"I thought it was me as a doctor": The ten most famous political excuses of all time

US President Donald Trump was forced to back down on Monday after drawing criticism from his evangelical Christian allies by sharing an image that appeared to show him as Jesus Christ healing a sick man.

In his classic style, the US president did not apologize for the image, but instead told the media: "I thought it was me as a doctor."

Such an explanation drew ridicule online - and brought to mind some of the most famous political excuses of all time.

The following is a review of the ten most memorable pronunciations.

"I'm not sweating"

In 2019, the then-Prince Andrew gave a television interview to the BBC in which he responded to allegations that he had repeatedly had sexual relations with Virginia Giuffre.

Andrew denied that the encounter had ever occurred. Then, in a now-infamous interview, he went a step further and offered what he presented as evidence, claiming that he was unable to sweat at the time due to a medical condition that he said was the result of an adrenaline overdose while flying a helicopter in combat during the Falklands War.

As he put it: "There's a little problem with sweating, because I have an unusual medical condition, which is that I don't sweat - or rather, I didn't sweat at the time."

He thought it was a "business event"

In May 2020, people across the UK were living under strict lockdown measures due to Covid. Families were separated and social gatherings were virtually banned.

Meanwhile, in what would later be dubbed “Partygate,” reports emerged that government employees, including then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson, had been organising social gatherings. These included a high-profile “bring your own drink” event in the Downing Street garden on 20 May 2020.

Johnson's defense? He claimed that he “implicitly believed it was a business event.” An unusual description, to say the least, for a casual gathering over drinks in a garden.

Dominic Cummings, Johnson's chief adviser at the time, also sparked outrage in 2020 after traveling more than 400 kilometers from London to Durham.

Cummings claimed the trip was necessary to provide care for the child in case he and his wife fell ill. However, it was the second explanation that caused the most consternation. Cummings admitted that he had made an extra 30-minute drive to the historic site of Barnard Castle to check his “sight” before embarking on the longer journey back to London.

The idea that the long drive was necessary to check if he could drive home safely has become one of the most infamous excuses during the pandemic.

"Watched badgers"

Ron Davis, a member of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair's cabinet, was forced to quit politics after the Sun newspaper reported that he was seen leaving a popular gay outdoor meeting place.

Davies, who was a Welsh Assembly Member at the time, initially denied the allegations. However, after photographs emerged of him lingering in the woods, he claimed he was in the area to “watch badgers” – likely ignoring the fact that it was unlikely he would have spotted the nocturnal animal during a daytime outing.

It was the second time Davis had been forced to resign over his outdoor activities. A few years earlier, he had left his post as Welsh Secretary in Blair's government after an incident he described as a "moment of madness" on Clapham Common - another popular hangout spot - where he was robbed after meeting an unknown person.

He wanted to avoid a diplomatic incident.

In 2010, Silvio Berlusconi intervened through his associates to secure the release of an underage Moroccan belly dancer from police custody in Milan. To justify the intervention, Berlusconi said that he believed that 17-year-old Karima el Mahroug, also known as “Ruby the Heartthrob,” was the niece of then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and that he wanted to avoid a diplomatic incident.

The catch is that Rubi later said at trial that she received thousands of euros from Berlusconi at “bunga bunga” parties he organized at his villa in Arcore - notorious gatherings that sparked years of legal proceedings.

In 2015, Italy's highest court acquitted Berlusconi of charges that he paid for sex with a minor, reasoning that the former prime minister sincerely believed that Rubi was 18 years old at the time of their encounters.

Pun

In January 1998, US President Bill Clinton tried to put an end to the rumors then shaking Washington with a statement that became perhaps the most famous line of his presidency: "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." That woman was Monica Lewinsky, a White House intern in her early twenties.

Clinton's attempt to suppress the story failed spectacularly, and questions about their relationship dominated American politics for a year and more. To the extent that his denial was correct, his later admissions suggested that it all depended on a very unusual and narrow definition of "sexual relations."

After the affair, he became the second US president to be impeached, but acquitted by the Senate.

He works too much.

Nothing betrays a man of the people like… forgetting which football club he supposedly supports, and then blaming it on fatigue from overwork. The then British Prime Minister David Cameron, a public relations expert by profession, scored an own goal during the 2015 general election campaign when he said in a speech that he wanted the British people to support West Ham.

The only problem? Cameron has claimed for years that he is an Aston Villa fan.

He blamed the whole thing on a "darkening of the mind."

And he insisted: "I'm a Villa fan... Something must have gotten the better of me... those things sometimes happen when you're tired."

"I was looking at tractors"

After being caught watching porn on his phone in parliament, British MP Neil Parish claimed in 2022 that he accidentally ended up on erotic content while searching for tractors. “It’s funny, I was actually looking at tractors and that’s how I ended up on another site that has a pretty similar name. I was looking at it for a while, which I shouldn’t have done,” he admitted to the BBC.

His allies claimed it was a natural mistake for a Devon farmer who was innocently looking for Dominator combine harvesters. However, it became clear that Parish had returned to the pornographic website while he was waiting for the vote, after which he resigned.

"Nothing in the law says you have to have a bank account"

Bertie Ahern was once an untouchable political figure in Ireland, a country he governed for 11 years, from 1997 to 2008. By 2025, he had become too compromised for his party, Fianna Fáil, to even consider running him for president.

Key to his downfall was the Mahon Tribunal, which investigated allegations of corrupt payments to politicians. Ahern was questioned about payments he made in 1993, while Chancellor of the Exchequer, which amounted to three times his annual net income.

Ahern explained that these were checks he had collected during six years without a bank account, following his separation from his wife - a situation he considered completely normal, even for a man in charge of state finances. He argued that "nothing in the law or the constitution" required anyone to have a bank account.

“Some people dye their hair yellow, some people put earrings in their noses… I decided to cash checks, and that was it,” he told the tribunal in December 2007.

Ahern was forced to resign five months later, citing obstruction of government work due to the length of the proceedings. In its final report in 2012, the tribunal did not find that Ahern had been corrupt, but concluded that significant parts of his testimony were "untrue".

"I was tucking my shirt into my pants"

Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani found himself in a compromising situation in Sacha Baron Cohen's satirical film "Borat: The Aftermath," a kind of social experiment presented as a documentary.

In one scene, a Trump ally follows an actress, who was posing as a journalist, to a hotel room, then lies down on the bed and puts her hands in her pants.

However, according to Giuliani, things were not as they seemed.

"The Borat video is a complete fabrication. I was tucking my shirt into my pants after taking off my camera gear," Giuliani wrote on social media. "At no time before, during, or after the interview did I behave inappropriately. If Sacha Baron Cohen claims otherwise, he is a shameless liar."

"The tickets were for my grandchildren"

Didier Reynders, a former European Commissioner for Justice and former Deputy Prime Minister of Belgium, found himself under investigation in 2023 for suspected money laundering. The investigation focused on suspicions that he had purchased large quantities of lottery tickets and used any winnings to re-invest “clean” money into his bank accounts.

In early 2025, Belgian media reported that when a salesman asked him why he was buying so many lottery tickets, Reynders replied that they were for his “grandchildren.” Reynders has denied any wrongdoing in the ongoing investigation.

Translation:NB