In Sunday’s interview with Kristen Welker, Trump went with his classic playbook of vague answers and conspiracy theories.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
Donald Trump appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, ostensibly to discuss his platform for the 2024 campaign — but ultimately responding to interviewer Kristen Welker’s questions with his trademark blend of self-aggrandizement and conspiracy theory.
The interview underscored a vagueness on substantive policy which allows Trump’s supporters and potential voters to read what they want into his statements and feel like he represents their interests, while also letting him double down on election-denying conspiracy theories.
However, when speaking at an event for the political arm of Concerned Women for America, a right-wing, anti-LGBTQ, anti-abortion activist group, Trump did say that he supported exceptions to an abortion ban for rape, incest, and the life of the mother.
In contrast to fellow Republicans who have advocated invading Mexico to control the illicit trade in fentanyl, Trump was yet again vague, saying only that “something has to be done, and it has to be done fairly quickly.” That last part is true — drug overdose deaths have skyrocketed since 2014, with fentanyl or other synthetic opioid overdoses making up the bulk of those deaths, according to data from the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse.
When Welker asked whether he would pardon insurrectionists who have been investigated and in some cases imprisoned for their participation in the Capitol breach on January 6, 2021, Trump said he “certainly might” pardon insurrectionists “if I think it’s appropriate.” But footage from Trump’s speech at the conservative Pray Vote Stand summit Friday shows him telling the audience, “The moment I win the election I will appoint a special task force to rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner who’s been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration” and pledging to “study the situation very quickly, and sign their pardons or commutations on day one,” CNN reported.
An appearance on a mainstream show might seem on the surface to be a good-faith effort to discuss his plans for a future presidency, but he unsurprisingly used it as a platform to air grievances and deliver little of substance.
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