The 39 most outlandish lines from Donald Trump's interview with Sean Hannity
Whoa boy.
While in Iowa on Thursday, Donald Trump sat for an interview1 with Fox News Sean Hannity.
I went through the transcript of their back and forth and pulled out the lines you need to see. They’re below.
“It was a little nasty out, but it's Iowa. It's a beautiful place. When it rains, it's beautiful”
They should put this on the state license plate. “Iowa: When it rains, it’s beautiful.” And away we go!
“And I love Iowa. We won both times by a lot.”
Left unsaid: Trump lost the 2016 Iowa caucuses to Ted Cruz. He never admitted defeat, claiming the election was rigged against him. He never provided any evidence to back up those claims. Sound familiar?
“You become president, and you're sort of not allowed to do that. But it's happened. It's happened, and it's happened pretty badly.”
This is Trump on Joe Biden tripping and falling at the Air Force Academy on Thursday. Apparently it “happened pretty badly.”
“We won't go into it, but we all know the ones. And they count those acts. You know, they never forget. But that was a bad fall.”
Huh?
“That was a mistake, because it didn't look so good. I even agree it was -- but I got killed.”
Trump is talking about his awkward walk down a ramp after a speech at West Point in 2020. (Which I wrote about back when I was at CNN.) Interesting — at least to me — that he says it was a mistake since, well, he never admits ever making mistakes.
“We have somebody that doesn't understand what's happening. And it's a very dangerous thing. It's a very bad thing, I mean, some really bad things.”
This is Trump’s response to Hannity asking him if Biden is mentally competent. And, yes, Trump is going to make an issue of this.
“My uncle was a great professor for many years at MIT. And I had somebody come down, and I say: ‘What would you say, like, during the debate about nuclear weapons?’ He looked at me, said: ‘Sir, don't talk about them.’”
“And what people -- what people don't know is that we have, I call it liquid gold, because it's gold. It's better than gold.”
“I’m an oilman, ladies and gentlemen…”
“We gave you the biggest tax cut in the history of our country, bigger than the Ronald Reagan tax cut.”
“It was like we had something going that -- and, within six months, we would have been dominant, because we would have taken over Europe.”
Wait, we were going to take over Europe? I feel like I should have heard more about this.
“I heard DeSanctus saying: Oh, well, I get eight years. I get eight years. He gets four. You don't need four, and you don't need eight. You need six months.”
So, Trump’s pushback to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis arguing that he would only be able to serve four years is that he only needs six months! To fix everything! And, remember that Trump said he would end the war in Ukraine in a single day!
“And, frankly, I wouldn't vote for him because he said, you need eight years. You need six months.”
It feels like Trump wouldn’t have voted for DeSantis anyway. But, I digress.
“When the energy comes down, other things come down. And we're going to take care of things.”
Don’t underestimate the appeal of Trump making blanket statements like “we are going to take care of things.” A big part of his appeal is tied to the notion that he will take care of all the problems the country faces. People want to believe that’s true — even if all available evidence suggests it is, well, not.
“We love our rallies.”
Yes, yes he does.
“What's happening to our country -- but in terms of doing it, you don't need eight years, and you don't need four years.”
Yes, you mentioned that. Also, does this mean Trump will resign after fixing all of the country’s problems in 6 months? If not, what is he going to do with the remaining three and a half years of his term?
“He wasn't going to do it, and I had conversation. And it was always the apple of his eye. I mean, I could see that. But I said, ‘You're not going do it. And if you do it, we're going to have problems like you've never had before.’”
In which Trump says, without any actual evidence, that if he had been reelected, Vladimir Putin would never have invaded Ukraine. So….
“I said things that were very bad, very nasty.”
He’s talking about what he said to Putin. But, really it applies to most of his presidency.
“But I don't think he believed me, but he believed me 10 percent. That's all he had to believe me. Five percent would be good enough.”
5% belief is enough. That’s the lesson here.
“We rebuilt our military. I rebuilt the military, with new jets, new everything. We had everything”
“I.”
“You know, our military is great, a lot of things going on with our military, with the woke and all this nonsense. They're not learning to fight and protect us from some very bad people. They want to go woke.”
Wait, so is the military “great” or is it being destroyed by the woke mind virus?
“I see letters that are being sent. It's horrible. I mean, it's really a serious problem.”
[raises hand] Um, what letters?
“We added Space Force. Everyone said, ‘Oh, Space Force, what is that all about?’”
“That's a good thing, isn't it? I think, pretty good.”
That’s Trump responding to Hannity noting that the Republican field is getting bigger and bigger. Which is a VERY good thing for Trump because it splits up the anti-Trump vote into a bunch of small parts.
“I call him Ada Hutchinson. I don't call him Asa. I call him Ada Hutchinson. I gave him a little name for some reason -- for certain reasons.”
I wish I knew the reasons.
“You know, I really go after the one who's second.”
Trump has relentlessly attacked DeSantis, who is running in second in most of the polling on the race. Trump is a blunt instrument; he sees what is the most direct threat to him and systematically tries to destroy it. Not a lot of three dimensional chess here.
“All I know is this -- everything I did was right.”
Same.
“[Biden] had seven or eight boxes in Chinatown in Washington, D.C., where nobody even speaks English in Chinatown. Chinatown is very -- it's in favor of China and he has boxes in Chinatown.”
Chinatown is “in favor of China.” Everyone knows that.
“And then nobody wanted to do anything because they say, you know, Trump didn't do anything wrong.”
Terrific use of the third person here. Chris Cillizza approves.
“I was the worst thing -- Putin would say, you know, they say, you like me. He said, you are the worst guy that we've ever had to deal with.”
So, Trump was the worst thing ever for Putin but also Putin really liked him? World leaders! So fickle!
“I got rid of Roe v. Wade.”
“I.”
“Now, I will say, every once in a while, I watch somebody say, I did more for abortion, on abortion, and abortion rights, and pro-life, I did more than Trump -- well, only stupid people would say that because everyone said there was no way that Roe v. Wade was going to disappear, but because -- because it was very unfair.”
You’re not one of those stupid people, are you?
“The laptop has so much stuff on it, it's so bad, it's so evil, and yet they don't want to do anything.”
“Evil?” Read this on Hunter’s laptop.
“Like, they spied on my campaign.”
“What they did is so bad, and they have been caught.”
“That's why the veterans love Trump. We did a great job.”
Self congratulatory third person is the best third person!
“I rebuilt our military, but we have to rebuild it again.”
“I.”
“I'll stop that war in 24 hours.”
People applauded this. But, like, how?
“I will get them into a room, and they will -- and I know an exact way.”
This is how Trump will end the war in 24 hours — get Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a room. Um, ok.
“I'll have that -- this country will be hopping in six months.”
“Hopping!” Yeah, this feels like a good place to end.
I use the term “interview” very lightly here. Hannity was more cheerleader than interviewer throughout the proceedings.
Oh my aching head! Please, somebody put this man in prison ... I cannot possibly stand another 4 years with him in charge! In the words of Forrest Gump, "Stupid is as stupid does" and Donald Trump is the personification of stupid!
And people point at Biden and say, “look, he’s senile.” Trump is the personification of unmoored and delusional.