What is “The Right Way To Lead Life”?

When a philosopher goes wrong, he can go really wrong

by Roger Kimball for American Greatness

In a famous passage of Plato’s Republic, Socrates admonishes his young friend Glaucon (who, incidentally, was also Plato’s older brother) that what they are talking about “is no ordinary business, but the right way to lead one’s life.”

Talking about “the right way to lead life”—if not, alas, actually doing it—has always been philosophy’s trump card, its highest purpose, the reason, deep down, we put up with the philosopher’s woolliness, his maddening jargon, his intellectual arrogance. We suspect that he might just have something important to tell us about how to live—or how not to live—our lives.

We’re right about that. But it must also be said that when a philosopher goes wrong, he can go really wrong. Some of the loopiest things ever said about life, the universe, and everything have been said by philosophers.

It is not just intellectually that philosophers can go wrong. There is something about the grandness of the philosophical enterprise—laying down the law about what is and what isn’t wisdom—that gives a certain kind of philosopher a sweet tooth for political tyranny.

Plato himself famously flirted with Dionysius, the tyrant of Syracuse. And in our own time there is the example of the German philosopher Martin Heidegger (1889-1976).

There are two widely divergent opinions about Heidegger.

One camp holds that Heidegger was one of the greatest philosophers of the 20th century, a philosophical giant whose inquiries into the nature of Being made him a worthy heir of Kant.

The other camp holds that Heidegger was one of the greatest philosophical charlatans of the 20th century, a man hopelessly addicted to mystification and obfuscating polysyllabic word-play.

I know it sounds paradoxical (not to say self-contradictory), but I believe that both camps have a point. I believe that Heidegger really was a deep thinker. I also think he was a deliberately mystifying one.

Someday I may come back to that controversy. But today, I want to concentrate on Heidegger’s performance as a public person, a philosopher in the glare of the public realm. Considered from this point of view, as a political figure, Heidegger does not merit very good grades.

At the center of Heidegger’s thought is the issue of “authenticity” [Eigentlichkeit]. But what does acting “authentically” involve? It would take a brave man to summarize what Heidegger thought about that question. But we know from Being and Time (1927), his most famous book, that it involved “resoluteness” [Entschlossenheit] and being able to think for oneself, making hard decisions unswayed by the crowd.

Measured by this criterion, how authentic was Heidegger’s own life? For most of us, thank goodness, momentous moral decisions are few and far between.

But sometimes public events conspire to confront individuals with life-defining decisions. When the Nazis came to power in 1933, many people in Germany found themselves in this position. Heidegger was one of them.

Near the end of April, 1933, Heidegger was elected rector of Freiburg University. In May, he became a member of the Nazi party (a membership he never formally renounced).

Hitler, who had become chancellor in January, was already busily pursuing his program of Gleichschaltung—“unification” or reconstruction—which aimed at bringing all aspects of German life, not least German academic life, into line with the ideals of the National Socialist state.

In March of ’33, a fitting symbol of those ideals appeared near Dachau: the Nazi’s first concentration camp was publicly opened under the direction of “Acting Police-President of the City of Munich,” Heinrich Himmler.

Heidegger’s tenure as rector lasted less than a year. In statements he made after the war, Heidegger presented himself as a brave soul trying to rescue the German university from intellectual mediocrity on the one hand and Nazi ideologues on the other.

It is true that Heidegger did not always behave in a way calculated to please his Nazi masters. He appointed some Jewish deans, for example, and forbade a scheduled book-burning of “decadent” literature.

But such actions cannot exonerate Heidegger from the charge of collaboration with the Nazis. Nor do they excuse his subsequent evasiveness about his statements and behavior as rector. Indeed, Heidegger’s evasiveness and obfuscations, patent throughout his retrospective interpretations of his rectorate, contribute greatly to making the entire episode so repugnant.

Then there is the evidence of the 34 Schwarze Hefte, the notorious “black notebooks” into which he jotted down thoughts on various subjects from the early 1930s through the early 1970s. Among other things, the notebooks are full of reflections about “the role of world Jewry” whose anti-Semitic character is not exonerated by being expressed in the language of capital “B” “Being.”

Germany’s students, Heidegger said in an address he delivered on becoming Rector, are “on the march.” Their “bond” to the new order would henceforth express itself in a threefold service to the community: in labor service, armed service, and “knowledge” service. Some commentators have observed that Heidegger’s notion of the three services here alludes to Plato’s discussion of the three parts of the soul in The Republic.

No doubt this true. But it is also irrelevant. As many have pointed out, what Heidegger was engaged in here was propaganda for Hitler and the Nazi regime. The same holds true for other key terms in the address. When Heidegger used the term “Volk,” he was no doubt drawing on a tradition whose roots run to the philosopher Johann Herder and the poet Hölderlin.

But in the context of his rectoral address, the term recalls not the nationalism of eighteenth- and nineteenth-century German romanticism but the virulent racial fantasies of twentieth-century Nazism. To pretend otherwise is mendacious pedantry. The point is that our words and actions acquire meaning not in a vacuum but in a particular social and historical context. To bracket that context is to miss the truth of the words and actions. The word “bourgeois,” for example, meant one thing in nineteenth-century France, quite another in Stalin’s Russia.

In the address, Heidegger tells us that his three services will “coalesce” and become one force.  Students and teachers, he writes, “confront one another, ready for battle [Kampf].”  He later noted the influence of Ernst Junger, author of the notorious Der Arbeiter with its glorification of war, on this passage. But in an interview he gave after the war, Heidegger claims to have mentioned armed service “neither in a militaristic, nor in an aggressive sense. . . I understood defense as self-defense.” The attitude of the address is “oriented towards ’battle’,” he admits, but “’Battle’ is thought in the sense of Heraclitus, fragment 53.”

It is worth dwelling on this suggestion if only to appreciate the full force of Heidegger’s breathtaking evasiveness. A literal translation of the Heraclitus fragment is “War [πόλεμος] is father of all things, king of all things, and reveals some to be gods, others men, makes some slaves, others free.”

Heidegger tells us that “πόλεμος” really means “ἔρις”, a term that can mean “war” but is more usually translated as “conflict” or “strife.” Further, he says, “πόλεμος” is not to be understood in the sense of real conflict, but as “confrontation-that-sets-those- who-confront-one-another-apart, so that in such setting apart the essential being of those who confront one another exposes itself. . . [and] enters into what is unconcealed and true.”

Really? Heidegger’s idiosyncratic translation of Heraclitus may give us insight into the mysteries of pre-Socratic thought; then again it may not. But the point here is that, pace Heidegger, πόλεμος means “war,” as in the Trojan War, the Thirty Years War, the Second World War. It is not a “setting apart” that lets Being appear but an activity in which large numbers of real people systematically kill and maim each other.

But more important is Heidegger’s complete unwillingness to take responsibility for his statements. To speak of “battle” in Freiburg in 1933 is not to conjure up Heraclitus, fragment 53, but legions of goose-stepping men in brown shirts.

There is no doubt that Heidegger soon realized that his adventure in public life had gone disastrously awry. But in some ways, his subsequent withdrawal from political activity was even more questionable than his brief period of political engagement.

For Heidegger, mirabile dictu, the problem was that the Nazis had betrayed the promise that was inherent in the ideals of National Socialism. In his view, National Socialism itself, which he saw as a force that challenged the uprooting progress of technology, articulated a noble, if unworkable, ideal. Thus in the 1953 edition of An Introduction to Metaphysics, he retained his remark from the original 1935 edition about the “inner truth and greatness” of National Socialism consisting in “the encounter between global technology and modern man.” Heidegger point is that the dominance of technology in modern life is so complete that neither philosophy nor “any human contemplation and striving”—least of all the modern, democratic state—can direct or curtail its depredations.

The authentic response to technology, he thought, is no longer Entschlossenheit, “resolve” that expresses itself in particular choices and actions, but Gelassenheit, “letting be,” an attitude of waiting and listening in which one does nothing, but remains open to the fugitive voice of Being. The task of thought may be to limit the dominance of technology, but Heidegger, for one, despaired of thought’s power to help: “Only a god can save us now,” he lamented.

Yet once again, there is an exasperating evasiveness about Heidegger’s posture. For while he admitted making “mistakes” during his rectorate, he never once publicly acknowledged the enormity of the evil he was party to. Nor did he ever repudiate his involvement as rector of Freiburg University. To adduce “the planetary movement of modern technology” does nothing to absolve him of this responsibility.

Whatever the merits of Heidegger’s analysis of modern technology, there is something repulsive—as well as deeply unphilosophical—about his use of high-minded philosophical language in the face of the most brutal reality of our time. Far from revealing the underlying truth of the situation, Heidegger’s language occludes it. And just as Heidegger escaped from confronting the reality of Nazism by filtering it through the transformative syllables of his philosophy, so he sought to escape from the reality of the modern world, essentially shaped as it is by science and technology, by placing it beyond the competence of thought.

It is a sad irony that Heidegger, a philosopher who began by speaking eloquently about authenticity and the importance of attending to the elusive whisperings of reality, should have proven to be so deaf when reality burst in upon him with the harsh and agonizingly real strains of tyranny.

X22, Christian Patriot News, and more -Sept 18

 

Defending America From Slippery Authoritarian Slopes

The Left are the ones with no regard for our Constitutional Republic or the principles of American freedom

by Keith Gross for American Greatness

The Left insists that “democracy” is on the ballot and that Republicans want to subvert elections, claiming that Trump supporters are racist domestic terrorists and authoritarians. And yet, the events of the last few years have proven the truth to be quite the opposite. Between large-scale collusion to unconstitutionally destroy and remove a president, the subversion of elections with unconstitutional “emergency” restrictions, and massive campaigns to unconstitutionally censor truth, it would seem the Left are the ones with no regard for our Constitutional Republic or the principles of American freedom. What’s really on the ballot is the protection of our nation from the slippery slopes of corruption, collusion, and authoritarianism. That is why I am endorsing Donald Trump and will stand by him between these slippery authoritarian slopes and American freedoms.

The massive campaign to interfere with and undermine Trump’s presidency was one of the reasons I felt motivated to run for public office. The people elected him to implement certain America First policies, cut bureaucratic red tape, expose corruption, and protect our fundamental rights. We didn’t get what we voted for because entire governmental organizations mobilized to prevent those efforts, with no regard for legalities or the will of the people.

Even before he took office, the constitution was seemingly thrown out the window when an establishment political candidate, a secret court, the DOJ, and the intelligence community colluded to fabricate evidence and illegally wiretap a duly elected president. With no real judicial process and under a heavy cloak of secrecy, some of our nation’s most powerful political figures went to great lengths to distract from and derail Trump’s presidency and manipulate the American people.

After several years and millions of taxpayer dollars had been wasted targeting the President through sham investigations and impeachment hoaxes, the only thing the Big Government complex managed to prove was that the corrupt Deep State runs DC and that some of America’s most basic constitutional freedoms are at risk. Despite so many lies and so much criminal corruption by so many powerful people, we saw little accountability.

Perhaps we shouldn’t have been surprised that after facing no accountability for their criminal corruption, they continued to persecute and prosecute Trump, and even launched a massive censorship campaign to protect the Biden family from having their own rampant criminal corruption exposed ahead of the election. Not only would the Hunter Biden laptop story have validated Trump’s concerns about Ukrainian government corruption (the ridiculous basis for the first impeachment hoax), but it surely would have impacted the outcome of the 2020 election. In an impressively coordinated effort they claimed was “fortifying” the election, Big Government, Big Tech, and Big Media colluded to censor truth and influence an election by manipulating the American people.

It isn’t just the blatant censorship of the Hunter Biden laptop story that should outrage Americans. It’s also the blatant and unconstitutional censorship of information regarding Covid, another tool weaponized by the Left to influence the outcome of the election and exert authoritarian control. Big Government, Big Tech, and Big Media again colluded, this time to terrify and trick Americans into compliance. They carefully curated Covid information by silencing dissent, punishing noncompliance, and discouraging reasonable discourse, while simultaneously coordinating a massive propaganda campaign for their preferred Covid narratives and enacting unconstitutional policies.

Again, after years of this criminal collusion, we discovered that much of what we were told was false, and they knew it at the time. Again, we have yet to see any substantive accountability for those who were complicit in destroying our economy, damaging our youth, and restricting our freedoms. But what’s new?

Our nation was built upon a set of values and principles that both encourage and safeguard freedoms. These values are being targeted by corrupt authoritarians, as are the people in this country who represent and defend those values. It should terrify everyone to consider that if they can—and will—do this to Trump, they can—and will—do it to any American. That is why I am standing in defense of the Constitution, American freedom, and the fundamental values and principles which are essential to our nation’s greatness.

Unlike Rick Scott, who surrounds himself with never-Trumpers like Jeb Bush and refuses to defend those being targeted in the unconstitutional attacks and partisan manipulation campaigns of the last few years, I am determined to stand up to it all. We deserve a Senator who acts to protect these freedoms, not one who only wakes up to say the right things because it’s an election year. I will speak out in defense of those who are unjustly targeted and condemn the obvious corruption behind the attacks. I see the slippery slope of authoritarianism and I fear for the future of American freedom. While others play the games and toe the lines of politics, I will place myself squarely between this slippery authoritarian slope and my fellow Americans, in defense of the freedoms we so richly enjoy.

Navy Puts the Kibosh on Digital Recruiting Program After Discovering Enlistees Aren’t into Drag Queens

Shawn Fleetwood reporting for The Federalist 

The U.S. Navy confirmed on Tuesday it has discontinued an online recruiting initiative featuring an enlisted drag queen that was aimed at bringing new sailors into the service.

In May, The Daily Caller revealed that the Navy brought on Yeoman 2nd Class Joshua Kelley — an active-duty drag queen who goes by the stage name Harpy Daniels and identifies as non-binary — to be a “Navy Digital Ambassador.” The Digital Ambassador Pilot Program, which ran from October 2022 to March 2023, was reportedly “designed to explore the digital environment to reach a wide range of potential candidates” for military recruitment.

In a letter sent to Sen. Tommy Tuberville, R-Ala., on Tuesday, Erik Raven, the under secretary of the Navy, confirmed that the branch’s Digital Ambassador Pilot Program “will not be continued.”

“The Navy learned lessons from the pilot program that will inform our digital engagement and outreach going forward,” Raven wrote. “Our digital outreach efforts will maintain the important distinction between Sailors’ official activities and their personal lives.”

Tuberville — who sits on the Senate Armed Services Committee — previously sent a letter to Admiral Michael M. Gilday, the chief of Naval Operations, in May, demanding to know the identities of the officers tasked with funding and promoting drag queen shows aboard naval vessels. The letter was sent the same day the Alabama senator and his Republican colleagues submitted a separate communique to Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro on the branch’s embrace of Daniels and whether Navy leadership is encouraging its “digital ambassadors” and public affairs personnel to use TikTok — which the Pentagon banned its members from using on government-issued devices — “on their personal devices” in order to skirt the agency’s prohibition.

In his Tuesday letter to Tuberville, Raven claimed the Navy followed existing guidelines restricting the use of TikTok and that while some sailors partaking in the digital ambassador program “had [a] personal social media presence on TikTok,” the branch did not issue government devices for purposes of participating in the venture. Raven further contended the branch will “continue to communicate” to its members the “national security risks associated with their use of TikTok on personal devices.”

The Navy’s embrace of Daniels — which generated backlash among many military veterans — comes amid the branch’s failure to meet existing recruiting targets. On Thursday, acting Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Lisa Franchetti confirmed that the Navy is expected to miss its fiscal year 2023 recruiting goals by roughly 7,000 sailors. The revelation came days after the Air Force announced it would miss its “active-duty recruiting goals for the first time since 1999.”

The U.S. Army and Coast Guard are also expected to miss their respective fiscal year 2023 recruiting targets.

RFK Jr. Pulls No Punches in Open Letter to DNC, Says They've 'Succumbed to the Siren of Control'

Ward Clark reporting for RedState 

Democrat Presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. recently penned an open letter to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), and he is pulling no punches. It's refreshing to see this kind of rhetoric from a Democrat:

Throughout the modern era, the Democratic Party fought back against censorship, upheld civil liberties, resisted corporate influence, and sought to enfranchise as many voters as possible. The Democratic party truly lived up to its name — the party of democracy, the party of the people.

Unfortunately, in recent years our party leaders have succumbed to the siren of control. They have compromised the defining democratic principle of one person, one vote through repeated interference in the primary elections. They have hijacked the party machinery and, in recent years, directed the power of censorship onto their political opponents, raising political victory onto the altar in place of honest democracy.

Hint: He's not just talking about himself. That second paragraph will resonate with many on the right, as well; journalists who have been denied access to public officials, even private parties who have had accounts canceled and shadow-banned, sometimes at the direct request of leftist politicians.

Kennedy continues:

Equally disheartening is the DNC’s refusal to hold debates. The matter of precedent is spurious, as there has been no serious primary challenge to an incumbent in more than 40 years. (Although Al Gore, a sitting vice-president, did debate challengers in 2000.) Voters deserve — and democracy requires — a competitive process by which to determine nominees. It should be a party’s voters who choose a candidate, not party insiders who anoint one.

The DNC and the Joe Biden campaign have essentially merged into one unit, financially and strategically, despite the promise of neutrality in its charter and bylaws. The DNC is not supposed to favor one candidate over another. It is supposed to oversee a fair, democratic selection process, and then support the candidate that its voters choose.

Kennedy is correct in this; primary challenges to a sitting POTUS are rare on both sides. Ronald Reagan challenged Gerald Ford in 1976; in 1980, meanwhile, RFK Jr.'s uncle Ted Kennedy challenged Jimmy Carter for the Democrat nomination. Those were serious challenges, but in both, the incumbent walked away with the nomination. Most primary challenges in POTUS races have been pro forma, ending almost before they began.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s primary challenge to doddering old Joe Biden is more serious. Not only is President Biden increasingly infirm, his Presidency has been an economic disaster. He's ripe for being booted out of office, but the DNC seems, as Mr. Kennedy points out, determined to keep him as the candidate in the 2024 race.

And, as I wrote earlier Sunday, things aren't looking good for him in that contest.

RFK Jr. is perfectly correct to be calling the DNC on the carpet. We saw them try these same shenanigans on Bernie Sanders in 2016 and 2020, and it worked. The daffy old Bolshevik from Vermont proved to be conflict-adverse, especially after his sudden acquisition of a couple of lakefront estates. But Robert F. Kennedy Jr. seems to be pushing back harder; he's clearly not going to go quietly into the night.

Mr. Kennedy concludes:

I write to you now in the hope that you hold the engine of democracy as sacred as I do. I pray that, at a time of public discontent, you cede more power to the public, not less, and thereby do right by yourselves, by the American people, and by the ideal of self-determination that inaugurated our great nation.

In service of a more perfect union.

It's probably too late. It would be better for the electorate, of course, if the DNC was honest, fair, and above board. But it's increasingly obvious that the ship has already sailed.

Meet The Covid-Obsessed Biden Nominee Who Thinks You Should Suffer for Not Getting an Experimental Shot

Shawn Fleetwood reporting for The Federalist 

Alabama Sen. Tommy Tuberville has caught a lot of flak from Democrats, legacy media (I repeat myself), and establishment Republicans for his ongoing protest of the Pentagon’s abortion policy. To stop the Pentagon from using U.S. taxpayer money to cover military members’ travel expenses to get abortions, the Republican senator has used his position on the Senate Armed Services Committee to slow-walk President Biden’s military nominations, leading to a backlog of pending promotions.

While Tuberville’s critics have baselessly claimed his protest is harming “military readiness,” a deep dive into the background of nominees such as Navy Rear Adm. (lower half) Derek Trinque shows just how valid the senator’s protest is.

In a thread posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, on Wednesday, the American Accountability Foundation revealed how Trinque — whose promotion was announced by the Defense Department in February — has routinely promoted radical, left-wing views and denigrated those who hold non-leftist opinions, particularly as it relates to Covid.

On Aug. 17, 2021, for example, Trinque “endorsed” an Aug. 2, 2021, New York Times article that encouraged insurance companies to “penaliz[e]” individuals who chose not to get the Covid shot. The tweet came a day after Trinque lamented Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s Aug. 16, 2021, executive order allowing parents to opt their child out of their local school mask mandate.

In his tweet, Trinque wrote: “Sigh. We are never going to kick this thing.” Despite the rear admiral’s alarmism, children are the least at-risk demographic when it comes to Covid.

But Trinque’s obsession with Covid mandates didn’t stop there. In fact, the rear admiral was a big supporter of Biden’s military Covid vaccine mandate. He even recorded a video for the Navy encouraging his fellow sailors to get the experimental (and risky) jab months before the mandate was enacted.

“I can’t promise you that if you get the shot, you don’t have to wear a mask. I can’t promise you that you’ll be able to go to liberty ports,” Trinque said. “What I can tell you is that when you get immunized, you protect yourself, you protect those around you [and] you reduce the possibility that your unit will be rendered combat-ineffective by the pandemic.”

In addition to espousing other crazy thoughts about Covid, Trinque appears to be a big fan of Dr. Anthony Fauci. In response to a January 2021 Daily Mail article reporting that Fauci is the “HIGHEST PAID employee in the federal government,” the rear admiral claimed the report “appears to be a really weak attempt to make [him] feel bad” and further opined that Americans “are getting quite a bargain here.”

It’s not just Covid in which Trinque exemplifies left-wing radicalism, however. On numerous occasions, Trinque has displayed an obsession with tearing down Confederate monuments and installations named after Confederate figures. In a February 9, 2021, tweet, for instance, Trinque claimed “driving through the south can be depressing” due to the prevalence of “Confederate flags, Fort Lee, and JEB Stuart memorial highway.”

Regarding Marxist organizations such as Black Lives Matter, Trinque issued a tweet a few days after the Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol suggesting there is a “difference” between the latter and BLM’s violent rioting in the summer of 2020. He also demanded, “Leaders: your people need to hear from you re: the attack on the Capitol.”

In more recent months, the Biden nominee promoted an April 2022 press release from the Brooklyn Public Library announcing the launch of “Books Unbanned,” an initiative designed to combat parental efforts to keep pornographic works out of libraries and further legacy media’s phony “book ban” narrative. Trinque has since made his X account private, effectively barring the public from viewing his posts.

Full Interview Between President Trump and NBC Narrative Engineer Kristen Welker

Sundance reporting for Conservative Treehouse 

Chuck Todd was removed and replaced as the anchor of NBC’s Meet The Press. Todd was replaced by the culturally correct Kristen Welker, a fellow traveler from the tribe of Valerie Jarrett whose daughter Laura Jarrett is Welker’s sidekick.

If you followed the 2020 Super-Tuesday deal between Barack Obama (the Chicago Network that includes Oprah, and host of the ’24 Democrat National Convention), James Clyburn from South Carolina (now the #1 primary state for Democrats in 2024) and the Joe Biden family, then you will clearly see how the datapoints and roadmap aligns for 2024. {Go Deep} The NBC shift (Jarrett et al) was part of their corporate move in preparation for the 2024 election.

Welker kicks off her first day in the anchor chair with an interview with President Donald Trump.  The full interview is available in the video below.  The transcript of the segment that was edited and broadcast today is below the full video; there is a big difference.  WATCH: 

Transcript of Interview that aired – KRISTEN WELKER: When you talk about retribution, are you talking about directing your attorney general to try to go after your political enemies?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

When I talk about retribution, I’m talking about fairness. We have to treat people fairly. These people on January 6th, they went – some of them never even went into the building, and they’re being given sentences of, you know, many years.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Are you going to pardon those people –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

And nothing is happening.

KRISTEN WELKER:

– who’ve been convicted –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, I’m going to look at them, and I certainly might if I think it’s appropriate. No, it’s a very, very sad thing. And it’s – they’re dividing the country so badly, and it’s very dangerous.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Well, Mr. President, we’re going to delve into that a little bit later on, but I want to stay on this idea of what you mean by retribution. Are you looking to appoint an attorney general who will prosecute the people you tell them to prosecute?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I’m looking to appoint an attorney general who’s going to be tough on crime and fair. Very simple.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Speaker McCarthy announced that he was launching an impeachment inquiry this week into President Biden. Do you see this as a part of the retribution that you seek?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

No, not at all. I think, look, you look at the terrible things that have been happening with respect to Biden. Look at everything: Jamie Comer, Jim Jordan, who are fantastic people and very legitimate people. I watched Jamie Comer just a little while ago talking about a lot of different facets of what’s going on, and he was the one that said, “I guess there were – there were 12 things where it looks like it’s stone-cold guilty, and the gun charge is only one of the 12.” He said, “This is the only one that doesn’t implicate Joe Biden.”

KRISTEN WELKER:

So, but my question for you: Did you talk to Speaker McCarthy about this House impeachment inquiry?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

No, no. I don’t talk to him like that.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Did you tell him that he should open a House impeachment inquiry?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

No, no. I don’t do that. I don’t think he’d do that. I mean, he wouldn’t do it based on me, no.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Did you talk to your Republican allies on Capitol Hill and say, “You should support this impeachment inquiry”?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

No, I don’t have to talk – they’re more proactive than I am. They think it’s terrible.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Do you think Republican hardliners should abandon their threat to shut down the government over their spending priorities now that there is this impeachment inquiry?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

No. I think if they don’t get a fair deal – we have to save our country. We have $35 trillion in debt. We have to save our country. You know, the –

KRISTEN WELKER:

So, you would shut down the government? You’d support that?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I’d shut down the government if they can’t make an appropriate deal, absolutely.

KRISTEN WELKER:

You are facing four indictments, 91 felony charges.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

If you would say it properly, I’m facing four Biden indictments. He told the Justice Department to indict him, or Merrick Garland said, “Let’s indict him.”

KRISTEN WELKER:

Let me ask you this, Mr. President –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

They indicted their political opponent –

KRISTEN WELKER:

I just want to hear from you on this. I want to know what’s in your head. When you go to bed at night, do you worry about going to jail?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

No, I don’t really. I don’t even think about it. I’m built a little differently I guess, because I have had people come up to me and say, “How do you do it, sir? How do you do it?” I don’t even think about it. These are corrupt people that I’m dealing with. They’re destroying our country. I don’t even think about it. All I think about is making the country great, making America great. Look, these are political, these are banana republic indictments. These are third-world indictments. The president of the United States sees how we’re doing. We have a movement the likes of which has never happened in this country before. And you see it with the polls. I mean, I’m up on these people by 60 points and 59 points. And, I don’t mean I’m at 59, I’m leading them by 59. You almost say, like, “Why are they campaigning?” Asa Hutchinson, he’s at zero. Christie’s at two. Other ones are at one. DeSanctimonious is at nine. I just see a poll come – I mean, I’m leading him by 60 points.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Mr. President –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

And you say, “Why are they doing that?” But here’s what they did. They saw this happening, and he went to the attorney general of the United States, and he told them, “Indict Trump.”

KRISTEN WELKER:

There is just no evidence of that, Mr. President –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Oh why? Because you mean he’s honest –

KRISTEN WELKER:

But let’s, let’s stay on track –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Look at all the lies he’s told–

KRISTEN WELKER:

But Mr. President, I want to talk about you.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Kristen, wait a minute, wait, wait. Could I say one thing? Look at all the lies he’s told over the last couple of weeks. He said he was at the World Trade Center and he wasn’t. He said he flew airplanes, right? He didn’t. He said he drove trucks, and he didn’t. Everything he says is, like, a lie. It’s terrible.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Mr. President, I want –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Even his handicap in golf, he said he’s a six –

KRISTEN WELKER:

I want to stick –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

He’s not a six.

KRISTEN WELKER:

I want to stay focused on you, for the purposes of this interview –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Okay.

KRISTEN WELKER:

– okay? Because it’s important that we hear from you about all of this. Tell me –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, I’d like you to, but you keep interrupting me.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Tell me – Mr. President, tell me what you see when you look at your mugshot?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I see somebody that loves this country, and me, that loves this country. I see tremendous unfairness. I think very few people would have been able to handle what I handled.

KRISTEN WELKER:

By the way, do you think your former chief of staff, Mark Meadows, is still loyal to you? He just pleaded not guilty in the Georgia case.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, I hope he’s loyal to me.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Do you worry about him flipping?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I mean, I didn’t do anything wrong –

KRISTEN WELKER:

Do you worry about him –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I didn’t do anything wrong.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Okay. I want to ask you about the case related to Mar-a-Lago. A new charge suggests you asked a staffer to delete security camera footage so it wouldn’t get into the hands of investigators. Did you do that?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

That’s false.

KRISTEN WELKER

It’s false?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

That’s false, but let me tell you —

KRISTEN WELKER:

Would you testify to that under oath?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Sure. I’m going to. I’ll testify —

KRISTEN WELKER:

You’ll testify to that under oath?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

It’s a fake —

KRISTEN WELKER:

Okay.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– charge by this deranged lunatic prosecutor, who lost in the Supreme Court nine to nothing. And he tried to destroy lots of lives. He’s a lunatic. So it’s a fake charge. But, more importantly, the tapes weren’t deleted. In other words, there was nothing done to them. And they were my tapes. I could’ve fought them. I didn’t even have to give them the tapes, I don’t think. I think I would have won in court. When they asked for the tapes, I said, “Sure.” They’re my tapes. I could have fought them. I didn’t even have to give them. Just so you understand, though, we didn’t delete anything. Nothing was deleted.

KRISTEN WELKER:

So that’s false. The people who testified —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Number one, the statement is false. Much more importantly, when the tapes came, and everybody says this, they weren’t deleted. We gave them 100%.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Okay. Let’s —

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

And, and, and, just so you know, I offered them. I said, “If you want to look at tapes, you can look at them.”

KRISTEN WELKER:

Let’s move on to January 6th and the allegations that you tried to subvert the election. And, again, I just want to give you a chance to talk about this because voters want to hear about this. The most senior lawyers in your own administration and on your campaign told you that after you lost more than 60 legal challenges that it was over. Why did you ignore them and decide to listen to a new outside group of attorneys –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Because I didn’t respect them —

KRISTEN WELKER:

You’d hired them.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– as lawyers. Sure. But that doesn’t mean — you hire them, you never met these people. You get a recommendation. They turn out to be RINOs, or they turn out to be not so good. In many cases, I didn’t respect them. But I did respect others. I respected many others that said the election was rigged.

KRISTEN WELKER:

You called some of your outside lawyers – you said they had crazy theories. Why were you listening to them? Were you listening to them because they were telling you what you wanted to hear?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

You know who I listen to? Myself. I saw what happened. I watched that election, and I thought the election was over at 10 o’clock in the evening.

KRISTEN WELKER:

You were listening to your instincts?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

My instincts are a big part of it. That’s been the thing that’s gotten me to where I am, my instincts. But I also listen to people. There are many lawyers. I could give you many books. There are books that are written on how the election was rigged. There are numerous books that were written on how the election was rigged.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Just to be clear, were you listening to your lawyers’ advice, or were you listening to your own instincts?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I was listening to different people. And when I added it all up, the election was rigged. There are books that are written –

KRISTEN WELKER:

Were you calling the shots though?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

In fact, Mollie Hemingway wrote a great book –

KRISTEN WELKER:

But were you calling –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– called “Rigged” –

KRISTEN WELKER:

– the shots ultimately?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Excuse me. Mollie Hemingway, who’s highly respected and great, she wrote a book, a bestselling book called “Rigged.”

KRISTEN WELKER:

Were you calling the shots, though, Mr. President, ultimately?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

As to whether or not I believed it was rigged? Oh, sure.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Okay.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

It was my decision. But I listened to some people. Some people said that. Like, guys like Bill Barr, who was a stiff, but he wasn’t there at the time. But he didn’t do his job because he was afraid. You know what he was afraid of? He was afraid of being impeached. He was petrified to be impeached. And he – how do you not get impeached? Don’t do anything.

[END TAPE]

KRISTEN WELKER:

Now, as you just heard, former President Trump referred to the federal indictments against him as “Biden indictments.” The indictments have been charged by a special counsel. And according to the White House, President Biden has not spoken to the attorney general about them, and the White House found out about them from news reports. As for the impeachment inquiry, so far congressional investigators have not presented any evidence that President Biden has profited off of Hunter Biden’s business dealings. I also talked to former President Trump about his actions on January 6th and why he never sent help when the Capitol was under attack. In our conversation he directly contradicted the sworn testimony of one of his aides, who testified to the January 6th committee that the former president was so determined to go to the Capitol himself after his rally that he grabbed a service agent inside the president’s limo. Take a listen.

[START TAPE]

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I wanted to go down peacefully and patriotically to the Capitol. Secret Service, who I have great respect for, said, “Sir, it’s better if you don’t do that. It could be unsafe.” Because – they didn’t mean because of riots because, you know, it takes one guy with bad intentions, okay. So I didn’t have a dispute with them. You know you had that one person said I grabbed the man around the neck. Actually, I wish I was so strong to be able to do that. These are all tough guys, smart guys –

KRISTEN WELKER:

So you dispute that account?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Dispute it? Who wouldn’t dispute it? She’s – the craziest account I’ve ever heard. You mean that I was in “The Beast,” and she said I was in “The Beast,” and the Secret Service didn’t want — so I took a guy who was like a black belt in karate and grabbed his neck and tried to choke him –

KRISTEN WELKER:

What happened –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

How ridiculous. Just so you understand, and I have great respect for Secret Service, by the way. They’re fantastic. The Secret Service said, “Sir, it would be better if you didn’t.” I said, “I’d love to do it.” They said, “It would be better.” And so we went back to the White House. Just so you understand: I spoke. I made a very nice speech.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Tell me how you watched this all unfold. Were you in the dining room watching TV?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I’m not going to tell you. I’ll tell people later at an appropriate time. Just so you understand, however –

KRISTEN WELKER:

What did you do when the Capitol was –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

And I made beautiful statements.

KRISTEN WELKER:

– under attack, though –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Let me just tell you –

KRISTEN WELKER:

– in the moment that the Capitol was under attack?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Did you see the statements I made in the Oval Office and just outside of the Oval Office?

KRISTEN WELKER:

Absolutely. I was there that day.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

“Go home. Our police are great. We love our police. We love everybody. Go home.”

KRISTEN WELKER:

That was –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

This was –

KRISTEN WELKER:

That was before –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– a beautiful statement –

KRISTEN WELKER:

That was at 4 o’clock in the afternoon –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

When that statement was made –

KRISTEN WELKER:

– more than –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– I don’t know –

KRISTEN WELKER:

– three hours after the attack –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

But there –

KRISTEN WELKER:

– started –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– but there were tweets that were put out –

KRISTEN WELKER:

– Mr. President –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– before that.

KRISTEN WELKER:

I want to know who you called on that day.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

By the way, Nancy Pelosi –

KRISTEN WELKER:

I want to talk about that day.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I don’t have — why would I tell you that? Listen. Nancy Pelosi –

KRISTEN WELKER:

Don’t want to talk about that?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– was in charge of security. She turned down 10,000 soldiers. If she didn’t turn down the soldiers, you wouldn’t have had January 6th.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Did you call military or law enforcement?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

What?

KRISTEN WELKER:

Did you call military or law enforcement at the moment the Capitol was under attack?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I’m not going to tell you anything. I told –

KRISTEN WELKER:

Okay.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Let me put it this way. I behaved so well. I did such a good job. Nancy Pelosi turned down 10,000 soldiers. If she didn’t do that –

KRISTEN WELKER:

But Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have the authority that you had as commander and chief, though.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– and now I understand – I understand that the police testified against — listen to me, Kristen. Listen to me. I understand that the police testified against her – the chief, very strongly against her. Capitol Police, they’re great people. They testified against her. And they burned all the evidence. Okay? They burned all the evidence.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Mr. President –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

They destroyed all the evidence about Nancy Pelosi.

KRISTEN WELKER:

What do you say to people who wonder why you — you, as commander in chief, you have authorities that Nancy Pelosi doesn’t have, as commander in chief.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

No, no. She has authority over the Capitol.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Why didn’t you send help in that moment, though?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Uh, frankly, just so you understand, I assumed that she took care of it. She turned down —

KRISTEN WELKER:

But when you realized that the National Guard wasn’t coming? When help wasn’t coming?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, you don’t realize anything until quite a while. National Guard are not coming. I asked her to be there three days in advance. And she turned it down.

KRISTEN WELKER:

She says that that request was never officially made, just so you know.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Oh, stop it. Let me just tell you –

KRISTEN WELKER:

Let me ask you about pardons –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

The mayor of D.C. –

KRISTEN WELKER:

Mr. President –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

The mayor of D.C. gave us a letter, saying that she turns it down, okay? We have it. Nancy Pelosi also was asked, and she turned it down. The police commissioner of Capitol Police –

KRISTEN WELKER:

I’m talking about the day of, though.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Wait a minute.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Yeah.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Capitol Police said that he wanted it. And Nancy Pelosi wouldn’t accept it. She’s responsible for January 6th.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Let’s – Mr. President.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Nancy Pelosi is responsible. And the J6 Committee refused to interview her.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Mr. President, you’re the president though. You have – You have authorities that no one else has, as the commander in chief. Do you think you showed leadership on that day?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Yes. Absolutely. I did.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Mr. President, if you were re-elected, would you pardon yourself?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I could’ve pardoned myself. Do you know what? I was given an option to pardon myself. I could’ve pardoned myself when I left. People said, “Would you like to pardon yourself?” I had a couple of attorneys that said, “You can do it if you want.” I had some people that said, “It would look bad, if you do.” Because I think it would look terrible. I said, “Here’s the story. These people are thugs, horrible people, fascists, Marxists, sick people. They’ve been after me from the day I came down the escalator with Melania. And I did a great job as president.” People are – great economy, great jobs, great this, great that, rebuilt the military, Space Force, everything. We – I could go on forever. Let me just tell you. I said, “The last thing I’d ever do is give myself a pardon.” I could’ve given myself a pardon. Don’t ask me about what I would do. I could’ve. The last day, I could’ve had a pardon done that would’ve saved me all of these lawyers, and all of these fake charges, these Biden indictments. They’re all Biden indictments, political. They indicted – they want to arrest their political opponents. Only third-world countries do that, banana republics. So, ready? I never said this to anybody. I was given the option. I could’ve done a pardon of myself. You know what I said? “I have no interest in even thinking about it.” I never even wanted to think about it. And I could’ve done it. And all of these questions you’re asking me about, the fake charges, you wouldn’t be asking me because it’s a very powerful, it’s a very powerful thing for a president. I was told by some people that these are sick lunatics that I’m dealing with. “Give yourself a pardon. Your life will be a lot easier.” I said, “I would never give myself a pardon.”

KRISTEN WELKER:

Even if you were re-elected in this moment?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Oh, I think it’s very unlikely. What – what did I do wrong? I didn’t do anything wrong.

[END TAPE]

KRISTEN WELKER:

Now a bit of context here on Mr. Trump’s allegations he ordered troops in the days leading up to the January 6th attack. The Defense Department says the former president never gave a formal order to have 10,000 troops ready to be deployed to the Capitol. Of course it’s unreasonable to blame former Speaker Pelosi or lawmakers on Capitol Hill for what happened that day. Pelosi’s office said at the time that the claim that she turned down troops was quote “completely made up.” When we come back former President Trump explains how would handle calls from within the GOP for a federal ban on abortion.

KRISTEN WELKER:

In the last election, more than a quarter of voters said the issue of abortion mattered most to them just behind inflation and the economy and last night, nine Republican candidates were back in Iowa, speaking to the Faith and Freedom Coalition, a reminder of how potent the abortion issue is in that early state. Mr. Trump didn’t attend the event but I asked the former president how he would handle abortion in a second term.

[START TAPE]

KRISTEN WELKER:

I do want to talk about the issue of abortion which is –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Okay.

KRISTEN WELKER:

– important to a lot of voters all across the country. Just this week, women in Idaho and Tennessee, I don’t know if you saw this, filed suit against their states saying their lives were put at risk after they were denied abortion services, because of their states’ restrictive laws put in place after Roe was overturned. So my question for you, Mr. President, is: How is it acceptable in America that women’s lives are at risk, doctors are being forced to turn away patients in need, or risk breaking the law?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Ready? Little bit of a long answer. I hope you have time.

KRISTEN WELKER:

I hope you have time. I’m here for as long as you have.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

So you have Roe v. Wade, for 52 years, people including Democrats wanted it to go back to states so the states could make the right. Roe v. Wade – I did something that nobody thought was possible, and Roe v. Wade was terminated, was put back to the states. Now, people, pro-lifers, have the right to negotiate for the first time. They had no rights at all, because the radical people on this are really the Democrats that say, after five months, six months, seven months, eight months, nine months, and even after birth you’re allowed to terminate the baby –

KRISTEN WELKER:

Mr. President, Democrats aren’t saying that. I just have to, Democrats are not saying that. Does it bother you though that women say their lives are being put at risk? Do you feel you bear any responsibility, because as you say, you are responsible for having Roe v. Wade overturned.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

What’s going to happen, this is an issue that’s been going on for a long time. And it’s a very polarizing issue. Because of what’s been done, and because of the fact we brought it back to the states, we’re going to have people come together on this issue. They’re going to determine the time, because nobody wants to see five, six, seven, eight, nine months. Nobody wants to see abortions when you have a baby in the womb. I said, with Hillary Clinton when we had the debate, I made a statement, “Rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, you’re allowed to do that, and you shouldn’t be allowed to do that.”

KRISTEN WELKER:

Again, no one is arguing for that –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Again, listen, look –

KRISTEN WELKER:

That’s not a part of anyone’s argument, Mr. President.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Look, the Democrats are able to kill the baby after birth.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Let me talk to you –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Nobody wants that.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Democrats don’t want that either.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

So we’re going to come together –

KRISTEN WELKER:

But let’s – I want to – I want to know what you want. I want to know what you’re going to do if you’re –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

We are going to come together –

KRISTEN WELKER:

Would you sign federal legislation that would ban abortion at 15 weeks?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

No, no. Let me just tell you what I’d do. I’m going to come together with all groups, and we’re going to have something that’s acceptable. Right now, to my way of thinking, the Democrats are the radicals, because after four and five and six months. But you have to say this, after birth. You have New York State and other places that passed legislation where you’re allowed to kill the baby after birth.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Mr. President, I want to give voters who are going to be weighing in on this election –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Yeah.

KRISTEN WELKER:

– a very clear sense of where you stand on –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I think they’ll – I think they’re all going to like me. I think both sides are going to like me.

KRISTEN WELKER:

But, let me, let me – but Mr. President –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

What’s going to have to happen is you’re going to have to –

KRISTEN WELKER:

Mr. President, let me just ask this question, please–

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Kristen, you’re asking me a question. What’s going to happen is you’re going to come up with a number of weeks or months. You’re going to come up with a number that’s going to make people happy. Because 92% of the Democrats don’t want to see abortion after a certain period of time.

KRISTEN WELKER:

If a federal ban landed on your desk if you were reelected, would you sign it at 15 weeks –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Are you talking about a complete ban?

KRISTEN WELKER:

A ban at 15 weeks.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, people, people are starting to think of 15 weeks. That seems to be a number that people are talking about right now.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Would you sign that?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I would sit down with both sides and I’d negotiate something, and we’ll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years. I’m not going to say I would or I wouldn’t. I mean, DeSanctus is willing to sign a five-week and six-week ban.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Would you support that? You think that goes too far?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake. But we’ll come up with a number, but at the same time, Democrats won’t be able to go out at six months, seven months, eight months and allow an abortion.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Mr. President, when you talk about negotiating, I think a lot of people think to themselves, this is an issue that they care about deeply in their hearts –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I care about it too. Oh, I care about it too.

KRISTEN WELKER:

And they know where they stand, and they want to know where you stand. As you know, some anti-abortion groups are really looking for some clarity from you. So let me just ask you to put a fine point on this. Should the federal government impose any abortion restrictions, or should it be completely left up to the states?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

No, I don’t think you should have – I don’t think you should be allowed to have abortions well into a pregnancy.

KRISTEN WELKER:

But what about the question I just asked you –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

We’re going to agree – no – we’re going to agree to a number of weeks or months or however you want to define it. And both sides are going to come together and both sides – both sides, and this is a big statement, both sides will come together. And for the first time in 52 years, you’ll have an issue that we can put behind us.

KRISTEN WELKER:

At the federal level?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

It could be state or it could be federal. I don’t frankly care.

KRISTEN WELKER:

So you’re not committed to a ban at the federal level.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I will say this. Everybody, including the great legal scholars, love the idea of Roe v. Wade terminated so it can be brought back to the states.

KRISTEN WELKER:

It sounds like that’s what you think too, that it should remain a state issue –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, I, I would, I would say this: From a pure standpoint, from a legal standpoint, I think it’s probably better, but I can live with it either way. It’s much more important, the number of weeks is much more important. But something will happen with the number of weeks, the amount of time, after which you can’t do it. And you know what? The most – the most powerful people that are anti-abortion are okay with that now. And you know what? They weren’t okay with that even a year ago.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Your former vice president, Mike Pence, believes that a fetus should have constitutional rights. Do you believe that, Mr. president?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, Mike Pence said something about 15 weeks too, which was a big change for Mike Pence, because Mike Pence had no exceptions. I have exceptions, by the way. I think people should have exceptions. I think if it’s rape or incest or the life of the mother, I think you have to have exceptions. It’s very important.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Does a fetus have constitutional rights, Mr. president?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

And a lot of people, when they don’t have exceptions – now, I will tell you that I think most people, most Republicans are willing. You go: life of the mother, rape, incest. I think most of them are there.

KRISTEN WELKER:

But should a fetus –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

That’s a big statement.

KRISTEN WELKER:

– have constitutional rights, Mr. president?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, I don’t know, I don’t know what he’s saying, because before, he wanted, you know, you couldn’t have abortions at all –

KRISTEN WELKER:

But what are you saying? What do you think –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Now all of a sudden – excuse me – now all of a sudden he’s saying 15 weeks. I said, “Wow, where did that come from? That’s a radical change.” Look, something is going to happen that’s going to be good for everybody. And that’s what I’m – I’m almost like a mediator in this case. They wanted Roe v. Wade terminated because it was inappropriate. We got it done. Something is going to happen. It’s going to be a number of weeks. Something is going to happen where the both sides are going to be able to come together. And then we’ll be able to go onto other things, like, the economy, our military –

KRISTEN WELKER:

Are you saying a federal ban with exceptions, is that what you’re saying?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

What I say is very simple, because you can’t put words in my mouth like that –

KRISTEN WELKER:

I just want to understand.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– because you’ve been hearing me talk about this–

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– issue –

KRISTEN WELKER:

Yeah.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

– and I think talk about it very productively. It could be a state ban, it could be a federal ban, but Democrats want that too. Democrats don’t want to see abortion in the seventh month, okay. I speak to a lot of Democrats. They want a number. There is a number, and there’s a number that’s going to be agreed to, and Republicans should go out and say the following. They – cause, I think the Republicans speak very inarticulately about this subject. I watch some of them without the exceptions, et cetera, et cetera. I said, “Other than certain parts of the country, you can’t – you’re not going to win on this issue. But you will win on this issue when you come up with the right number of weeks.” Because Democrats don’t want to be radical on the issue, most of them, some do. They don’t want to be radical on the issue. They don’t want to kill a baby in the seventh month or the ninth month or after birth. And they’re allowed to do that, and you can’t do that.

[END TAPE]

KRISTEN WELKER:

One important fact we do want to highlight: abortions later in pregnancy are exceedingly rare. When we come back, we turn to foreign policy. the war in Ukraine and whether Mr. Trump would consider sending the U.S. military into Taiwan if China were to invade.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Welcome back. The Republican party’s biggest fight may be on the issue of Ukraine where Republican candidates led by former President Trump are turning away from the party’s traditional national security roots and questioning the U.S.’s commitment to the war. I asked Mr. Trump about what he believes are the stakes in Ukraine for the United States.

[START TAPE]

KRISTEN WELKER:

Do you think that our security, the United States’ security, is linked to Ukraine’s security?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I think that Europe has to do more. We’re in for $200 billion. They’re in for $25 billion. And it affects them more than it affects us. It certainly affects them much more than it affects us.

KRISTEN WELKER:

So you do think that it’s linked in some way?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I think Europe is taking advantage of a stupid president.

KRISTEN WELKER:

You’ve probably –

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Look. Look. Biden should say to them, “You have to equalize. You have to catch up.” You know, Europe is about the same size as our economy if you add them all up, add the countries up. It’s about the same size. And Biden should say to them, like I did with NATO – you know, NATO, they all owed money. I said, “Get your money in.” And we had over $430 billion put in almost immediately. And the head of NATO, Stoltenberg, secretary general, nice guy, he said to me, the most amazing thing I’ve ever done – and he said it publicly too.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Let me ask you about your strategy though. Because you have said you want to end this war in 24 hours.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Yeah.

KRISTEN WELKER:

You saw the meeting between Kim Jong Un and President Putin. Do you think that complicates your strategy, if you were re-elected, to try to end this war in 24 hours?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

No, look, it would have been easier if the war didn’t start. And you’d have hundreds of thousands of people living, most importantly. But it would have been a lot easier if it didn’t. But I can get it done and I can get it done quickly.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Some people hear you say you’re going to end the war in 24 hours and they worry that means President Putin is going to get to keep the territory he’s unlawfully claimed.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

No, no, no, no. I’d make a fair deal for everybody. Nope, I’d make it fair.

KRISTEN WELKER:

It doesn’t mean that? It wouldn’t be a win for Putin?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

You know, that’s something that could have been negotiated. Because there were certain parts, Crimea and other parts of the country, that a lot of people expected could happen. You could have made a deal. So they could have made a deal where there’s lesser territory right now than Russia’s already taken, to be honest. And you could have made a deal where nobody was killed. They had a deal. They would have had a Ukraine country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over. I will say this: something’s going on, and it’s not good for Ukraine.

KRISTEN WELKER:

I want to ask you about something President Putin said about you this week. I don’t know if you’ve seen it. This was very recent. President Putin said, quote, “We surely hear that Mr. Trump says he will resolve all burning issues within several days, including the Ukrainian crisis. We cannot help but feel happy about it.” What do you make of that? Do you welcome this support?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Well, I like that he said that. Because that means what I’m saying is right. I would get him into a room. I’d get Zelenskyy into a room. Then I’d bring them together. And I’d have a deal worked out. I would get a deal worked out. It would’ve been a lot easier before it started. Essentially, for four years, I kept them from doing anything. Because you know what? I will tell you this. I never said this. Ukraine was the apple of his eye. I said, “Don’t ever do it. Don’t ever do it.” He would have never done it. But again, oil prices. He wouldn’t have done it because of me. But oil prices. The prices were so high that he had so much money. So he had all this money to prosecute the war. The one who drove up the prices was Biden.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Given that President Putin has bombed maternity wards, 20,000 kids kidnapped from Ukraine by Russia. Mass graves.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

It’s all terrible. It’s all terrible.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Do you welcome his support, his all but endorsement?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

Look, I had a very good relationship with him. And yet nobody was tougher on Russia than me. I stopped Nord Stream 2. You never heard of Nord Stream 2. That was the pipeline until I got involved. I said, “Nord Stream 2.” People that were sophisticated, military people, and political people never heard of Nord Stream 2. I had it ended. The pipeline was dead. Biden came in and he approved it. There was nobody tougher than me with Russia. And yet I got along with Putin. Let me tell you, I got along with him really well. And that’s a good thing, not a bad thing. He’s got 1,700 nuclear missiles. And so do we. But, look, that’s a good thing. Getting along is okay. But I got along through strength. And the war would have never happened. The war would have never happened. Now what’s happened, it’s so bad, the oil price is so high, it’s hard to get it stopped. The oil price is so high. When he goes above $50 and $60 a barrel, he makes a lot of money on the war. Now, it’s a humanitarian thing. It’s a lot of different reasons. But I will get that war stopped very, very quickly.

KRISTEN WELKER:

I want to talk about another region that you’ve talked about.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

It’s too bad we have to wait so long.

KRISTEN WELKER:

Let’s talk about another region you talked about: China. If you were to cut a deal between President Putin and President Zelenskyy, do you run the risk of emboldening China to invade Taiwan?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

No. Not at all. Because China, he’s another one I got along to, until we had the China virus come in. Once Covid came in, okay? It was like – And I made a great trade deal with China, one of the greatest deals ever made for the farmers and for the manufacturers, $50 billion a year. It was a great deal. I don’t even talk about it. Because once Covid came in, it was, like, I didn’t want to talk about anything. I was a much different person. What happened to this world, not our country, the whole world. What happened with Covid. And it just shouldn’t have happened. It shouldn’t have happened. What happened, what China did to the world was so bad. But I had a great relationship with —

KRISTEN WELKER:

Would you send troops to Taiwan?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I had a great relationship with President Xi, a really great relationship. And he was going to stop fentanyl from coming in. He was going to do a lot – He was going to criminalize it if you made it. You know, in China, they have a death penalty for drug dealers. He was going to make that with fentanyl dealers too. But then the election didn’t work out and he never had to do that.

KRISTEN WELKER:

I know you’ve been asked this, but very quickly, if China were to invade Taiwan, have you made a determination, again, since voters are about to go to the polls, would you send the U.S. military into Taiwan if President Xi were to invade? President Biden says he would.

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I won’t say. I won’t say. Because if I said, I’m giving away – You know, only stupid people are going to give that – I heard the other day, DeSanctimonious said something about he was willing to do this or he was going to do that. I say, “Well, why is he saying the strategy?” You can’t say that. So when you ask me that question, I would never say that. Because you give away all your options.

KRISTEN WELKER:

But you don’t take it off the table?

FMR. PRES. DONALD TRUMP:

I don’t take anything off the table, no.

[END TAPE]