NPR's full interview with former President Donald Trump

URL	https://Persagen.com/docs/trump-npr-2022-01-11.html	[NPR, 2022-01-11] Former President Donald Trump Cuts NPR Interview Short When Pressed On Election Lies. [Source]
Titles	NPR's full interview with former President Donald Trump Pressed on his election lies, former President Trump cuts NPR interview short
Source \| Date	NPR.org \| 2022-01-12 \| see also: NPR [notes on sources]
Source URLs	https://www.npr.org/2022/01/12/1072176709/transcript-full-npr-interview-former-president-donald-trump https://www.npr.org/2022/01/12/1072204478/donald-trump-npr-interview-presidential-election-lies-vaccines \| local copy
Authors [NPR]	Steve Inskeep, Host, Morning Edition and Up First \| Wikipedia: Steve Inskeep Domenico Montanaro, Senior Political Editor/Correspondent, Washington Desk Miles Parks, Reporter, Washington Desk
Date published	2022-01-12
Curation date	2022-01-12
Curator	Dr. Victoria A. Stuart, Ph.D.
Modified
Editorial practice	Refer here \| Date format: yyyy-mm-dd
Summary	Former President Donald Trump spoke with NPR's Steve Inskeep on Tuesday [2022-01-11] in a brief phone interview. They discussed vaccinations for COVID-19, the 2020 United States presidential election and the outlook for Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections [2022 United States elections]. The conversation was cut short when Trump hung up the phone while being questioned about his continued lies about the outcome of the 2020 election. Trump repeatedly attempted to assert misinformation about his election loss, as well as about the necessity of vaccinations [COVID-19 vaccine].
Related	Neo-fascism Republican Party
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NPR's Full Interview With Former President Donald Trump

The conversation was cut short when Trump hung up the phone while being questioned about his continued lies about the outcome of the 2020 election. Trump repeatedly attempted to assert misinformation about his election loss [Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election], as well as about the necessity of COVID-19 vaccinations.

I'm doing OK. Thanks for taking the time today. It's great to talk with you.

There's no reason that you would know this, but we first invited you on the program in 2015, so it's great to get you.

And I promised to keep it to about 15 minutes, so I'll do my best to do that.

And why don't we just dive right in? I've got a lot to talk about. There's a lot to go over, but I want to begin briefly on the pandemic [COVID-19 pandemic]. What advice would you give to Americans who haven't chosen to get vaccinated?

Well, first of all, the mandate [COVID-19 vaccination mandates in the United States] is really hurting our country [United States]. Now that's advice to an administration [Joe Biden administration] more so than to the Americans. A lot of Americans aren't standing for it, and it's hurting our country. It's hurting our economy very badly. And being very - the proud person that did so well with therapeutics and, and vaccines and everything else and getting them done in record times, you know, I - I have a lot to say on the subject. And one of the things I say is they have to start promoting and making the therapeutics more available, because we have great therapeutics, too, in addition to the vaccines.

The vaccines, I recommend taking them, but I think that has to be an individual choice. I mean, it's got to be individual, but I recommend taking them. Many people recommend them. And if some people don't want, they shouldn't have to take them. They can't be mandated, as the expression goes. And I think that's very important. Personally, I feel very comfortable having taken them. I've had absolutely no reverberation.

Do you think the pandemic will continue as long as millions of people do choose not to vaccinate?

I think it's going to phase out. You know, there are many people that have had it, if you look at the numbers. I don't know why they would be getting the vaccine for the most part, unless they were at a certain age group and they had certain problems, whether it's the high blood pressure --

-- the diabetes and, you know, various things in particular. But, you know, we - the administration has to start giving credit to people that had the China plague - or call it whatever you want. But it came out of China, and it's a disaster for the world, to --

People can be - I'll mention that people can be reinfected, but I want to move on. South Dakota --

Let me ask about another piece of news here. South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds, as I think you know, was on ABC over the weekend. He spoke about the 2020 election and also referred to the election campaign that is now starting in 2022. Let's listen.

Couple of things to ask about there, Mr. President. Let's start with the politics. Is it a disadvantage for Republicans to keep talking about the 2020 election in 2022?

No, I think it's an advantage, because otherwise they're going to do it again in 2022 and 2024. And Mike Rounds is wrong on that, totally wrong. If you look at the numbers, if you look at the findings in Arizona, if you look at what's going on in Georgia, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, by the way - and take a look at Wisconsin - they're finding things that nobody thought possible. This was a corrupt election [Attempts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election].

I just have to point out Doug Logan - to name one of the states that you just named - Doug Logan, who ran the audit in Arizona that was set up by your allies, didn't find serious problems. This is a quote. "The ballots that were provided to us to count in the Coliseum very accurately correlate with the official canvass numbers." He raised a bunch of administrative issues but didn't find a problem that would have changed the result at all.

The ballots may correspond, but look at the ballots themselves. The number of ballots doesn't mean anything. It's who signed the ballots, where did the ballots come from. What you really have to do in that report is look at the findings. And the findings are devastating for Arizona. They're devastating like nobody's seen before --

Because they're RINOs [RINO: Republican In Name Only], and frankly, a lot of people are questioning that. Why would they? They fought very hard, the Maricopa County people. And people don't understand it, because all you have to do is look at the findings.

And, just so you know, some of those people went before Congress [United States Congress] a short while ago, and they were grilled by Congressman Biggs [Andy Biggs]. You ought to take a look at their testimony. They weren't able to answer anything. He made them look like fools. They couldn't answer a thing. They got up and gave a beautiful statement. And then when it came time to ask, why this? Why that? What about these votes? What about those votes? They look like total fools.

Let me read you some short quotes. The first is by one of the judges, one of the 10 judges you appointed, who ruled on this. And there were many judges, but 10 who you appointed. Brett Ludwig, U.S. District Court in Wisconsin [United States District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin], who was nominated by you in 2020. He's on the bench, and he says, quote, "This court allowed the plaintiff the chance to make his case, and he has lost on the merits."

Another quote, Kory Langhofer [local copy], your own campaign attorney in Arizona, 2020-11-12 quote, "We are not alleging fraud in this lawsuit. We are not alleging anyone stealing the election." And also Rudy Giuliani, your lawyer, 2020-11-18 in Pennsylvania, quote, "This is not a fraud case." Your own lawyers had no evidence of fraud, they said in court they had no evidence of fraud, and the judges ruled against you every time on the merits.

It was too early to ask for fraud and to talk about fraud. Rudy said that, because of the fact it was very early with the - because that was obviously at a very, very - that was a long time ago. The things that have found out have more than bore out what people thought and what people felt and what people found.

When you look at Kory Langhofer, I disagree with him as an attorney. I did not think he was a good attorney to hire. I don't know what his game is, but I will just say this: You look at the findings. You look at the number of votes. Go into Detroit and just ask yourself, is it true that there are more votes than there are voters? Look at Pennsylvania. Look at Philadelphia. Is it true that there were far more votes than there were voters?

It is not true that there were far more votes than voters. There was an early count. I've noticed you've talked about this in rallies and you've said, reportedly, this is true. I think even you know that that was an early report that was corrected later.

Well, you take a look at it. You take a look at Detroit. In fact, they even had a hard time getting people to sign off on it because it was so out of balance. They called it out of balance. So you take a look at it. You know the real truth, Steve, and this election was a rigged election.

Why is it that you think that the vast majority of your allies in the United States Senate are not standing behind you? We did have that statement by Mike Rounds.

Because Mitch McConnell is a loser. And frankly, Mitch McConnell, if he were on the other side and if Schumer [Chuck Schumer, preceded by Mitch McConnell as Senate Minority Leader] were put in his position, he would have been fighting this like you've never seen before. He would have been fighting this, because when you look at it, and this is long - is a long way from over. You take a look at what's going on now in Pennsylvania. Take a look at what's going on in Wisconsin. You just take a look.

Now, we had a lot of cases where the judges wouldn't hear him. We had a case in Nevada that was so good. You read the papers. It's impossible. The judge refused to even listen to it. We had many cases. In fact, they say, and I can't testify because it's been through a lot of systems, a lot of different systems. But they say, and they say very strongly, the judges just - nobody's really gotten a chance to look. Look at the United States Supreme Court. They refused to hear the case. And you had, I guess, 19 states suing --

They said, there was no standing to give the case. That's correct. Can I just ask --

Well, yeah, no standing, I know, no standing. And the president of the United States supposedly didn't have standing, either. So I wanted to file it myself. They said, "Sir, you don't have standing." I said, "Wait a minute. I'm the president of the United States. They just rigged an election." Hundreds of thousands of votes in different states. They just rigged an election. We got - we got a number of votes that, I think you'll agree - no sitting president has ever gotten the number of votes that I got. No sitting president has ever gotten --

No sitting president. Do you - I - nobody believes. You think Biden got 80 million votes? Because I don't believe it.

It's true - it's true that you got more than any sitting president in the election you've disputed.

You mean he got them sitting in his basement. He got 80 - how come he couldn't - then how come Biden --

Let me ask you this question. How come Biden couldn't attract 20 people for a crowd? How come when he went to speak in different locations, nobody came to watch, but all of a sudden he got 80 million votes? Nobody believes that, Steve. Nobody believes that.

If you'll forgive me, maybe because the election was about you. If I can just move on to ask, are you telling Republicans in 2022 that they must press your case on the past election in order to get your endorsement? Is that an absolute?

They are going to do whatever they want to do - whatever they have to do, they're going to do. But the ones that are smart - the ones that know, you take a look at. Again, you take a look at how Kari Lake is doing, running for governor. She's very big on this issue. She's leading by a lot. People have no idea how big this issue is, and they don't want it to happen again. It shouldn't be allowed to happen, and they don't want it to happen again.

And the only way it's not going to happen again is you have to solve the problem of the presidential rigged election of 2020.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, I have one more question. I want to ask about a court hearing yesterday [2022-01-10], on 2022-01-06 Judge Amit Mehta ... He's gone. OK.

Analysis and Commentary

Pressed on His Election Lies, Former President Trump Cuts Npr Interview Short

Some Republican leaders are trying to move on from former President Donald Trump's failed attempt to overturn the U.S. 2020 presidential election that he lost. "While there were some irregularities, there were none of the irregularities which would have risen to the point where they would have changed the vote outcome in a single state," South Dakota Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD), said Sunday on ABC's This Week [2022-01-09: "This Week" Transcript 2022-01-09: Secretary Antony Blinken, Sen. Mike Rounds, Rep. Jamie Raskin & Dr. Ashish Jha | local copy]. "The election was fair, as fair as we have seen. We simply did not win the election, as Republicans, for the presidency. And if we simply look back and tell our people don't vote because there's cheating going on, then we're going to put ourselves in a huge disadvantage."

But Trump - who has endorsed dozens of candidates for the 2022 midterm elections [2022 United States elections] and still holds by far the widest influence within the GOP [Republican Party] - is trying hard not to let them move on. "No, I think it's an advantage, because otherwise they're going to do it again in 2022 and 2024, and Mike Rounds is wrong on that. Totally wrong," Trump told NPR in an interview Tuesday [2022-01-11], referring to his false and debunked claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

The interview was six years in the making. Trump and his team have repeatedly declined interviews with NPR until Tuesday [2022-01-11], when he called in from his home in Florida. It was scheduled for 15 minutes, but lasted just over nine minutes. After being pressed about his repeated lies about the 2020 presidential election, Trump abruptly ended the interview.

Trump's mixed messages on getting vaccinated

The interview began with the pandemic and vaccinations. Trump, whose administration oversaw the development of the COVID-19 vaccines, recommended that people get vaccinated but said he's firmly against mandating that they do so. "The mandate is really hurting our country," Trump claimed, adding, "A lot of Americans aren't standing for it, and it's hurting our country." He continued, "The vaccines, I recommend taking them, but I think that has to be an individual choice. I mean, it's got to be individual, but I recommend taking them."

Epidemiologists and health experts warn that if more people don't get vaccinated and the virus continues to morph, it could prolong the COVID-19 pandemic - and delay any sense of getting back to normal. The former president said he wants to see therapeutics, used to treat the virus after someone is infected, produced and distributed more widely.

Trump's firm grip on the Republican Party, but tenuous grasp on reality

Trump is not just any former president. Even many members of his own party have blamed him for inciting the deadly 2021-01-06 insurrection at the United States Capitol [2021 United States Capitol attack], but since then Trump has only tightened his grip on the GOP. He remains one of the most popular figures in the Republican Party and is considered the front-runner for the nomination for the 2024 United States presidential election, if he decides to run again.

When he ran in the 2016 United States presidential election2016, Trump was seen as having a shoestring campaign, fighting an uphill battle with few allies among Republican elected leaders. Today, it's a different story. Trump's political organization has become a juggernaut. Not only are most Republican elected leaders falling in line, but he has also installed allies controlling many levers of political power across the country. In state after state, Trump allies are running local Republican parties, serving as state representatives and in charge of political action committees (PACs).

It's a political army ready to be mobilized at his beck and call. What Trump says - what his message is to them - matters because they follow. To secure his power, he will do whatever he can to cast aside those who don't show fealty. That includes threats, bullying and intimidation, like badgering and name-calling. Referring to South Dakota's Mike Rounds in a statement after he appeared on ABC, for example, Trump said Rounds "just went woke," called him a "jerk," "weak," "ineffective" and questioned whether he was "crazy or just stupid."

He also called him a RINO [RINO: Republican In Name Only, an acronym for an insult some conservatives reserve for more moderate Republicans they disagree with - Republicans In Name Only. In the interview with NPR, Trump partially blamed Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell for Mike Rounds and other senators feeling as though they can speak out and say - correctly - that Trump lost the election. "Because Mitch McConnell is a loser," Trump said. Trump has called McConnell worse - and all because the Kentucky Republican has crossed Trump, blaming him for the U.S. Capitol insurrection on 2021-01-06 and saying President Biden won, even if McConnell doesn't do so forcefully every day. It's par for the course for Trump, who has demanded unflinching loyalty - and who chafes at truths he disagrees with, especially about him losing.

Won't accept losing an election he lost

Many Republicans prefer to focus on Biden as this year's congressional elections approach. Trump is pressing candidates in a different direction. Josh Mandel, a pro-Trump Republican from Ohio, launched his campaign for U.S. Senate just weeks after Trump supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol last year [2021-01-06]. "I think over time we're gonna see studies come out that show evidence of widespread fraud," Josh Mandel, a former state treasurer who is angling for Trump's endorsement, told WKYC-TV. In the year since Mandel made that prediction, the opposite has happened.

Even more evidence shows a free and fair election. In one disputed state, Arizona, Trump allies held a widely criticized review of millions of ballots, but even Doug Logan, who led Cyber Ninjas, the firm that ran the review, couldn't find much. "The ballots that were provided to us to count in the Coliseum very accurately correlate with the official canvass numbers," Logan said. As he does with any information or person he doesn't like or disagrees with, Trump dismissed the findings in the NPR interview.

"Lying or delusional"

In the interview, Trump repeated a number of false claims about voting systems in the U.S., including that the discredited GOP-led ballot review in Arizona showed evidence of malfeasance - despite the fact that it also reaffirmed Biden's victory. Republican officials in Maricopa County, however, debunked the characterizations of Trump and his allies in a 93-page rebuttal issued last week [2022-01]. "The people who have spent the last year proclaiming our free and fair elections are rigged are lying or delusional," said Bill Gates, the GOP chair of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors. Asked why even Republicans in the state accepted the findings, Trump reverted to an old attack. "Because they're RINOs," he said, "and frankly, a lot of people are questioning that."

Tammy Patrick [local copy | LinkedIn | local copy], a former Maricopa County election official and now an elections expert at Democracy Fund [see also: Omidyar Network], was presented by NPR with a number of Trump's claims about voting and noted that in the 14 months since the election, no proof of any of his claims has come to light. "It hasn't been presented in any of the courts. It hasn't been surfaced in any official election audits, not by the Department of Justice, not by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)," Tammy Patrick said. "Allegations of fraud hinge upon being able to produce actual instances of fraud - not merely thoughts, feelings or beliefs about it."

To Republicans who know how elections work, the election has always been obvious. "The facts show that it was President Biden who won fair and square," said Trey Grayson, who used to run elections as the Republican secretary of state in Kentucky. "It wasn't rigged." He's thinking about those Republican T-shirts that said, "F*** your feelings." "And here we are looking at the 2020 United States presidential election," Trey Grayson said, "and we are the ones who are basing it on feelings, not on facts, not on the law."

The Pennsylvania example

Most Republican voters now say they feel the election was stolen, according to surveys. That gives Trump leverage with Republican candidates who want to win primaries this year. In Pennsylvania, numerous Republicans are running for governor and senator. They've made lots of moves to prove their fealty to the former president. One candidate for governor is Bill McSwain, who happened to be a U.S. attorney during the 2020 election.

"Bill McSwain left office without announcing any investigations or outcome of investigations for the 2020 election in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania," said Chris Brennan [local copy | LinkedIn | local copy] of The Philadelphia Inquirer, who has covered his story. But then McSwain prepared to run for office. Last summer, McSwain produced a letter for Trump, appealing for his support - and implying that he was blocked somehow from investigating unspecified claims of fraud. "But it doesn't actually say that," Brennan said. "So even he, when you carefully read it, does not claim that he was blocked from investigating fraud." Trump nonetheless made the letter public and gave his own interpretation at multiple rallies. "We have a U.S. attorney in Philadelphia that says he wasn't allowed to go and check," Trump said at a rally in Florida.

Trey Grayson has watched similar stories unfold in multiple states. "I think he's been really active in moving 2022 candidates toward his point of view," Grayson said. "The way I look at it is, I can't imagine that the party on its own would be pushing this narrative if he weren't pushing it." Repeatedly in the interview, Trump presses his party to adhere to his point of view and false claims, and he adapts his arguments to account for more and more proof that he lost. That's a typical strategy among purveyors of disinformation and misinformation.

Trump did correctly note in the interview that he received more votes than any sitting president ever. But his broader point that that is somehow evidence that he won in 2020 is nonsensical, said Tammy Patrick, seeing as the election saw record turnout. "Each election compares those candidates facing off in that election - it doesn't matter how the numbers compare to the last election," Patrick said. "It doesn't matter how many points a team scored the last game or how many times Alabama has won the national championship. What matters is who has the most points or votes at the end of the game." For the record, the University of Georgia won the college football national championship Monday [2022-01-10], defeating Alabama, 33-18. And Biden got 7 million more votes than Trump in the popular vote in 2020 and got 306 electoral votes to Trump's 232.

Repeated losses in the independent judiciary

Trump doesn't have a case of widespread fraud. He and his lawyers tried to prove that he did - and they failed. Many judges, including some appointed by him, ruled that way in dozens of cases. Here's a section of the interview on this.

When pressed, it was excuse after excuse - it was "too early" to claim fraud, his attorney was no good, things just seem suspicious. But it all comes back to the same place: He has no evidence of widespread fraud that caused him to lose the election. The tone of the interview changed. Trump then hurried off the phone as he was starting to be asked about the attack on the Capitol [2021 United States Capitol attack], inspired by election lies.

A judge is considering whether Trump can be held liable for his actions in court. If he can be, then Trump or his lawyers would someday have to answer the questions he didn't answer before he cut short his conversation with NPR.

NPR's full interview with former President Donald Trump

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