Trump defends his presidential record during Megyn Kelly interview
Mabinty Quarshie
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Former President Donald Trump pushed back heavily against Republican criticisms of how he handled the COVID-19 pandemic, his federal and state indictments, and allegations of ageism in the 2024 race during a wide-ranging interview with host Megyn Kelly.
It’s his first interview with Kelly in seven years. The last time the two sat down for an interview came in May 2016, but their feud reached its climax during an Aug. 6, 2015, Republican primary debate when Trump slammed Kelly for questioning his past comments about women.
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The former president weighed in on the impeachment inquiry into President Joe Biden that House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced on Tuesday. “Look, he’s a horrible president. Our country is going to hell,” Trump said on The Megyn Kelly Show on SiriusXM during an interview that was shot in Bedminster, New Jersey, and released on Thursday.
“Whether it’s impeachment or not impeachment, this man is destroying our country at the border,” he continued. “He’s destroying it economically. Inflation’s way up now.”
Trump then took a shot at one of his top Republican foes, Sen. Mitt Romney (R-UT), when talking about the Democratic impeachments against him. “They didn’t have Mitt Romney’s of the world. And that’s really nice because now he’s not running.” Romney, who voted to impeach Trump twice, announced on Wednesday that he is retiring from the Senate, a sign of Trump’s growing dominance of the GOP.
Trump also defended Biden against concerns he’s too old to serve another term in the White House. “No, he’s not too old at all,” the 77-year-old Trump said of 80-year-old Biden. “He’s grossly incompetent.”
Trump once again maintained his innocence in relation to the four criminal cases he faces, including federal indictments for allegedly mishandling sensitive national documents after leaving office. “I did nothing wrong because I come under the Presidential Records Act. The fascists who are going after me, and they’re not going after Biden even though he has about 10 times more documents, maybe more than that,” he said. “I’m allowed to have these documents.”
The 1978 law “establishes that Presidential records automatically transfer into the legal custody of the Archivist as soon as the President leaves office,” according to the National Archives.
When Kelly asked him why he did not comply with subpoenas to return the documents before the FBI raided his Florida Mar-a-Largo residence, Trump claimed that it was a “fake crime.”
“They created a fake crime. And then they say you obstructed it. This is a fake thing that they’ve done,” he said. “They’re doing this for political reasons. The reason they’re doing this is for election interference.”
Trump repeated more election claims that have since been debunked when Kelly later asked him how it would make the elections safe and fair. “They use COVID to cheat. They cheat anyway because how can you win elections, open borders, high taxes, high interest rates, no voter ID,” he said. “I mean everything they do is like April Fools’ Day, it’s the opposite. OK. They have horrible policy. They’re only good at cheating in elections, you want to know the truth.”
He also defended himself against criticism that he elevated former White House chief medical adviser Anthony Fauci during the height of COVID-19. “Fauci was very important in the Biden administration,” Trump said. “He didn’t want to stop China. He wanted to let everyone come in from China. I stopped it. I overrode it. I overrode many of the things he did. He was much less important to me.”
The Trump administration did award a presidential commendation to Fauci for his work during Operation Warp Speed, part of the government’s work to quickly facilitate COVID-19 vaccines. Trump’s rivals have slammed his relationship with Fauci, who has garnered criticisms from Republicans for his role in implementing COVID-19 lockdowns and mask mandates.
His top rival, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), took aim at Trump last week for not firing Fauci when he had the opportunity. “Clearly, he could have been fired from the White House task force. There was no obligation to run him out at press conference after press conference, have him doing media interviews,” DeSantis said.
Trump interview with Megyn Kelly
The former president was not shy in striking back. “I was not a big fan of Fauci. If you look at Ron DeSanctimonious, he was, this guy said the greatest things,” Trump said. “I can give you articles that ‘Fauci is great. He’s wonderful. We love him. We don’t do anything without Fauci.’ This went on for months.”
Kelly then touted DeSantis’s flouting of Fauci’s pandemic recommendations. “He didn’t listen to Fauci,” she said. “He shut down Florida for a month.”
“I’m not trying to blame anybody, but he should say, ‘I closed it down. Eventually, we opened it but I closed it down,'” Trump said. “But I gave him the right to keep it open if he wanted to. I let the governors make the determination as to whether or not to close it down.”
The former president then claimed that he never endorsed mask mandates. “First of all, no mandates. I don’t want mandates. I never had mandates,” he said. “Florida sort of had a mandate because they were giving the vaccine. They were demanding everybody take a vaccine. That’s another thing but no mandates, no anything. I didn’t demand anybody take it.”
Yet despite the GOP attacks, Trump complained about the lack of credit he received for his handling of the pandemic. “I got a lot of good marks on [the] economy, got a lot of good marks and a lot of things. Rebuilding the military, getting rid of ISIS, the biggest tax cuts in history,” he said. “I never got, I think, the credit that I deserve on COVID.”
During the interview, Trump expressed confidence that he will defeat his Republican primary rivals for the nomination, pointing to his poll numbers. “Nobody’s talking about Ron DeSanctimonious. Nobody’s talking about anybody. They’re only talking about me,” Trump said. “These people are at nothing. You have Asa Hutchinson at zero. Why is he running? You have Chris Christie at two, why is he running? … Nikki Haley’s very low. They’re all very low.”
A Quinnipiac University poll released on Wednesday showed Trump leading the GOP pack at 62%, with DeSantis at 12%, Haley at 5%, Hutchinson at 1%, and Christie at 2%. But Trump reserved most of his ire in the GOP primary toward DeSantis, his closest competitor. “I’ve driven him down to almost nothing. I don’t even think he’s gonna be in second place much longer,” Trump said. “But second place is like 60 points below me.”
In fact, Trump generally leads DeSantis by more than 40 percentage points in several national and state polls.
The former president skipped the first GOP debate and could very likely skip the second debate later this month. But he did appear to want to debate Biden in a general election provided they are the two nominees. “He has to debate, I guess. I hope he’s going to debate, I’m gonna debate,” Trump said about Biden. “I don’t want to debate people that I’m 60 points up on because what’s the purpose in doing that?”
While explaining his reluctance to debate his Republican competitors, Trump brought up the feud he had with Kelly that hit its peak during a 2015 debate.
“Like you asked me a question when you were moderating the debate for Fox, that frankly, if I didn’t come up with the answer, ‘Only Rosie O’Donnell,’ I would have had a problem with that. That was a bad question.”
Trump was referring to when Kelly said, “You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals,” and he responded by saying, “Only Rosie O’Donnell.”
“That was a great question,” she retorted.
“Oh, no, it was a nasty question,” Trump chimed in.
“It was awesome,” Kelly pushed back.
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Regardless, Trump is adamant that he will win next year’s election. “We have unbelievable people and we’re going to be fighting like hell. Because if I don’t win the election, meaning this philosophy, this thought, but if I don’t win the election, I think our country is finished,” said Trump.