acknowledge that it’s a real photo before.

He said at an event in early January in Iowa, he said, “I never met this wo– Never saw this woman except 25 years ago, there was a picture of her and her husband, who was a nice guy,” and he continued, “I never saw this woman other than they have a picture standing on a reception line where I’m a celebrity. I’m shaking hands or something with hundreds and hundreds of people. That’s the only picture they have.”

So he’s previously minimized the significance of the photo. But today he claimed that it might have been fabricated with computer technology. Clearly grasping at straws. And it’s it’s just not true Dana.

DANA BASH: And I, I know you were in and out of this. I will just add that what you just quoted him saying, that he only met her once on a photo line talking about how nice that Eugene Eugene Carroll’s then-husband was… He said that again in the same press conference– where he said that. Where he said it was AI.

So there you go. I’m glad you brought that up, because it reminded me he had a lot of things to say. So I’m glad that, that reminded me to mention that as well.

DANIEL DALE: Absolutely. And I think it shows that his, his lying can veer from, from one lie to a contradictory lie in just a matter of a few seconds.

Often people think of this kind of dishonesty as strategic, like, what is the grand plan or play here? And I think often it’s just his unique brain coming up with something in the moment that he thinks will get him successfully to the next moment.”

That’s exactly the point, too. Donald Trump would lie to you about the time of day, just for the practice. His last “town hall” with Sean Hannity in Pennsylvania featured an absolutely stunning 162 lies according to the lowest reported number from fact-checkers.

But this is just crazy. I don’t insult bananas as freely as Daniel Dale does, but I can see where he’s coming from. Trump makes me feel like I’m taking crazy pills too.

'That Is Completely Bananas!' CNN's Daniel Dale Stunned By Brand New Trump Lie About Sexual Abuse Case https://t.co/iZmFnjvhw6 via @mediaite pic.twitter.com/Kj5ekE6MDf

— Tommy moderna-vaX-Topher (@tommyxtopher) September 6, 2024