7 Best Moments of George Stephanopoulos’s ABC Interview With Trump
Outside of frequent interviews with various Fox News opinion personalities, President Donald Trump has been very selective in granting extensive one-on-ones with journalists. George Stephanopoulos of ABC News got a rare opportunity, though, scoring three lengthy chats with the commander-in-chief over two days in Iowa and Washington. And he delivered with an hour-long primetime special chock full of front-page news, and — perhaps more notably — a few revealing details.
Below, we’ve compiled the seven best moments from the hourlong special, which was excerpted throughout the week and aired in full Sunday night on ABC.
(Note: Certain parts quoted did not air on the broadcast and can be found by referring to the transcript here.)
7. Trump Calls Stephanopoulos ‘A Little Wise Guy’
By the time Trump and Stephanopoulos sat down in the White House Rose Garden, they had already spent a great deal of time together, and had battled extensively over the Mueller report. Stephanopoulos, in this part of the conversation, pinned Trump down on the testimony of former White House counsel Don McGahn — who, under oath, said that the president directed him to axe special counsel Robert Mueller.
With Trump on the ropes, Stephanopoulos moved in for the knockout blow — asking Trump why he didn’t answer Mueller’s questions under oath. And the president snapped.
“Look, George, you’re being a little wise guy, okay, which is typical for you,” Trump said. “Just so you understand, very simple, it is very simple, there was no crime.”
6. Trump Admits He ‘Couldn’t’ Say if He Doesn’t Trust Kim Jong Un Because it Would Be ‘Very Insulting’
Also in the Rose Garden conversation, Stephanopoulos got Trump to delve into North Korea, and his relationship with Kim Jong Un. After Trump lauded the North Korean leader as “very tough” and “very smart,” Stephanopoulos tried to get Trump to vouch for him.
“So you still trust him?” Stephanopoulos asked
“First of all, if I didn’t, I couldn’t tell you that,” Trump said. He added, “It would be very insulting to him.
He continued, “But the answer is, yeah, I believe that he would like to do something. I believe he respects me. It doesn’t mean it’s going to get done. This has been going on for many, many decades with the family. But I get along with him really well, I think I understand him, and I think he understands me.”
A candid admission from Trump, the extent to which he’s being cautious not to insult Kim Jong Un.
5. Trump Explains His Twitter Strategy
In the first segment of ABC’s primetime special, Trump and Stephanopoulos had a freewheeling back-and-forth inside the president’s limo. As part of the exchange, Stephanopoulos pressed Trump for some insight on his Twitter strategy — stating he’d talked to some of the president’s supporters who wish he’d quit social media. But the president said he can’t stop, won’t stop.
“If I don’t use social media, I do not get the word out,” Trump said. “I have some people that do say that, but I have far more that say — just today in the speech I had a woman, ‘Please don’t stop tweeting. Please. That’s the only way you’re getting the message out.’ I have so many people that…would be very unhappy if I ever stopped… I put it out, and then it goes onto your platform. It goes onto ABC. It goes onto the networks. It goes onto all over cable.”
Trump added, “I put one out this morning. And as soon as I pressed the button, they said, ‘We have breaking news.’ Every network, every station. ‘We have breaking news.’ They read my tweet. Why is that bad?”
Good or bad, Trump made clear it will continue.
4. Stephanopoulos Asks Trump if He Read the Mueller Report
Right before departing the limo, Stephanopoulos asked the president a simple question:
“Did you read the [Mueller] report?”
It was a perfectly logical query. Trump has spent hours trying to spin the 400-plus page document. Stephanopoulos put him on the spot as to whether he’s personally studied it.
“Yes, I did,” Trump said. “And you should too.”
It was abundantly clear, based on his command of the issues stated therein, that Stephanopoulos had, in fact, read the report. Whether Trump actually plowed through it remains very much an open question — only now, he’s on the record claiming he did.
3. Trump Chews Out Mick Mulvaney for Coughing
Many of this conversation’s most noteworthy moments were induced by Stephanopoulos letting the subject reveal himself. That was what the Good Morning America co-anchor did during one stunning sequence in which Trump chewed out his acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney, for coughing.
“Let’s do that over, he’s coughing in the middle of my answer,” Trump said — as his chief of staff was hacking up a lung. “I don’t like that, you know? If you’re gonna cough, please leave the room!”
Trump then consulted with the cameraman, before resuming his statement. There might not be a better 30-second piece of tape illustrating the president’s vanity.
2. Trump Denies the Existence of Polls Subsequently Published By ABC
The ABC News reporting team gets an assist on the interview’s big Gotcha! moment — as Stephanopoulos confronted Trump over his campaign’s internal polling which showed him trailing in many key states.
“Nobody showed you those polls because those polls don’t exist, George,” Trump said. “Those polls don’t exist. I’m losing in 15 out of 17 states? Those polls don’t exist.”
Turns out, those polls do exist — as ABC News published them two days before the full interview aired. The Trump campaign was forced to issue a feeble walk back in which they acknowledged the polls, but stated they were from March, and argued they were too dated.
1. Trump Admits He’d Be Open to Receiving Foreign Dirt
But ABC News saved the best for first. They wasted no time putting out the most shocking Trump statement from his conversations with Stephanopoulos — the admission that he would be open to receiving dirt on his opponents from a foreign power.
“It’s not interference,” Trump said. “They have information. I think I’d take it.”
He added, “If I thought there was something wrong, I’d go maybe to the FBI – if I thought there was something wrong. But when somebody comes up with oppo research, right, they come up with oppo research, ‘oh let’s call the FBI.’ The FBI doesn’t have enough agents to take care of it. When you go and talk, honestly, to congressmen, they all do it, they always have, and that’s the way it is. It’s called oppo research.”
The remarks drew near-universal condemnation — including some from staunch allies like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC).
Watch the highlights above, via ABC.
