Trump's Unabomber Story Has Some Problems

While speaking in Pennsylvania this week, President Trump told a story about his late uncle, John Trump, an esteemed science professor at MIT. The president got a few minor facts wrong about the length of his uncle's tenure and his degrees, but what has people really scratching their heads is that Trump claimed Unabomber Ted Kaczynski was one of his uncle's students.

• "There's very little difference between a madman and a genius," said Trump, per Gizmodo. "But Kaczynski, I said, what kind of a student was he, Uncle John, Dr. John Trump? He said, what kind of a student? And then he said, seriously, good. He said he'd go around correcting everybody, but it didn't work out too well for him. Didn't work out too well, but it's interesting in life."

• 2 big problems: John Trump died in 1985, but Kaczynski wasn't revealed to be the Unabomber until his arrest in 1996, notes Gizmodo and CNN. Also, Kaczynski went to Harvard and the University of Michigan, not MIT. The school has no record of him attending in any fashion.
• Late night: Trump's tale got roasted by the late-night hosts. "So the whole thing we just heard wasn't just a small lie, it was like a full hallucination," said Seth Meyers, per the New York Times. "Now, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe Trump just misspoke, made a slip," said Jordan Klepper of the Daily Show. "I mean, who among us hasn't accidentally told people that our uncle taught the Unabomber?" Stephen Colbert imitated Trump speaking to his uncle about all this.