President says he will win reelection
But won’t commit to accepting if he loses
WASHINGTON – Under siege over his response to COVID-19 and protests against systemic racism and facing bad polls in his reelection bid against Joe Biden, President Donald Trump defended his performance in an interview broadcast Sunday, including his claims that the coronavirus will simply “disappear.”
“I’ll be right eventually,” Trump told Chris Wallace, the host of “Fox News Sunday,” in the interview taped Friday. “You know, I said, ‘It’s going to disappear.’ I’ll say it again.”
Trump, as he did before his victory over Hillary Clinton in 2016, refused to say whether he would challenge results of the election should he lose to Biden.
Claiming “mail-in voting is going to rig the election,” he repeated his mantra from 2016 that he can’t be sure he will accept the results of the election: “I’m not going to just say yes. I’m not going to say no, and I didn’t last time either.”
He defended Southerners who fly the Confederate battle flag, vowed to block efforts to change the names of military forts that honor Confederate generals and claimed Biden is mentally unfit.
The embattled president predicted he would win reelection, despite polls he denounced as “fake.”
“Do you know how many times I’ve been written off ?” he said.
Political analyst Stuart Rothenberg said the Wallace interview “really shows who and what our president is: Incoherent. Idiotic. Rambling. Insensitive. Illogical. Ignorant. And worse. Great work by Chris Wallace.”
Wallace frequently sought to correct the president. The two men, who sat outside in the heat, argued when the president described the increase in COVID-19 cases as “burning embers”; Wallace said it was more like a “forest fire.”
During the interview, which lasted nearly an hour, Trump:
Claimed the coronavirus death rate h is down, even though it has accelerated.
Trump, who has declined to take responsibility for COVID-19 problems, said, “Look, I take responsibility, always, for everything because it’s ultimately my job, too. I have to get everybody in line.” He said, “Some governors have done well, some governors have done poorly.”
Trump attributed the rise in cases to increased testing, though experts said the increased rate of infections far outpaces the increased rate of testing. Increases came after states reopened, moves encouraged by the president.
Denied his staff organized attacks on Anthony Fauci but said his administration’s top doctor has “made some mistakes” and is “a little bit of an alarmist.”
Fauci said some of his views, including those about the value of wearing masks, have changed as evidence about the virus emerges. In an interview with InStyle.com, Fauci said he is an “apolitical person,” and “it’s pretty tough walking a tightrope while trying to get your message out and people are trying to pit you against the president.”
Reminded in the Fox News interview of his own false assessments about the threat posed by the virus, Trump said, “I guess everybody makes mistakes.”
Refused to say whether he will sign a bill that would grant pay raises to the military but also would require changing names of forts dedicated to Confederate generals such as Braxton Bragg.
Trump said military members will “get their pay raise,” but he would block changing the names of the forts, even though the Pentagon wants to do it.
“I don’t care what the military says,” Trump said. “I’m supposed to make the decision.”