Trump claims he knows ‘nothing about WikiLeaks’ after he mentioned them more than 100 times during 2016 election

Donald Trump is trying to distance himself from Julian Assange after the WikiLeaks founder was arrested yesterday.

When the president was asked if he still loved WikiLeaks, following his repeated praise for the group in 2016, he told reporters:

“I know nothing about WikiLeaks, it’s not my thing. I know there is something having to do with Julian Assange… I know nothing really about him, it’s not my deal in life.”

That’s very obviously not true though.

WikiLeaks definitely used to be Trump's thing - it was one of his go-to talking points at his campaign rallies in 2016.

In fact, he mentioned WikiLeaks at least 141 times in the last month of the campaign.

And his “I love WikiLeaks” outburst was one of the most famous moments from the election.

In 2016, WikiLeaks released around 20,000 emails sent to or by the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta, which were politically damaging to her campaign.

Some political commentators believe the leaks were key to Trump’s election victory.

And even if Trump has forgotten his love for WikiLeaks, a lot of people were happy to remind him.

Trump talked about WikiLeaks before the election as well.

But in 2010, he had a less kind view of the organisation releasing confidential information, calling them "disgraceful" and suggesting they should receive the “death penalty or something”.

It’s also a little bit strange Trump has forgotten about WikiLeaks because he told us on two occasions that he has “one of the great memories of all time”…

Assange was found guilty yesterday of breaching his bail conditions and could face charges in the US over one of the largest ever leaks of government secrets.

More: Julian Assange has been arrested and of course there are memes