CBS Evening News anchor Tony Dokoupil landed an interview with Donald Trump on Tuesday, and one of the unusual moments came when the president talked of what would have happened if Kamala Harris had won the 2024 election.
The president was claiming Harris would have continued what he called a “mess” of an economy under Joe Biden.
“You wouldn’t have a job right now, if she got in. You probably wouldn’t have a job right now,” Trump told Dokoupil during the interview, conducted on the floor of a Ford plant in Detroit.
Watch the full interview below.
Then the president appeared to refer to David Ellison, who became CEO of Paramount last year after his Skydance bought the CBS parent company. Ellison’s father, Larry, is a longtime supporter of the president’s.
“Your boss is an amazing guy,” Trump said. “Might be bust. Okay. Might be bust. I doubt it in his case, but you never know. Let me just tell you, you wouldn’t have this job. You wouldn’t have this job, certainly, whatever the hell they are paying you.”
Dokoupil later said that “I do think I’d have this job even if the other guy won.”
“Yeah, but at a lesser salary,” Trump responded.
The Evening News ran the entirety of the interview, Dokoupil said, and it lasted about 15 minutes.
During the conversation Trump talked about taking “very strong action” against Iran if the regime hangs protesters amid the unrest that has spread throughout the country. The president, though, was not specific about what that meant. At other points, Dokoupil let some of Trump’s claims go unchallenged, including that he “ended eight wars.” That has been challenged as hyperbole from the AP and other fact-checking sites.
Trump also claimed that “there’s no inflation,” and later said that he had them “down to a level that they haven’t seen in about nine years.” In fact, consumer prices rose about 2.7% in December, according to the Department of Labor, and inflation was below 2% during points of Trump’s first term. The CBS Evening News anchor noted that “when I travel the country and I go all over the place and I talk to everyday Americans, they tell me they don’t feel it.”
“I’ve only been here for 11 months, okay,” Trump responded, before saying that he “inherited a mess” and that “we have now the hottest country in the world.”
The most revelatory part of the interview may have been when Dokoupil questioned Trump about the shooting death of Renee Good by an ICE agent last week.
Dokoupil noted that he spoke to Good’s father, who is “a big supporter of yours.”
“He’s heartbroken because his daughter is dead. He’s also heartbroken because your administration so quickly has come out and said she’s a domestic terrorist. What do you want to say to her father right now?”
Trump answered, “Well, I want to say to the father that I love all of our people. They can be on the other side, as you say. He might be on my side.”
Dokoupil said, “He’s on your side.”
Trump replied, “And I think that’s great … and I would bet you that she under normal circumstances was a very solid, wonderful person, but pretty tough.” He then went on to defend ICE and blast Joe Biden, before going back to the video of Good’s killing, and acknowledging that the videos are open to interpretation. Soon after the killing, the Department of Homeland Security quickly said that Good was trying to strike the ICE officer with her vehicle.
“When you look at that tape, it can be viewed two ways, I guess,” Trump said. “But when you look at the way that was, that car was pulled away. There are a couple of versions of that tape that are very, very bad.”