Trump Says ‘I Don’t Know Him’ When Pressed About Apparent Hypocrisy In Pardoning Violent Drug Kingpin

President Donald Trump sat down at the White House for a lengthy interview with Politico’s Dasha Burns, which was released on Tuesday.

Burns pressed Trump on the apparent hypocrisy of his pardoning a violent drug trafficker, former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández, while promising to crack down on drugs coming into the U.S., including killing drug smugglers in the Caribbean Sea with airstrikes.

Burns asked, “You pardoned former Honduran president Juan Orlando Hernández and let him out of prison even though he was convicted in a massive international drug trafficking scheme. How is that zero tolerance on drug trafficking if…”

Trump cut in, “Well, I don’t know him. And I know very little about him other than people said it was like, uh, an Obama/Biden type setup, where he was set up. He was the president of the country. The country, uh, deals in drugs, like probably you could say that about every country, and because he was the president, they gave him like 45 years in prison. And there are many people fighting for Honduras, very good people that I know. And they think he was treated horribly, and they asked me to do it, and I said I’ll do it.”

Burns pushed back, “Do you think that could send the wrong message to…”

“No, I don’t think so,” Trump insisted as Burns added, “drug dealers?”

Trump concluded, “Look, I think, uh, you know, when you weaponize government … uh, they’ve weaponized their government just like they did over here. I’m one of the people that survived. But they weaponize the government. We had the most weaponized government. Our … our election was rigged. They went after me. I was impeached twice. I was indicted. They indicted me. I came out good. Here we are in the White House. Things are looking nice. But they were vicious, uh, and they, uh … they are vicious. They’re sick people.”

Notably, one of the lead investigators on the Hernández case was a close Trump ally and former personal lawyer Emile Bove. Trump later appointed Bove to be deputy attorney general before making him a federal judge. U.S. authorities who prosecuted Hernandez had said he was at the center of “one of the largest and most violent drug-trafficking conspiracies in the world.”

Watch the clip above.

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