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I got here armed with a fistful of blue playing cards, and nonetheless didn’t get to half the questions, however Donald Trump made an entire lot of reports in our Mar-a-Lago interview.
What’s revealing is how he selected to reply probably the most delicate questions, or to deflect them, and the way varied media retailers selected to border them.
Some, just like the New York Instances, ABC and the Hill, performed it straight. Different operations, lots of them left-leaning, cherry-picked quotes to make Trump look as terrible as attainable, whereas ignoring the reasonable-sounding issues he stated.
A traditional instance was after I requested the previous president in regards to the homicide of Alexei Navalny in a Siberian jail camp. I believed he would possibly duck due to his pleasant relationship with Vladimir Putin.
However I put it to him point-blank: Is the Russian dictator accountable for the dying of the opposition chief?
TRUMP: IF YOU’RE GOING TO BAN TIKTOK, BAN FACEBOOK TOO
Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump takes the stage to introduce a brand new line of signature sneakers at Sneaker Con on the Philadelphia Conference Heart on Feb. 17 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Photographs)
“Maybe,” Trump stated. “I imply, probably, I may say most likely. I do not know. He is a younger man, so statistically he’d be alive for a very long time…Actually that may appear like one thing very unhealthy occurred.”
Understand that Trump has by no means even talked about Putin in the identical paragraph as Navalny, and now he’s saying “most likely” accountable. After all, Trump can’t show it, and neither can I.
Listed below are among the headlines:
“Trump Couldn’t Convey Himself to Condemn Putin for Alexei Navalny’s Demise.”
“Trump Delivers Head-Spinningly Awkward Reply to New Query About Putin.”
“Trump: ‘I Don’t Know’ If Putin Was Liable for Navalny’s Demise.”
You get the concept.
Which brings us to Trump’s rhetoric. I requested why he makes use of phrases like “vermin” and “poisoning of the blood” to explain unlawful migrants – particularly because the press says such language was utilized by Hitler and Mussolini.
Trump says he didn’t know that after which repeated “our nation is being poisoned” – prompting a wave of headlines that he had doubled down on such dangerous language.
TRUMP: BIDEN IS ‘BAD FOR ISRAEL’
I suppose you might say that – and I’m not letting him off the hook – however the extra telling a part of his reply got here subsequent.
I requested the forty fifth president whether or not he makes use of “excessive” and “inflammatory” language to drive the media debate, that means a deal with his phrases will get information retailers spending days on his turf, on his most popular problem, within the arguments over whether or not he went too far. And Trump didn’t deny it, saying he wouldn’t restrict himself to “politically right” verbiage.
“It additionally will get individuals serious about essential points,” he stated. “That if you happen to do not use sure rhetoric, if you happen to do not use sure phrases that possibly usually are not very good phrases, nothing will occur.” My principle, based mostly on many years of observing him, was right.
Then he went off on migrants coming from insane asylums and the way crime will double – neither of which has been proven to be true on a significant scale.
Migrants line up at a distant U.S. Border Patrol processing middle after crossing the U.S.-Mexico border on Dec. 7, 2023, in Lukeville, Arizona. (John Moore/Getty Photographs)
The identical was true with NATO, when Trump brought about a world uproar by saying he’d encourage the Russians to “do regardless of the hell they need” to NATO international locations that don’t pay their justifiable share of protection prices.
That feels like somebody taking a pro-Putin stance, I stated.
“It feels like anyone that wishes to get individuals to pay cash,” Trump stated. In different phrases, it was a negotiating tactic.
Half an hour earlier than airtime, the media had been awash in headlines about Trump saying there can be a “massacre” if he misplaced the election. So I watched that portion of his speech at an Ohio rally the evening earlier than.
There have been instances when Trump used loaded phrases to sign the potential for political violence. This wasn’t considered one of them.
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Trump was occurring about Chinese language automobiles and their affect on the American auto trade. Then he stated if he wasn’t elected there can be a massacre – by way of the affect on jobs. Then he went proper again to speaking about electrical autos and trade competitors.
Now some pundits stated the mere use of the phrase massacre was like a bat sign, telling his supporters to prepare for violence. In spite of everything, he was so Machiavellian that he added, “That’s going to be the least of it.” However as I stated, too many shops had been so in love with the massacre story that they wrenched it out of context.
Trump additionally stated on the rally that some migrants had been “animals” and “not individuals.” That’s unacceptable language, in my opinion, however keep in mind what he stated about inflammatory phrases driving the media debate. I needed to decode his method for viewers.
Trump additionally made information on abortion. I requested him a few Instances story that stated he’s discussing with advisers a nationwide ban after 16 weeks of being pregnant – not understanding his marketing campaign had dismissed it as pretend information – and figured he’d dismiss the story.
Migrants who crossed the Rio Grande and entered the U.S. from Mexico are lined up for processing by U.S. Customs and Border Safety on Sept. 23, 2023, in Eagle Move, Texas. (AP Photograph/Eric Homosexual, File)
Nope. He primarily confirmed the 16-week story – saying he’d decide “fairly quickly,” which might clearly be in that vary – that had beforehand been attributed to unnamed sources. He stated, regardless of my skepticism, that he needs to “make each side pleased.”
When Republicans grapple with abortion within the post-Roe world, Trump stated, “it’s a must to go along with your coronary heart. However past that, you additionally need to get elected.” He stated that opposing the three exceptions – rape, incest, lifetime of the mom – brought about Pennsylvania Republican Doug Mastriano to lose the governor’s race in a landslide.
Then Trump went off on the Democrats and late-term abortions – which I stated in considered one of a number of fact-checks are exceedingly uncommon.
He additionally made information on topics starting from Israel to TikTok.
The primary time I met Donald Trump was in 1987, in New York, when he was selling his first ebook “The Artwork of the Deal.”
And this, unprompted, is what he stated to me:
“Once I go as much as New Hampshire – I am not operating for president, by the best way – I obtained the most effective crowd, the most effective of all the things by way of reception. The politicians go up and get a average viewers. I am going up and so they’re scalping tickets. You heard that? They’re scalping tickets. Why? As a result of individuals do not need to be ripped off, and this nation is being ripped off. I feel if I ran, I would win.”
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I confess I didn’t then envision Trump, nonetheless a largely native actual property man, within the White Home, however now he’s going to move the Republican ticket for the third straight time.
