JEFF SESSIONS/MEDIA/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT: “As President Trump tries to rebut the portrayal in the latest attention-grabbing book, he has denied not only saying the things attributed to him, but also that he has ever said anything like them. The problem for Mr. Trump is that, in some cases at least, the record shows that he has…In particular, Mr. Trump has denied that he called Attorney General Jeff Sessions ‘mentally retarded’ or a ‘dumb Southerner,’ as the book reports. ‘I said NEITHER, never used those terms on anyone, including Jeff, and being a southerner is a GREAT thing,’ the president wrote earlier this week. But, in fact, Mr. Trump has used the phrase ‘mentally retarded’ on recorded radio shows that have been unearthed this week. And in a previously unreported incident, a journalist who used to interact with Mr. Trump during his days as a real estate developer in New York said this week that he even used the phrase ‘dumb Southerner’ to describe his own in-laws…In the book, Mr. Trump is quoted disparaging Mr. Sessions in a conversation with Rob Porter, then the White House staff secretary. ‘This guy is mentally retarded,’ Mr. Trump is quoted saying. ‘He’s this dumb Southerner.’ Mr. Trump imitated Mr. Sessions’s southern accent and mocked his testimony before Congress when he denied he had talked with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Mr. Woodward reported.
–Peter Baker and Maggie Haberman, “‘I Don’t Talk’ That Way, Trump Says. Except When He Does.,” The New York Times online, September 7, 2018