Donald Trump appeared on Meet The Press Sunday morning (Dec. 8), marking his first televised interview since turning into the president-elect in November after a decent race with Vice President Kamala Harris. Sitting down with Meet The Press moderator Kristen Welker, Donald Trump was measured at instances but additionally slippery on a few of his positions as observers on the X social media platform identified contradictions and flat-out lies in his statements the place he acquired little pushback.
President-elect Donald Trump, 78, spoke in a conversational tone as he sat throughout from Kristen Welker, displaying a muted model of expressing himself compared to a few of his fiery and off-the-rails marketing campaign speeches. With the presidential victory in hand and emboldened by formally profitable the Republican Celebration majority of each the Home and Senate, Trump toned down the rhetoric but additionally stated that he would perform unpopular insurance policies regardless of rising murmurs of discontent amongst his base and people far exterior of it.
Trump spoke to Welker’s inquiry about his plans for the primary 100 days within the White Home, a longstanding marker of the president making his intentions identified and setting a tone for the federal government as his management continues to become visible over the following 4 years.
After a rambling reply that coated every part from tackling crime in main cities and lengthening the so-called “Trump tax cuts,” Trump defended his nominee for Secretary of Protection, Pete Hegseth regardless of the mounting allegations in opposition to him. Trump’s reply was a masterclass of avoiding the precise query through the use of filler phrases and highlighting how a lot Fox Information supported Hegseth, as soon as extra ignoring the truth that a number of the allegations in opposition to his nominee originated inside the community.
Early within the chat, Welker lobbed a query concerning tariffs, which some felt was considered one of a number of softballs tossed at Trump. As a substitute of getting Trump to clarify how he’ll assault inflation and decrease costs, because it was a key marketing campaign level and why many citizens pulled the lever for him, he elected to not supply a assure on considered one of his prime guarantees.
“I can’t assure something. I can’t assure tomorrow. However I can say that when you take a look at my — simply pre-Covid, we had the best economic system within the historical past of our nation. And I had a number of tariffs on a number of totally different nations, however specifically China,” Trump stated earlier than meandering and calling the tariffs “stunning,” however Welker did remind Trump that these “stunning” tariffs price Individuals billions.
In different parts of the dialog, Trump nonetheless refused to concede the 2020 election outcomes regardless of overwhelming proof that the presidency was not stolen from him. He additionally doubled down on false claims that he improved the Inexpensive Care Act (ACA), which he continues to discuss with as “Obamacare,” a regulation that took cues from Sen. Mitt Romney when he was governor of Massachusetts and the state’s well being care reform regulation.
Trump continues to assert he “saved Obamacare” regardless of his many makes an attempt to repeal the Inexpensive Care Act and insert a regulation of his personal, despite the fact that it may hurt those that voted for Trump in the long term. Trump additionally caught to his incorrect assertion that 13,099 murders previously three years have been allegedly dedicated by unlawful immigrants. Welker tried to get Trump to grasp the quantity consists of 4 a long time of knowledge however Trump insisted this exaggerated quantity got here below President Joe Biden’s tenure.
On X, previously Twitter, Donald Trump’s Meet The Press interview discovered its approach onto the timeline with many stating the way it missed a number of marks. Take a look at the replies beneath.
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Photograph: Getty
