OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Former President Donald Trump revealed something rather dark about the start of his presidency in 2016.
He said that on his first day in the White House, he asked to see The Lincoln bedroom and noticed that there was a “sadness” around it.
“I said to the guys, ‘I want to see the Lincoln Bedroom,’ I had never seen the Lincoln bedroom,” he said.
“And I was standing with my wife and I said, ‘Do you believe it? This is the Lincoln bedroom.’ I mean, it was cool– it was amazing,” the former president said.
“That room was so beautiful to me, much more beautiful than it actually is,” he said before speaking about Lincoln’s son Tad, who died four years after his dad was assassinated and whose picture is in the bedroom.
“He lost his son, and they suffered — the two of them — suffered from melancholia,” he said about Abraham and his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln. “They didn’t call it depression. They called it ‘melancholia.’”
“He was a very depressed guy, and she was a very depressed woman — more so than him, and on top of that, they lost their son, whose name was Tad,” the Republican nominee said.
“Just seeing it … a little tiny picture of Tad, who he lost, and it was devastating,” he said.
Tad’s death was reported as either caused by tuberculosis, pneumonia or congestive heart failure at the young age of 18.
The Lincolns had previously lost two other sons, Edward and William.
Their eldest son, Robert Todd Lincoln, lived until the age of 82 and served as United States Secretary of War under Presidents James Garfield and Chester Arthur. He also served as the United States Minister to the United Kingdom.
During the close to three-hour podcast the host revealed why he decided to have the former president on his show.
He said that he wanted to have him on after the first assassination attempt was made on him in Butler, Pennsylvania.
On July 13, at a rally in Butler, Pa., Trump had only spoken for a few minutes before shots rang out. Thomas Crooks, 20, fired eight rounds at the former president, grazing his right ear with the first shot while killing one rallygoer and severely wounding two others, all of whom were seated behind the former president.
Less than two months later, would-be assassin Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, was arrested after getting within a few hundred yards of Trump while he was golfing at Trump International Golf Club in West Palm Beach, Florida, on September 15. Routh was set up behind a hedgerow overlooking a green with an AR-style rifle, and he appeared to be waiting for Trump to get close enough before firing.
Secret Service agents spotted the rifle barrel sticking out of the hedgerow and engaged Routh, who fled the scene before being arrested a short while later.
Rogan mentioned the podcast the former president was on with host Theo Von in August which prompted the Republican presidential nominee to say “Is that why you called me to do this?”
But Rogan said “No. Once they shot you I was like, ‘He’s gotta come in here.’”
Trump gave Rogan a glimpse of the scar he received from Crooks’ bullet. “It zicked right there,” Trump said of the mark behind his right ear.
Rogan responded, “It healed up pretty f–king good.”
“It’s not like some of the wrestlers, some of the UFC fighters… it was sort of like a top shot. The thing’s taken off a little bit,” Trump continued. “But it makes me a tougher guy.”
Rogan, 57, suggested that the assassination attempts might not have occurred if the media—and Democrats like his rival Vice President Kamala Harris and twice-failed presidential candidate Hillary Clinton—didn’t equate Trump with Adolf Hitler and fascism.
“They love to take things out of context and distort them,” Rogan said. “The rhetoric is that you’re Hitler, and in order to stop Hitler, you have to do whatever it takes.”
