Former President Donald Trump spoke with NPR's Steve Inskeep on Tuesday in a brief phone interview. They discussed vaccinations for COVID-19, the 2020 election and the outlook for Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections.
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The conversation was cut short when Trump hung up the phone while being questioned about his continued lies about the outcome of the 2020 election. He repeatedly attempted to assert misinformation about his election loss, as well as about the necessity of vaccinations.
Steve Inskeep: Mr. President.
Hello Steve, how are you?
I'm doing OK. Thanks for taking the time today. It's great to talk with you.
OK. Absolutely. Absolutely.
There's no reason that you would know this, but we first invited you on the program in 2015, so it's great to get you.
Oh, wow. Well, I guess I — I got lucky by not doing it, right? But that's OK.
Maybe so. Maybe so, but you --
Are we going live, Steve? Are we, uh --
No, we're — no, we're not going live. This is pre-taped, and --
OK, fine.
And I promised to keep it to about 15 minutes, so I'll do my best to do that.
Very good. Very good, Steve.
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And why don't we just dive right in? I've got a lot to talk about. There's a lot to go over, but I want to start briefly on the pandemic. What advice would you give to Americans who haven't chosen to get vaccinated?
Well, first of all, the mandate is really hurting our country. Now that's advice to an administration more so than to the Americans. A lot of Americans aren't standing for it, and it's hurting our country. It's hurting our economy very badly. And being very — the proud person that did so well with therapeutics and, and vaccines and everything else and getting them done in record times, you know, I — I have a lot to say on the subject. And one of the things I say is they have to start promoting and making the therapeutics more available, because we have great therapeutics, too, in addition to the vaccines.