This is why Trump is so hard to interview | About That

How did Kristen Welker's interview with Donald Trump on NBC's Meet the Press go from this?

President Trump, welcome back to Meet the Press.

Thank you.To this.

That's how they vote in California.

They're crooked, just like you're crooked.Your press is crooked, and Meet the Press is crooked.

To be fair, I'm not crooked, but let's continue.

Really?Well, you play right into their hands then.Let's continue.You're either crooked or you're stupid.

I don't know how many interviews Trump has given as president.It's almost certainly in the hundreds.But the interview he just gave on Friday, airing this past Sunday, where he became so wound up that he walked out.It's a useful case study in all of the ways Trump does not play by the usual rules.

Well, how do you define it?I don't define it at all.I don't think about it.I just do what I have to do.

And every so often, it creates just enough dissonance and friction that you end up with this.

You want to straighten out your press because you know what?A country can never be great with a dishonest press.

You traveled all the way to Wisconsin for this interview.

In any interview, the unwritten contract, the understanding, is generally meant to be that the journalist asks questions that are informed and fair, and the person responding stays on topic and answers directly.It's a bit like a dance, where you have one partner who leads, and the other person does their best to follow that lead in good faith.But Trump sometimes turns his interviews into more of a fencing match, where questions aren't so much received as they are parried.

Your Secretary of State, Marco Rubio, said that the war had concluded.And yet just this week, Iran attacked U .S.allies in the region, calling it retaliation for a set of U .S.airstrikes.

Is the United States at war with Iran?

Well, they've been largely decapitated.

OK, so the question.Marco Rubio says the war is over, but the war doesn't seem to be over.Do you think it's over?To which Trump replies, well, Iran has been largely decapitated.Basically, we've crushed them, which is a sidestep, really, avoiding the question about whether this is war and swerving to one about whether whatever this is, is successful.In Trump's view, it has been.

Then he dodges the same question in a slightly different way.

Well, they've been largely decapitated and I call it a military exercise because people would rather have it called that.It's not a big war for us.It's not the most powerful military in the world.I built it, frankly.

So now he's disputing the premise of the question.What is war even?A military exercise?Either way, not a big war.And by the way, that military has my name written all over it.So now, as an interviewer, you're in a really sticky spot.

Because do you roll things back and try to chase the original question about whether the US is currently at war with Iran?Or do you pursue any or all of these new lines about defining war or whether this is a big war or whether Trump is entitled to wage war?

A conflict, but not a war.He really does seem to think that there's some sort of you know, special dispensation he gets if he avoids using the word war to describe what's going on.

And as the exchange goes on, we can start to see how Trump's tactic here is to not really accept the spirit of the question at all.The interviewer keeps pressing.

There is a naval blockade in place, which technically is an act of war under international law.So is this a war as long as there's a naval blockade in place?

Well, we have a blockade.It's been extremely effective.And the reason we have it is because

Again, it's answering every question but the one being asked.Is this a war?Well, it's a blockade, a really good one, and by the way, you want to know why we're doing it?Because they blocked us first, and we're just blocking their block.Which really summarizes One way in which it can be really difficult to interview Trump, because he understands you can skirt the entire conversation about the merits of war and the responsibilities of war if you just reject the underlying framework.If you spend all your time instead asking, what is war?

Who said there's a war even going on right now?

She was having trouble getting him to even agree to the facts.And I think fundamentally that is one of the major issues with the president.

But so are you saying you would consider sending some of the troops home, sir?Some of the 50 ,000 troops who were sent there as a part of Operation Epic Fury?

I would say this.It costs us very little to keep them there.I don't consider them endangering.

" Again, avoiding the question about bringing US troops home, turning it instead into a question about why it makes sense to keep them there.And this is a great example of two other ways Trump manages to completely defuse a very fact -based question by twisting it like a pretzel into whatever he wants it to be.So there's this thing that happens in a lot of Even the most rock -solid of relationships, where one person might ask the other, hey, it's garbage day tomorrow, did you take out the trash yet?To which the other person replies, maybe a bit defensively, do you have any idea how busy I've been today?Does that sound familiar?The challenge here, of course, is that the first person is asking a yes or no question.

The second person, however, maybe, maybe jumps the gun, interpreting the question as an attack.Because maybe what the first person really meant to ask was, shouldn't you have taken the trash out by now?

Mr. President, I wonder, how long are you willing to give Iran to make a deal?How much longer?

You've been talking for quite some time.Well, you really haven't.Again, you were in Vietnam for 19 years.You were in Iraq for many years.You were in Korea for many, many years.You were in all the, I won't even talk about World War II.

What Trump is doing here is three things.First, he's not answering the question.How long are you willing to give Iran to make a deal?Second, he's instead choosing to interpret the question as, why haven't you already made a deal?Then, third, he's turning a question about clarity on US policy into a debate about worldviews.About whether, no matter the answer to Kristen Walker's question, there's any fault to be found here at all.

doesn't deal well with being challenged.And his response to those challenges usually is to retreat to his preferred talking points.

But do you have a cutoff point in your head?You keep talking about speed, Kristen.

You were in Vietnam for 19 years, and you tell me about three months.And in three months, I've demolished the Navy, the Air Force, anti -aircraft.They have no radar.They have no nothing.

And he does this again and again.It doesn't really matter what the issue is.Watch him interpret this specific question about farmers as an attack on how his administration supports farmers.And it doesn't matter how directly the question is re -asked.

What's your message to farmers though, Mr. President, who say they are struggling, they're struggling to make ends meet?Are you ready?

Am I allowed to talk?You keep asking questions and you don't listen to the answers.

Trump is basically refusing to play this game at all, refusing to send farmers any message, because he would rather debate the broader question of whether he loves farmers and whether they love him.

avoided being distracted by by his tossed comments by his red herrings the things that he was tossing out uh you know in a in a combative way trying to throw her off her questions he wasn't succumbing to uh to the temptation of entering into a sparring match because an interview is not a sparring match but i think what What ultimately makes interviewing Trump so difficult is that he doesn't really stick to the field of play.

He'll go low if he needs to.

Your elections are crooked and you're crooked and Mr. Press is crooked and so is ABC and CBS and CNN.

One of the most effective ways Trump has undermined the mainstream news media is to realize that you can counteract bad press by calling the press bad.

Because as you know, in the last term, we were a dead country, Kristen.I know you, you're a big liberal, a big progressive.

No, I'm just a journalist.We were a dead country.

When challenged, Trump doesn't only fight back by arguing about the subject matter.He often argues about the interviewer, insisting that the questions lack credibility, or that fact -checking him is proof of wanting to attack him.There's this exchange towards the end of the interview where Trump is attacking the Justice Department for treating January 6th rioters unfairly.

What they did to the lives of people, they destroyed people.They sent people to jail who did nothing wrong.

Just to be very clear, there's no evidence of what you're saying.

But let me ask you about Todd Blanche.Let me ask you about Todd Blanche.Listen to me.Listen to me.Let's talk about Todd Blanche.There's tremendous evidence.

There's nothing but evidence.It's not been presented in a court of law.The election was rigged.It was a dirty election.

And this literally goes back and forth for like a full minute and a half where he's making claims about the current California primary being rigged.

And it's happening again right now in California.

You've never presented evidence that the 2020 election was rigged.It's happening right now in California.

Right now.Look at what's happening in California.Where's the evidence to that?

Now, spoiler alert, Trump doesn't have any evidence to give.And Trump's very old and debunked claim about the 2020 election, that his California claim is piggybacking on, has been litigated again and again across multiple states, and the issue studied endlessly, ultimately falling short in court repeatedly.But suffice to say, there's a point at which it becomes clear Trump's path here only starts at talking over the interviewer.He's also going to insult her.

State and local officials acknowledge they are slow, they're urging...No, they're crooked.They're urging the votes to be counted quickly.That's how they vote in California.

They're crooked, just like you're crooked.Your press is crooked, and meet the press is crooked.

To be fair, I'm not crooked, but let's...Really?

Well, you play right into their hands then.

Let's continue.

You're either crooked or you're stupid.Let's continue.You play right into their hands with this rap.You know that these elections are rigged.Your network knows that they're rigged.

And reporters have had to learn how to keep their cool and keep it professional, even if the president of the United States will not.

Why do you blame the Biden administration?

Because they let him in.Are you stupid?

But look, one thing I should say is that Trump maybe is one of the most scrutinized presidents alive.And to his credit, he does regularly accept these opportunities to speak with the very media who are harshest on him.Apparently, he's already agreed to speak to Welker on Meet the Press again sometime in the future.He rarely refuses to answer a question outright, but instead, he'll often answer a different, much easier question than the one the interviewer asked.question of his own making in his own head.And the challenge then for the journalist is that every follow up almost becomes a negotiation to get to the original question.

In any interview with Trump, there is no guarantee.that the conversation will stay on topic, that any evidence will be presented, that the interviewer will be allowed to fully steer the conversation, or even that they'll not become a target themselves.Trump feels very at ease changing the subject, disputing the questions themselves, attacking the interviewer, and frankly, speaking past them sometimes.Because Trump is keenly aware there are more than just two people in any interview.there are many millions, a whole audience, watching every word.