In an interview that largely avoided serious policy questions, Tucker Carlson and former President Donald Trump chewed the fat about everything from a possible assassination attempt and Jeffrey Epstein’s “suicide” to former Vice President Mike Pence and Sleepy Joe Biden’s mental and physical frailty.
At this writing, the X interview is heading toward 190 million views and has been shared almost 180,000 times.
As news goes, not much was in the interview. Trump pontificated in his usual mode: stream-of-consciousness.
Why Debate?
Carlson’s first question: Why didn’t Trump participate in the first GOP primary debate on Fox News? Trump’s answer: What for? He’s so far ahead of the other candidates in the polls the debate would waste his time.
“The polls have come out and I’m leading by 50 and 60 points,” Trump said:
And some of them are at one and zero and two. And I’m saying, “Do I sit there for an hour or two hours?” Whatever it’s going to be, and get harassed by people that shouldn’t even be running for president? Should I be doing that?…
But I just felt it would be more appropriate not to do the debate. I don’t think it’s right to do it if you’re leading by 50, 60. I have one poll leading by 70 points, and I’m saying, “Why am I doing it?” And I’m going to have eight people, 10 people, whoever made the debate. I don’t know how many it is, but I’m going to have all these people screaming at me, shouting questions at me, all of which I love answering, I love doing, but it doesn’t make sense to do them.
The Real Clear Politics Average of polls has Trump ahead of Florida Ron DeSantis, his only serious rival for the nomination, by 41.1 points, 55.4-14.3
The two disagreed about the death of sex-trafficking rapist Jeffrey Epstein. Carlson thinks he didn’t commit suicide in federal prison; Trump thinks he did, despite the strange events that preceded and followed Epstein’s death by hanging.
Carlson also asked whether Trump thought leftists might try to assassinate him, given their insane obsession with destroying the real-estate tycoon since he announced his first presidential run in 2015.
“I’m looking at the trajectory since 2015, when you got into politics for real, and then won,” Carlson said:
It started with protests against you, massive protests, organized protests by the Left, and then it moved to impeachment twice.
And now indictment. I mean, the next stage is violence. Are you worried that they’re going to try and kill you? Why wouldn’t they try and kill you? Honestly?
Trump had already called his deranged opponents “lunatics.” They are, he said, dangerous.
“They’re savage animals,” he said. “They are people that are sick, really sick.” Noting that “great people” are in the Democrat Party and that he’s a president for all Americans, not just Republicans, Trump explained just how obsessed his opponents are.
“But I’ve seen what they do. I’ve seen the lengths that they go to,” Trump continued, citing the Clinton-conceived Russia Collusion Hoax and attempted coup by disgraced FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and a cabal of conspirators inside the FBI and Justice Department:
But these people are sick people. These are people that, I think they hate our country, you want to know the truth. When you see open borders, when you see these policies that they have, and so many other things, it’s so sad to see. We have a country that’s very fragile right now.
Yet that obsession, which now includes multiple criminal indictments for challenging the election, seems to have backfired. Carlson observed that protests against Trump and two impeachments, along with the indictments, haven’t diminished his support. “They can indict you 20 times and you’re not going to lose the Republican primary because of that,” Carlson said.
“Well, it makes it look even more ridiculous, Trump replied. “I mean, the four indictments, and maybe there’ll be more, I don’t know. These people are crazy.”
Ignoring another suggestion that leftists have tried everything to get Trump and might try assassination next, Trump explained that Americans know what’s up:
I think the people of our country don’t get enough credit for how smart they are. And I am not sure I would’ve said this 10 years ago, but they get it. They really get it. When somebody gets indicted, your poll numbers go down.
Biden Unfit, Pence Folded
Carlson and Trump also discussed what POTUS 45 called the “rigged” 2020 election, then segued into Joe Biden’s obvious dementia and physical infirmity.
“Well, I think he’s worse mentally than he is physically” Trump said. “And physically, he’s not exactly a triathlete, or any kind of an athlete.”
A noticeable problem, like Biden’s rages and strange, impulsive behavior, in his seeming inability to walk:
You look at him, he can’t walk to the helicopter. He walks. He can’t lift his feet out of the grass. It’s only two inches at the White House, right? It’s not a lot. But you watch him and it looks like he’s walking on toothpicks. And then you see him on the beach where he can’t lift a chair. You know those chairs are meant to be light, right? They’re like, two ounces….
Well, he can’t walk through the sand. You know, sand is not that easy to walk through. But when he walks through it, he can’t walk through the sand.
Trump also discussed former Vice President Mike Pence and his role certifying the 2020 election. Pence, Trump said, had the prerogative “to send the [electoral] votes back to the legislatures” because of the fraud accusations:
I think he got very bad advice…. I sat there with a few people, I think his lawyer was in the room too. His lawyer was very much against it. There were other lawyers that felt you could do it. It was one of those things.… I think he could have done it. I think you can always do something if you see fraud or if you see problems. But, it’s very interesting. After the election was over, the RINOs got together with the Democrats, and they redid the election so you couldn’t do it anymore.
Trump claimed that Congress’ modifying the Electoral Count Act, which he and his lawyers said meant Pence could challenge the electoral vote, suggests that he was right.
“They redid it, so the Vice President no longer has the power to do what I said he could do,” Trump said:
So when that happened, I said, “Wow.” You look some of these Democrats in the eye and they’d say, “He has absolutely no right to do it.” Immediately after the election, they met, RINOs, can name them all, and Democrats. They approved legislation that takes away the right of the Vice President to do it. So I said, “Ah, so you’re saying I was right. The Vice President did have the right to do it.” They said, “Yes, he did.”
Trump also said Democrats will try to steal the 2024 election as well.
