9. John Lewis will be remembered for skipping Trump’s inauguration
Asked how history would remember the late civil-rights icon, Trump replied, “I don’t know. I really don’t know. I don’t know John Lewis. He chose not to come to my inauguration. He didn’t come to my State of the Union speech...
8. Having many different tests is good
The coronavirus testing system in the United States has been a disastrous hodgepodge. There is no uniform standard, it is difficult for parts of the system to coordinate or communicate with each other, and even people who do get tests have to wait so long for the response that the signal is useless.
7. The only problem with his Tulsa death rally was too few people attended
Swan asked Trump why he would hold a huge maskless indoor rally during a pandemic. Trump’s reply, incredibly, was to boast about the size of the crowd and insist it was twice as large as news reports (and photos) indicated.
6. “The manuals” say you shouldn’t test too much
Trump has repeatedly said he doesn’t like coronavirus testing because it shows how many cases you have, which makes him look bad. This time he attributed this position to undefined manuals and books.
5. The virus cannot be contained any better than it is now
On several occasions, Trump replied to questions about the coronavirus response by insisting the U.S. is containing the virus as well as it possibly could. When Swan points out that 1,000 Americans are now dying per day, Trump replies, “They are dying. That’s true. And you have — it is what it is. But that doesn’t mean we aren’t doing everything we can. It’s under control as much as you can control it.”
4. Defending Putin’s bounties on U.S. soldiers
This was the first clip Axios released from the interview. In it, Trump denied that Russia is paying bounties to the Taliban to kill American troops, denied that reports of the bounties were in his intelligence briefing (they were), defended Russia for arming the Taliban, and admitted he didn’t even bring the issue up in his last phone call with Vlad.
3. Ghislaine Maxwell might be innocent?
Trump has previously expressed his well-wishes for Jeffrey Epstein accomplice Ghislaine Maxwell. “Mr. President, Ghislaine Maxwell has been arrested on allegations of child-sex trafficking,” he asked.
2. Nonsense chart exchange
Trump is attempting to obscure the fact that the U.S. currently has a much worse outbreak than almost any peer country. The method of obfuscation he is trying to use — most likely, that his aides have prepped for him — is to cite the raw numbers of tests performed and the death rate of patients who have coronavirus. This allows him to avoid the fact that the U.S. has far-higher rates of both coronavirus infections and deaths.
1. The Civil Rights Act hasn’t worked out very well
Swan: Lyndon Johnson! He passed the Civil Rights Act.
Trump: Ask, ask: how has it worked out? If you take a look at what Lyndon Johnson did. How has it worked out?
Swan: You think the Civil Rights Act was a mistake?
Trump changed the subject back to his administration and the fact that black unemployment was low. (Before it became very high.)