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When did Donald Trump post that quote and what event was he referring to (include date/year)?
Executive Summary
Donald Trump has been tied to several distinct quoted posts and interviews across 2024–2025; the most directly dated instance in the provided materials is a televised remark reported September 29, 2025, where he asked, "Am I watching things on television that are different from what's happening?" while discussing Portland in a Sunday interview with NBC’s Yamiche Alcindor, reflecting confusion about media depictions [1]. Other quoted posts in the supplied analyses point to separate events: responses to Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign announcement (undated in the material), a Truth Social post about increased immigration enforcement in Chicago in early September 2025 (around Sept. 6, 2025), and a post after New York’s 2025 mayoral result that used the phrase "communism or common sense" (around Nov. 5, 2025) — each quote refers to a different event and date range in the supplied sources [2] [3] [4].
1. Pinpointing the Television-Question Quote: When and why he asked if TV showed different realities
The clearest timestamp in the provided set ties the quote "Am I watching things on television that are different from what's happening?" to a September 29, 2025 Sunday phone interview with NBC News correspondent Yamiche Alcindor; the reporting frames the remark as Trump questioning the accuracy of televised portrayals of unrest in Portland after he had viewed a selectively edited Fox News segment that presented the city as a “war zone,” and advisers were said to have not corrected his impression [1]. This account situates the quote as a response to media portrayals of protests and federal responses in Portland, and the narrative in the source emphasizes that the remark reflected either doubt about information sources or confusion after exposure to misleading footage, indicating the event referenced was ongoing unrest and media coverage of Portland in late September 2025 [1].
2. The Biden campaign response quote: Context but no firm posting date in supplied material
One of the supplied analyses links a Trump quote to Joe Biden’s 2024 campaign announcement, describing criticisms of Biden on inflation, the border, and the 2024 race, but the material explicitly fails to provide a posting date for Trump’s response; the analysis concludes the statement was made after Biden’s announcement but does not specify when [2]. The absence of a timestamp in the supplied content means the claim that the quote followed Biden’s announcement is plausible from sequence but undated in the provided sources, leaving open the need for additional sourcing to establish the exact posting date and platform for Trump’s comment about Biden’s 2024 campaign [2].
3. The Chicago deportations post: Early September 2025 and federal enforcement as the referenced event
Another supplied source identifies a Truth Social post dated around September 6, 2025, where Trump wrote evocative language about enforcement — reportedly saying "I love the smell of deportations in the morning…Chicago about to find out why it’s called the Department of WAR" — and referred to ramped-up federal immigration operations involving hundreds of agents staging at Great Lakes; Illinois officials publicly condemned the rhetoric as threatening [3]. The supplied analysis treats this as a direct link between the post and the imminent federal immigration enforcement operations in Chicago scheduled for the weekend after the post, and it places the quote and event in early September 2025, showing a distinct instance separate from the Portland/Tv-accuracy remark [3].
4. The post after the New York mayoral upset: 'Communism or common sense' tied to Nov. 5, 2025
The materials also report a Trump statement framing a New York electoral result as a choice of "communism or common sense" following Zohran Mamdani’s reported New York mayoral win; the supplied item dates that reaction to around November 5, 2025, placing the quote squarely after the election result was public and linking it to the mayoral upset narrative [4]. That source frames the quote as a political framing of Mamdani’s policy platform and signals Trump’s national messaging strategy after local elections; the supplied analysis gives the date as Nov. 5, 2025 and treats the quote as clearly tied to the mayoral outcome rather than the other events referenced in the dataset [4].
5. Comparing the claims, gaps, and where further verification is needed
The supplied materials show multiple distinct quotes attributed to Trump across different dates and events: September 29, 2025 for the Portland/TV-accuracy line [1]; an undated post responding to Biden’s 2024 campaign announcement [2]; about September 6, 2025 for the Chicago deportation post [3]; and November 5, 2025 for the New York mayoral reaction [4]. The dataset has clear timestamps for three items but leaves the Biden-response post undated; establishing the exact posting date and platform for that quote requires additional primary-source checks (social platform archives, campaign statements, or contemporaneous reporting). The supplied analyses point to different agendas — local enforcement rhetoric, national campaign attacks, and media-confidence questioning — so distinguishing each quote by date and referenced event is essential to avoid conflating them [1] [2] [3] [4].