The 35 most out-there lines from Donald Trump's Fox Business interview
Oops he did it again!
Despite railing against Fox News of late — and likely skipping the debate sponsored by the network next week — Donald Trump isn’t ignoring everyone there.
He sat down with Larry Kudlow — of Fox Business Network — this week to talk about his four(!) indictments, the coming Republican debate, dishwashers and, um, “beautiful rain.”
I went through the transcript and pulled out the lines you need to see. They’re below.
“It's a witch-hunt. It's just a continuation of a witch-hunt. They want to silence you. They want to silence you”
This is Trump on the Georgia indictment that came down earlier this week. Notice the emphasis isn’t on him being indicted, it’s on an attempt by the judicial system to silence the average American. And away we go!
“And when they watch this witch-hunt, this disgusting situation, where they do it for publicity, where they do fund-raisers based on -- you know, she, in her case -- and they are all bad.”
This was all one sentence. What a journey.
“I have four of them now, if you look -- I mean, this is not even possible, four over the next -- last couple of months. And, frankly, it discredits everything. And they're all very similar, in the sense that they're -- there's no basis for them.”
Trump is lumping all of his indictments together here in hopes that for his supporters they all sort of meld together — and get dismissed as purely political. This is the “Montgomery Burns theory” of Trump’s indictments that I laid out earlier this week; he hopes that the sheer number of indictments sort of block each other out from any one of them becoming particularly damning.
“We have the Presidential Records Act, which I'm allowed to do, which, by the way, this guy has probably 20 times more boxes than anybody's ever had, and he's got -- and he's done it wrong.”
Trump has the PRA wrong. There’s nothing in there that suggests that he can retain documents after he has left the White House. Not one thing.
“The Republicans have to be tough. The Republicans are great in many ways, but they don't fight as hard for this stuff. And they have to get a lot tougher. And if they don't, they're not going to have much of a Republican Party.”
If this reads like a threat to you, you are paying attention.
“But when you look at the inflation, they say inflation is coming down, but we're living with all that inflation we picked up over the last three years, which is tremendous”
“Inflation drops sharply to 3 percent, lowest point in more than 2 years” (July 12, 2023)
“I heard him say that he didn't mean that name, that that name is not accurate, and yet they sold it based on that name. Nobody should have done that.”
Here’s what Biden said about the Inflation Reduction Act at a fundraiser on Thursday: “I wish I hadn’t called it that because it has less to do with reducing inflation than it has to do with providing alternatives that generate economic growth.”
“We had the greatest economy in history”
[narrator voice] We did not.
“And we have more energy under our feet. I call it liquid gold.”
“I'm an oil man, ladies and gentlemen. I have numerous concerns spread across this state. I have many wells flowing at many thousand barrels per days. I like to think of myself as an oil man.”
10. “We were, for the first time, I would say ever, but we were energy-independent.”
[narrator voice] We were not.
“I mean, they ended ANWR. Ronald Reagan, a friend of yours, as you know, he wanted so -- and Arthur's -- especially Arthur's.”
Yes, Arthur’s. Especially Arthur’s.
“We built almost 500 miles of border wall.”
Eh, not really.
“He can't put two sentences together. He doesn't know where he is. He can't walk up a flight of stairs, let alone down a flight of stairs.”
This is going to be a big thrust of Trump’s general election message against Biden — that he can’t do the job he is running for. And don’t dismiss it; there are lots of doubts in the general electorate about Biden’s age and capabilities.
“We have the most corrupt president in the history of our country, and we have the most incompetent, simultaneously, the most incompetent president.”
Here’s what I don’t get: How can Biden be, simultaneously, totally out of it and clueless while also running a nefarious crime ring out of the White House? Doesn’t add up. Right?
“And, by the way, they're coming out of prisons. They're coming out of mental institutions, and they're terrorists, a lot of them.”
According to the Border Patrol, there were 98 incidents border crossing incidents involving people on known terrorist watch lists in the last fiscal year. Which isn’t nothing!
“We had the safest border in the history of our country.”
“Now we have, I think, the worst border in the history of the world.”
Again, hard to prove.
“But when you watch him, he can't speak, he can't walk, he can't do anything.”
If you think this is bad, you ain’t seen nothing yet.
“This guy is going to get us into a nuclear war. He's going to really do it. He's going to get us right into a nuclear war.”
“North Korean Leader Kim Jong Un just stated that the ‘Nuclear Button is on his desk at all times.’ Will someone from his depleted and food starved regime please inform him that I too have a Nuclear Button, but it is a much bigger & more powerful one than his, and my Button works!” — Donald Trump, 2018
“I got you the biggest tax cuts in the history of our country.
NOPE.
“Well, I think that if you look, and you study it, and I study this stuff, like you do -- I love it.”
He loves it.
“You make donuts in the ovens and the trucks that deliver them.”
“I looked at when bacon went up three times in the last two months, three times, in other words, three times more expensive than it was a couple of months ago.”
Bacon! And he’s right: the price did soar!
“Yes. Yes, the largest tax cuts in history.”
You can keep saying it but it doesn’t make it any more true.
“They had the highest ratings in 11 years. And they fired the head of CNN that night.”
Trump is talking about the CNN town hall he did earlier this year. It’s not clear to me where he is getting the claim that it was the highest rated event in 11 years. (All told, 3.3 million people tuned in — which was far more than the average CNN ratings during that hour.) As for Chris Licht, the former head of CNN, he was fired a month after the CNN town hall.
“We have more oil and gas under our -- I call it liquid gold -- under our feet than any other country, more than Saudi Arabia, more than Russia.”
Yes, you mentioned that.
“Well, first of all, it's amazing because, you watch him, you don't even think he's going to get through the sentence, the stopping and the halting. And there's something going on over there.”
If you’re counting, this is the third time in the interview Trump has suggested Biden is incapacitated or compromised mentally in some way.
“He doesn't understand what MAGA means. If you asked him right now to define MAGA or to say what MAGA is, he would not be able to say make America great again. He's always saying MAGA, those MAGA people. But if you would say, what does MAGA stand for, he wouldn't know. He wouldn't be able to tell you that.”
Four times.
“He goes to meetings in foreign countries and he makes a fool out of himself. He's a fool.”
Five times.
“I don't think he knows it, though. I think people around his desk tell him what to do. I don't think he knows it. I really don't. I actually don't think he knows it.”
Six times.
“They sell -- if you buy a new house, you have water that doesn't even come out, even if you're in an area that -- most of the country has plenty of water, called rain from heaven. It comes right from heaven, beautiful rain.”
Yup, that’s what he said.
“They're giving, like, this much water. They showed me in a glass. They would come to complain about it, and I totally freed it up, washing machines, dishwashers.”
Totally freed it up! (Dishwashers are a frequent — and longtime — hobby horse of Trump’s.)
“They want to wash their hands. You know what you do? You wash your hands four times longer. You take a shower. Like, you have beautiful hair like this, beautiful.”
This is a real quote.
“I think if it doesn't -- look, we are already reverting to third-world status in many ways. You look at our airports, you look at our terminals, you look at our filthy roads and broken roads and everything else; we're like a third-world country.”
USA! USA!
“I mean, the dishwashers -- they were telling me, you have to run it five times because it hasn't got enough water. So what they do, on, on. They end up using more water. I mean the whole thing is crazy”
Again with the dishwashers! Yeah, this feels like a good place to end.
Chris,
This is the top of your game...taking the Defendant-In-Chief's word salad and offering you insights.
Doesn't get any better than that!!!
You ask how can it be that (14. “We have the most corrupt president in the history of our country, and we have the most incompetent, simultaneously, the most incompetent president.”)
See Trump administration (2016-2020)