Former President Donald Trump defied the Republican National Committee by not participating in the first presidential debate on Wednesday and instead opted for a wide-ranging pre-recorded interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson.
In the interview, which was broadcast simultaneously with the GOP debate, President Trump spoke of the challenges he faced as president and now as a candidate, as well as what his priorities would be if elected again.
Trump who ran as an outsider in 2016 proved in his interview with Tucker that he remains a Washington outsider, questioning the powers of the federal bureaucracy and vowing to challenge orthodoxies when it comes to things such as environmental regulations, foreign policy, the economy, and election integrity.
Mr. Carlson asked, twice, whether President Trump thinks that he might be the target of an assassination attempt, considering that nothing else has succeeded in defeating him.
Attempts to impeach President Trump failed twice during his presidency, 2017-21; in recent months, his popularity among Republican voters has only escalated in the wake of four criminal indictments as he seeks to become his party’s nominee for a third time in the 2024 election.
“They can indict you 20 times, and you’re not going to lose the Republican primary,” Mr. Carlson said.
President Trump replied: “It makes it look even more ridiculous, the four indictments. Maybe there’ll be more; I don’t know. These people are crazy.”
The former president sidestepped the assassination question, but said that the people who are out to get him are “savage animals.”
The prospect of an assassination attempt is particularly raw now, considering that in Ecuador, libertarian candidate Fernando Villavicencio, was killed earlier this. month. In addition, the son of a slain U.S. politician, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is seeking to unseat the Democrat U.S. president, Joe Biden.
Meanwhile, considering deep political divides over various issues, including whether the 2020 election was stolen from President Trump and wrongfully awarded to President Joe Biden, Mr. Carlson asked whether the nation might be headed toward “open conflict,” or a second Civil War. “We seem to be moving toward something,” Mr. Carlson said.
By Janice Hisle
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