Donald Trump gave an interview to NBC ahead of the Superbowl – and god only knows what they’re holding back for the pregame. Here’s all the wildest things that have happened in Trumpworld in the last 24 hours
When US news networks interview the President ahead of the Super Bowl, they usually split the chat in two – holding some of it back to air just before the big game.
The clips already running from NBC’s interview with Donald Trump last night have us wondering what the hell they’re saving up for Sunday…
It’s one of the wildest interviews of a sitting politician I’ve ever seen – with the President making gaffe after gaffe, the least of which would be the end of any other politician in history.
We’ll go through it in quite some detail below buckle up.
Meanwhile, in Trumpworld
- He moans ICE killings got him ‘bad publicity’
- He claimed his polls are great. They are not
- He won’t commit to respecting the midterms result
Here’s what you need to know
1. Trump argues he has the right to use the Justice department to go after his enemies
Before we get to the mad interview, this morning Trump has been speaking at the annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, which for some reason, he took both Félix Tshisekedi, the President of the Congo and Nayib Bukele, the President of El Salvador to.
Doing one of his voices, Trump complained that people keep saying “Donald Trump is using the Justice department to get even”.
“And I don’t,” he claimed, falsely. “But …wouldn’t I have a right to? Think of it, there’s never been a President in history who’s been treated like I got treated.”
There’s also never been a President in history who has been caught committing so many crimes, so…
2. Trump moans that ‘two people’ got him ‘bad publicity’ in Minneapolis – and then it got weird
During the NBC interview, Trump complained that he hates talking about ICE because “two people out of tens of thousands, OK, and you get bad publicity.”
Host Tom Llamas started to point out that the two people he was referring to – Renee Good and Alex Pretti, who were shot dead by ICE officials in Minneapolis – were American citizens.
Then Trump randomly pivoted to murderers, then drugs, and then water.
“Nobody talks about all of the murderers who were taken out of our country. They don’t talk about we have the smallest drugs,” he said. “As an example…we’ve been very tough on the waters, and soon, pretty much, overall.”
Llamas said: “…the waters?”
He said: “If you look at the waters where we knock out boats.”
Alright, Mr President.
3. Meanwhile, here’s what JD Vance had to say to the family of Alex Pretti
Earlier, JD Vance was asked in an interview if he would like to apologise to the family of Alex Pretti.
“For what?” The Vice President of the United States said.
The interviewer deadpanned: “For, you know, labelling him an assassin with ill intent.”
“Well, I just described to you what I said about Alex Pretti, which is that he’s a guy who showed up with ill intent to an ICE protest.”
“But if it’s determined his civil rights were violated,” the interviewer tried again… “will you apologise?”
Vance, a human being, sighed at the concept of apologising to a grieving family, before saying: “If this hypothetical leads to that hypothetical will I do a thing?”
He went on to say “we’re going to let the investigation” play out.
So just so we’re absolutely clear, the administration still isn’t willing to admit that Alex Pretti was not a would-be assassin trying to kill ICE agents.
4. Trump says it’s OK for him to sue the government for $10 billion because he would ‘give it to charity’
Trump claimed “essentially” his lawsuit against the IRS – America’s equivalent of HMRC – has been “won”, which isn’t true. The lawsuit was only filed last Thursday. It only got a judge assigned on Friday. It could be months before it sees the inside of a courtroom.
Unless of course, what he means that because he also controls the IRS, they won’t fight it and will just pay him two thirds of their annual budget. Which would be constitutionally as well as financially abhorrent.
Anyway, he claims he’ll give it “100% to charity”. Which absolutely does not make it better. As Llamas points out, he would still be taking $10 billion out of the federal government’s budget, to funnel to whatever “charity” he sees fit.
Let’s look for a moment at Trump’s history with charitable donations.
First up, he does genuinely give his $400k a year salary to charity – although so far those have been direct grants to various government departments, like the National Parks service, the Department of Education (which he wants to abolish), and the Department of Health and Human Services.
Beyond that, his philanthropy is relatively rare… He gave $1m to veterans groups in 2016, $100k to the 9/11 memorial museum, and made a donation to the New York Rescue Workers Detoxification Fund in 2006.
In 2019 he was forced to give $2m to charity in restitution after a judge found he had misused funds from his own charitable foundation. And over the years he’s claimed about $60m in tax deductions for “in kind” charitable giving – which includes land use agreements where he’s promised not to develop land in Mar a Lago and New York, and has frequently listed “free rounds of golf” or the use of his facilities for charity auctions as personal charitable contributions.
Llamas asked: “38 trillion in debt and we’re taking 10 billion out of the system?”
Trump replied: “I mean, you give it away anyway.”
So yeah, look forward to seeing where that $10 billion goes.
5. Trump claims his polls are great. They absolutely are not
“I’m starting to get great polls on the economy,” Trump said in the NBC interview.
Llamas, to his great credit, pointed out that they are “not great.”
About 72% of US adults rate economic conditions in the US as ‘fair’ or ‘poor’, according to a Pew poll taken at the end of last month.
“They should be great,” Trump said.
Llamas said: “They should be? So why aren’t they, if you believe that.”
Trump replied: “I don’t know. I don’t know…”
6. Trump claims he ‘doesn’t know’ why Tulsi Gabbard was in charge of the election HQ raid
Asked why National Security director Tulsi Gabbard was put in charge of the FBI raid of the election HQ in Georgia, Trump insisted “I don’t know” and claimed he has “nothing to do with it.”
Gabbard and Karoline Leavitt kind of already stepped on this by confirming that she was in charge of the job at Trump’s personal request.
He went on to justify her involvement thus: “…but you know, a lot of the cheating comes from…it’s international cheating.”
He went on: “We have to have honest elections. There should be nothing wrong with the fact that they went in, got ballots from a while ago, and they’re going to look at them. And they’re going to find out the true winner of that state.”
Given the ballots have already been recounted twice, and audited independently, if the people counting them this time came to a different result, we’re going to need to see some receipts.
Also, it doesn’t sound much like he has “nothing to do with it,” does it?
7. This, surely, cannot be the reason
There’s whispers going around the crazy MAGA grapevine that the reason Gabbard has been placed in charge of proving the 2020 election was stolen from Trump is because the plan is to get former Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro – currently in US detention – to cough to attempting to rig it.
Most people would agree this would be an absolutely insane turn of events, and would mean Trump had invaded a country and kidnapped its leader in order to pin false allegations of election fraud on him so he can cast doubts on the 2026 and 2028 elections in advance.
8. He won’t commit to respecting the result of the midterm elections
Asked to confirm he’d accept the result of the midterms even if it meant heavy losses for the Republican party, Trump said: “I will…if the elections are honest.”
If that sounds familiar to you, it’s because it’s very similar to what he said in the first debate of the 2020 election campaign, where he was asked to pledge not to claim victory until the result was certified: “I hope it’s going to be a fair election. If it’s a fair election, I am 100% on board. But if I see tens of thousands of ballots being manipulated, I can’t go along with that.”
And nothing bad happened after that, right?
9. Vance says CNN reporter should “smile” and “have some fun” while asking questions about Epstein victims
You’ll recall the other day Trump absolutely lost it in the Oval Office, when CNN’s Kaitlan Collins asked him about the Epstien files.
Trump lashed out, complaining that she never smiles. She pointed out that she was asking a question about survivors of America’s most notorious paedophile, but that nuance seemed to escape him.
It also, apparently, escaped real human being JD Vance, who was asked about it by fellow human Meghan Kelly last night: “There was a moment in the Oval Office…where he was talking to Kaitlan Collins, the CNN anchor…she’s asking a question when the President says: “Why don’t you ever smile?”…And it’s actually, like sooo perspective, even if you’re asking a tough question, even if you take your job seriously, why does it have to be so antagonistic?”
He added: “Just…have some fun.”