Donald Trump Offers Nearly Incomprehensible Explanation For James Comey Tapes Claims

President Donald Trump admitted this week that he did not tape his conversations with former FBI Director James Comey despite his earlier tweets suggesting he had. When asked why he did this in an interview that aired Friday, he offered the following perplexing explanation:

“When he found out that there may be tapes out there, whether it’s governmental tapes or anything else, I think his story may have changed,” Trump said in an interview alongside first lady Melania. “I mean, you’ll have to take a look at that, because then he has to tell what actually took place at the events.”

While we didn’t exactly follow his logic, “Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt ate it up.

“Smart,” she said.

“It wasn’t stupid, I can tell you that” he replied, adding, “You never know what’s out there but I didn’t tape and I don’t have any tapes.”

He also seemed to resurface another one of his favorite unfounded claims, that former President Barack Obama’s administration spied on him, “doing all of this unmasking and surveillance.”

He first made clear that he didn’t have tapes on Thursday afternoon, when he admitted that “with all of the recently reported electronic surveillance, intercepts, unmasking and illegal leaking of information, I have no idea … whether there are ‘tapes’ or recordings of my conversations with James Comey, but I did not make, and do not have, any such recordings.”

Trump fired Comey in May after he refused to end the FBI investigation into whether Russia meddled in the 2016 election and whether Trump’s campaign colluded with the Russian government to influence the results.

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The Truly Uncool Thing 'Transformers 5' Does To Anthony Hopkins

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Transformers 5” is probably best summed up by the person sitting beside me through the critics screening this week.

“That was … an experience,” she said.

Yeah, it certainly was.

The “plot” ― which has something to do with a floating alien queen, dragon robots and Mark Wahlberg becoming a knight ― is too complicated to try to think about. And the dialogue, such as when Josh Duhamel approaches a giant alien ship and says something like, “Oh my God, a giant alien ship!” is perhaps a little too much at times.

Despite all that, the overall experience makes this the best “Transformers” movie since Michael Bay’s original ― and that has a lot to do with Sir Anthony Hopkins.

Though a role in the movie seems like a bizarre choice for the actor, he is the knight in shining armor for “Transformers: The Last Knight.” Hopkins steals every scene and brings charm and laughs to an otherwise confusing movie.

This makes what happens to his character all the more baffling.

(Warning! “Transformers 5” spoilers ahead.)

(OK, seriously. Big, huge, major spoiler ahead.)

In the movie, Hopkins’ Sir Edmund Burton has sort of a robot butler named Cogman. During an emotional scene toward the end of the film, Burton is dying, and Cogman says goodbye, telling him of all the people he’s served, Hopkins’ character is “the coolest.”

Whoa. Wait. What?

Anthony Hopkins is lying there, and you call him “the coolest”?

The line drew some unintentional laughs from the audience, though it seems innocuous enough, unless you know this one fact about Hopkins …

He hates the word “cool.” (We mean haaaaates it.)

I learned this the hard way.

Let me take you back to 2016, when I was a young, eager journalist (not so young but eager … and a journalist) interviewing Hopkins over the phone for Starz’s “The Dresser.”

I had just asked Hopkins if he had any plans to do other screen adaptations of plays. He said that he may be doing one for “King Lear.”

That’s when I made an unforgivable error. I said that sounded “cool.”

Hopkins was not pleased.

“What’d you call it? You called it ‘cool’?” he said, “What is ‘cool’ about it? You tell me, what does ‘cool’ mean?”

Dear God, no.

The moment after that seemed like an eternity. I reevaluated my life, going back through all the past mistakes that led me to this point. I shant repeat the same foibles again!

Then, like an idiot, I answered:

“‘Cool’ is just slang for ‘that’s really awesome.’”

(“What the hell are you saying?” I thought in my head. “‘Cool’ is slang for ‘awesome’? Can you hear yourself?”

Hopkins didn’t like that response either.

“Well, what does ‘awesome’ mean?” he said.

This time I pulled it together. 

“Awesome means it gives you a lot of joy because it’s an enjoyable event,” I said, not quite sticking the landing, but at least getting my point across.

Hopkins preached:

”[Someone] says, ‘Where’d you get those shoes?’ [They] said, ‘They’re awesome.’ What’s ‘awesome’ about? We have a whole new language. Everything’s ‘cool’ or ‘awesome.’”

After all that, I finally got in another question.

“What slang do you use for when you enjoy something other than saying ‘awesome’ or ‘cool’?”

The actor relented a bit:

“Oh, I’m just teasing,” he said …

… before lamenting the deterioration of the entire English language.

“It’s funny that ‘cool’ is a word that covers everything or ‘awesome,‘” he continued. “To me, it doesn’t make much [sense]. What’s happened to the language of our culture, you know? It’s either ‘cool’ or ‘awesome.’”

Getting called out by Anthony Hopkins was awkward (so awkward … so, so awkward), but it was a learning experience. Sir Anthony taught me to never neglect your audience, resist the temptation to rest on old habits and, above all, that he hates the word cool.

Noted.

Now, let’s go back to 2017. I’m sitting in the “Transformers 5” screening and the robot butler calls a dying Sir Anthony Hopkins “the coolest.”

Many thoughts ran through my head, but I kept coming back to one:

“Not cool.”

How come Cogman gets away with it? Why is he allowed to say “cool”? But, more importantly, how could the movie do this to Hopkins?

You have Anthony Hopkins — check that … SIR Anthony Hopkins — the guy who’s carried your whole movie, and while he’s lying there lifeless you call him “the coolest”? You call him the word Hopkins seems to blame for the downfall of modern society?

It just doesn’t seem very cool.

“Transformers: The Last Knight” is now in theaters. 

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Why Fifth Harmony Will Keep Their Name Despite Camila Cabello's Exit

It’s been roughly six months since Fifth Harmony became a quartet, but the group says there are no plans to change their name. 

Lauren Jauregui, Ally Brooke, Normani Kordei and Dinah Jane spoke recently about the decision to keep their name the same despite Camila Cabello’s sudden departure in December.

“It was obviously a thought because it was a prevalent thing that there’s four of us and not five,” Jauregui told MTV’s Meredith Graves during a video interview posted Wednesday on Facebook. “Regardless, we were all very united in the fact that we didn’t want to change the name.”

“We felt like within ourselves, no, Fifth Harmony is the name that we grew with and we worked for and it’s our brand,” she continued. “It’s who we are. It’s our whole entire moment. It’s what we spent five years on.”

The rest of the group echoed Jauregui, with Jane adding that fans (also known as Harmonizers) are now the fifth member of the group. 

Cabello’s absence has done little to stop Fifth Harmony’s momentum. The group released their first single “Down” as a foursome on June 2.  

Cabello also recently released her debut solo single “Crying In The Club,” and has shown no signs of regret when it comes to her decision to leave Fifth Harmony.

“I wish the best for them and I’m sure they’re going to kill it and I’m super happy making my own music,” Cabello said during an interview with AMP Radio on June 8.

When asked if she had heard the group’s new song, the artist said she’d heard “snippets” and thought it was “pretty cool.” 

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Diddy Can't Stop, Won't Stop Shading Kendall And Kylie Jenner

Sean “Diddy” Combs is too pure for this world and we must protect him at all costs. 

The rapper and business mogul premiered his new documentary “Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop,” which traces the legacy of his Bad Boy Records label, in Los Angeles Thursday night. The event boasted an impressive celebrity guest list, including Dr. Dre, Snoop Dogg, Madonna, and, yes, Kendall Jenner.

Diddy shared a slew of photos from the night, but one in particular caught the internet’s attention, a short video of him posing with the 21-year-old supermodel. 

“Last night @kyliejenner #cantstopwontstop #aboutlastnight,” he wrote in the caption, accidentally tagging Jenner’s sister, Kylie Jenner, instead of her. 

He quickly corrected his mistake and  apologized for the mixup in the comments after the internet was done thoroughly high-fiving and roasting him. 

“I’m human people. I make mistakes Sorry,” he wrote.

A post shared by Diddy (@diddy) on Jun 22, 2017 at 1:01pm PDT

Last month, Diddy brutally cropped the Jenner sisters out of a photo at the Met Gala, sparking the glorious hashtag #DiddyCrop. 

He can’t be stopped now, cause he’s bad boy for life.

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The Funniest Tweets From Parents This Week

Kids may say the darndest things, but parents tweet about them in the funniest ways. So each week, we round up the most hilarious 140-character quips from moms and dads to spread the joy. Scroll down to read the latest batch and follow @HuffPostParents on Twitter for more!

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Jennifer Lopez Hits Back At Haters Who Accused Her Of Photoshopping Ab Photo

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Jennifer Lopez clapped back at the haters who accused her of Photoshopping one of her most recent Instagram photos. 

On Thursday, the performer shared the photo below: 

A post shared by Jennifer Lopez (@jlo) on Jun 22, 2017 at 10:01am PDT

If you weren’t distracted by how amazing J.Lo looks, you may have noticed what appears to be a smudge just under her sweatshirt on the right. Plenty of people in the comments claimed the mark was a result of an unsuccessful attempt at altering the pic, but Lopez wasn’t having any of it. 

The “Shades of Blue” star replied to the comments and then shared a screenshot of her response in her Instagram story. 

“Omg…Just a smudge on the mirror…lol…not photoshop. #lordblessthehaters #gymrat #youshouldtryit #wishtherewasphotoshopforhaters,” the 47-year-old star wrote.  

Is it really so hard to believe that Jenny from the Block, a celebrity who no doubt has a trainer, a chef and a very specific diet, looks so good? No. It’s not. 

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Logitech’s Slim Combo for iPad Pro really boosts your portable productivity power

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