(LifeSiteNews) — Flouting the GOP primary presidential debate, former president and current Republican frontrunner in the 2024 election, Donald Trump, sat down with conservative media superstar Tucker Carlson for a long-form interview that aired Wednesday.
The interview, posted by Carlson on X, formerly Twitter, began with Carlson asking the former president why he chose not to attend the GOP debate, which began at 9 p.m. Eastern, just five minutes after the 8:55 p.m. release of his interview.
Ep. 19 Debate Night with Donald J Trump pic.twitter.com/ayPfII48CO
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) August 24, 2023
Answering the question, Trump mentioned that cable news has lost all of its credibility, and with his massive lead in the polls, he felt it completely unnecessary to join the stage with people who he thinks have no business running for president – and who he thinks have no ability to win.
Immediately getting into controversial territory, Trump talked about how if he becomes president in 2024 he will be able to get more done than in his first term as he is now more aware of how Washington, D.C. operates. Specifically, Trump mentioned his dislike for former Attorney General Bill Barr and his handling of the 2020 election.
Honing in on Barr, Carlson asked Trump if he agrees with the former attorney general that notorious billionaire financier and child trafficker Jeffrey Epstein truly “killed himself” while being detained in a New York jail.
Tiptoeing around the question, Trump seemed unwilling to say that Epstein did not kill himself but admitted that it is “possible” he was “killed” and that “he knew a lot on a lot of people.”
Turning to the litany of indictments levied against Trump in recent months, Carlson went through the timeline of opposition Trump has faced in his political career, starting with the protests against him in 2015 and 2016 prior to his election, the two impeachments while he was president, and the four indictments filed against him since he left office.
“The next stage is violence,” Carlson opined. “Are you worried that they [the establishment] are going to try and kill you? Why wouldn’t they try and kill you? Honestly?”
“They’re savage animals,” Trump replied. “They are people that are sick, really sick. You have great people in the Democrat Party … I represent everybody, I’m the president of everybody, but I’ve seen what they do, I’ve seen the lengths that they go to … these people are sick people … I think they hate our country if you wanna know the truth.”
“When you see open borders, when you see these policies they have and so many other things, it is so sad to see,” he continued, adding that despite all of this, Trump thinks there is more “spirit” among the American people now than ever.
Talking about President Joe Biden, Trump argued that “Crooked Joe” is a massively corrupt politician and that he is so mentally and physically weak he finds it unlikely Biden will even be able to run in 2024.
Carlson asked who then would replace the Biden as the Democrat candidate, to which Trump replied that he is unsure whether the Democrats will stick with Vice President Kamala Harris or allow an open field to bring in someone more competitive and competent.
Going back to his question about whether Trump fears he may be killed, Trump commended the American people for “getting it,” noting that despite the slew of indictments against him, which would normally derail a political campaign, polling data continues to show that Trump remains the GOP favorite for the upcoming election.
“It’s all bull****,” Trump stated, commenting on one of his indictments regarding the alleged mishandling of classified documents, reminding the audience that Biden himself was caught with classified documents in his garage.
The remainder of the wide-ranging interview had Carlson and Trump dive deeper on domestic and foreign issues, including the surge in Chinese global dominance, the impact radical climate policies are having and will have on America’s power grid, the Hunter Biden laptop story, his former vice president and current rival Mike Pence, and the irregularities in the 2020 presidential election.