Former president Donald Trump used his highly anticipated return to mainstream cable television news to give a broader swath of Americans an unvarnished view of what he has been saying at rallies and in media. The televised CNN town hall kicked off with Trump repeatedly refusing to accept his defeat in the 2020 election and defending his supporters.
“When you look at what happened during that election, unless you’re a very stupid person, you see what happened,” Trump said in response to CNN host Kaitlan Collins’s opening question asking him to accept the 2020 results. “That was a rigged election,” he added making a false claim.
He went on to call Jan. 6, 2021 a “beautiful day.” He said Ashli Babbitt, the rioter killed by police trying to break into the House chamber, should not have been shot; denied that then-Vice President Mike Pence was in any danger; and repeated his promise to pardon participants in the event.
The town hall came just a day after a New York jury concluded that Trump was liable for abusing and then defaming the writer E. Jean Carroll.
“This is a fake story. A made-up story,” Trump said. “This is a rigged deal.”
In response to questions about the federal spending and debt, Trump entertained the possibility of defaulting of government debt, which Collins pointed out economists warn could upend financial markets and trigger a recession. “You might as well do it not because you’ll do it later,” Trump said.
He rejected the apparent contradiction with his own presidency, when he repeatedly approved unconditional debt ceiling increases and said the limit shouldn’t be used as leverage to negotiate.
“That’s when I was president,” Trump said.
“So why is it different now when you’re out of office?” Collins asked.
“Because now I’m not president,” Trump answered, to laughter and applause.
Trump dodged questions about the point at which he would ban abortion during pregnancy, deflecting by pointing to his record reshaping the courts and appointing the three Supreme Court justices who supplied the majority for overturning Roe v. Wade last year.
In Wednesday’s town hall, Trump refused to say whether he would support a federal ban on abortion at 15 weeks. “I’m looking at a solution that’s going to work,” Trump said.
Trump also refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win in their struggle against Russia, suggesting that Russian President Vladimir Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if he had been in the White House. “I don’t think in terms of winning and losing, I think in terms of getting it settled so we stop killing all these people,” Trump said.
He also would not say whether he considered Putin a war criminal, describing him as “a smart guy.” Trump said: “If you say he’s a war criminal is going to be a lot tougher to make a deal to get this thing stopped.”
In the Republican primary he has built up a formidable early polling lead and is gaining momentum with endorsements from elected officials, some of whom have begun calling his nomination “inevitable,” even as he faces growing legal peril. His leading rival, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, is preparing to officially announce his candidacy soon, with electability expected to be core to his message.
Trump’s enduring popularity within the GOP was on display from the start of Wednesday’s town hall in Manchester, N.H., with a live studio audience of mostly Republicans and some undeclared voters likely to vote in the party’s 2024 presidential primary, the nation’s first. They gave Trump a standing ovation as he took the stage.
Some audience members applauded for Trump’s claims about election fraud. When an independent voter named Scott Dustin asked Trump whether he would suspend “polarizing” talk of election fraud during the 2024 election race, Trump demurred: “Yes, unless I see election fraud.”
When asked whether he had any regrets about the events that unfolded on Jan. 6, 2021 , “They were there with love in their heart – that was unbelievable and it was a beautiful day,” Trump said.
He insisted that he had called for the crowd to act peacefully. He blamed then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) for lapses in security, suggesting that he had quickly offered “soldiers” to officials at the Capitol for their protection.
Trump said he was inclined to pardon a “large portion” of the Jan. 6 protesters and would do so “early on” in his second administration.
In the latest Washington Post-ABC national poll, an open-ended question that did not offer names of candidates found 43 percent of Republicans and Republican-leaning independents volunteered Trump as their choice for the party’s nomination, while 20 percent named DeSantis. When a second question named six candidates, the overall result showed 51 percent support for Trump and 25 percent for DeSantis.
Campaign aides discussed likely questions with the former president, the advisers said, though in keeping with his past practice he did not extensively prepare for the appearance.
Throughout the town hall, the campaign blasted out emails emphasizing Trump’s policy proposals on energy, immigration, the economy and foreign policy.
It has been years since Trump faced an independent TV moderator or interviewer such as CNN’s Collins. Collins covered the Trump White House for CNN, where she faced the ire of his officials.
Trump took part in Wednesday’s town hall as he faces local, state and federal investigations, with his efforts to overturn his loss in the 2020 election and raise money off false claims of election fraud coming under scrutiny from prosecutors, in addition to his handling of classified materials. Trump was indicted earlier this year in a hush-money scheme and pleaded not guilty to 34 felony counts.
When vigorously pressed on why he had kept classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, Trump called Collins “a nasty person.”
(c) 2023, The Washington Post · Isaac Arnsdorf, Maeve Reston
Egg head bread winner. Do not be afraid, Donald is fighting to keep his peacock image.
This election has a humor. Hope that the adulterers and drunks that are composing the dry base of the worst candidates wake up and find that patriotism is not a flag to hug but a family to reward.
The freedom must display the flag. Donald holds on by tilting the flag pole and cobra kicking the grave.
Yes, we can do better than even Desantis. Asa is the guy.
you need to stop smoking the weed…
Long live president trump
Amen! Pray for his success as your life depends on it – seriously!
What false claims? No-one has explained the funny business at the election counting building in Georgia. And still no independent auditors to check the voting machines ‘ programming.
I would like to see Desantis debate Hutchison. Trump is too much to even expect justice in the USA.
Trump is desperate. I heard enough of his comments on CNN to ever wonder why he would support the network.
Yesterday, CNN stoked the fires of antisemitism by airing trite faces of random non-celebrity antisemite hones. It only served to make nobodies into celebrity.
CNN supports only the reform and they love the network. The orthodox are played down and a quickie to show us that ‘yes there is an antisemite’ somewhere is always a well choice for their own antisemitic hone too.
Forever I think the network has no regard for religious Jews. They tout Wolf Blitzer who is final mood on what they think of the holocaust. He works on sabbath with no regard to Jews who fear Hashem.
Bad network.
Bez”H Trump will win in 2024. Only someone so non conformist can possibly try to clean up the mess the Dems made of this country. No run of the mill Republican could fight the forces at play. It takes someone who has the personality of Trump to just do what he thinks is right (drilling, salomeini, SCOTUS and federal circuit justices, embassy to Yerushalayim, Rubashkin, Abraham accords, etc. etc. etc.) and take on the media, the swamp, and academia, all apparatuses of the left. The left goes insane from someone who doesn’t bow to their perverse pseudo religion of wokeness and liberalis. He just doesn’t care. If you can find someone with Trump’s qualities without his personality, good luck. You can’t take the good without (what you consider) the bad. The RBS”O had rachmanus on the country in 2016. We have to daven that he show the rachmanus once again. If Biden, who really doesn’t do anything by himself is able to destroy the country beyond recognition in just two years imagine what would’ve happened if ch”v Hillary would’ve won.