2023-05-11 04:04:03
Donald Trump takes a step onto the stage, stops, grins, claps his hands briefly before shaking the hand of his interviewer, Kaitlan Collins. She is the presenter of the US television network CNN, was previously a reporter in the White House – and will be questioning the former US President for almost exactly an hour – together with the audience, who applaud Trump properly from the start.
CNN, which organizes this television interview, calls the event “Town Hall”, something like a citizens’ question time. The New Hampshire audience is likely to be more sympathetic to Trump than the presenter: it consists of voters who are already sure they will vote for the Republicans in the primary and those who are still undecided. Donald Trump is currently the Republican nominee for the 2024 presidential primary.
The moderator’s first question is about the election that Donald Trump lost in 2020, but the result of which he does not recognize. Collins asks whether he now wants to publicly acknowledge the election. And just moments after launch, the first lie kicks off: “I think if you look at the result, and if you look at what happened in this election, if you’re not a very stupid person, then you can see what happened”. In doing so, he repeats his claim that an election victory against Joe Biden was “stolen” from him in 2020. Kaitlan Collins contradicts him: “It wasn’t a rigged election. It wasn’t a stolen election,” she says.
For Trump, this is the first appearance on CNN since his 2016 election campaign. The fact that he is appearing on this channel is unusual – the broadcaster is considered to be rather liberal and is repeatedly attacked by the 76-year-old. However, according to reports, the interview could also be part of a change of strategy at CNN. Accordingly, the broadcaster is currently trying to offer Republicans an alternative to Fox News.
It is also Trump’s first public appearance since a jury in New York on Tuesday sentenced him to pay author E. Jean Carroll $5 million in sexual abuse compensation. Collins also brings this topic to the table quite quickly. And Trump repeats things here that he has already said in the past: It is a “made up story”, the judge was “terrible” – and: Carroll, “I do not know this woman. I have never met her . I have no idea who she is.”
It continues – select viewers stand, thank Trump for coming to New Hampshire and ask questions: Would he pardon those convicted after the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021 if he were president? Trump: “I am inclined to pardon many of them.” What would he do for the US economy and against rising inflation? “Drill, baby, drill,” says Trump – boosting the oil industry would be his answer to get the US economy back on track.
Collins keeps interrupting Trump’s statements, listing facts that refute his untrue claims (and there are many of them) and tries to get him to stick to the point and give definite answers. Eventually, the confrontation seems to be too much for him, and he says Collins is a “nasty person.”
As president, he would end the war in Ukraine within 24 hours, Trump says
Towards the end, a young woman from the audience asks what Trump would do as president against the “threat of Vladimir Putin”. On the one hand, according to Trump, he would get Europe to send more money and weapons to Ukraine. “I want Europe to give more money because they laugh at us. They think we’re a bunch of idiots.”
But not only that: if he were president, he would end the war within 24 hours, he says. When Collins asks if he wants Ukraine to win the war, he squirms a little that he wants the dying to stop (audience applause). Collins wants to know whether he believes Vladimir Putin is a war criminal. He doesn’t want to give a clear answer to that either: “If you say that he is a war criminal, it will be much more difficult to make a deal,” says Trump.
In the end, Question Time comes full circle when a viewer wants to know whether Trump will accept the results of the future election. “If I think it’s an honest choice, I would definitely do it,” he said – again evasive. Collins asks again, but she can’t get any more out of him.
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