Miami: A visibly angry Donald Trump stormed out of a major television interview after he was pressed for evidence on a series of sensational and baseless claims, including that American elections are habitually rigged “like a third world country”.
Trump threw his microphone to the ground and stepped on it as he exited a combative interview with NBC’s Meet the Press – a long-running political talk show akin to the ABC’s Insiders – during a trip to Wisconsin last week. The segment aired on Sunday.
He used the interview to repeat false claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him, and to argue that the January 6 rioters were victims of “dirty cops” and wrongly imprisoned.
NBC host Kristen Welker protested that Trump and his allies had never presented any evidence for those claims which had been accepted by a court of law. Joe Biden won the 2020 election.
“Listen to me, there’s tremendous evidence,” Trump said. “The election was rigged, it was a dirty election and it’s happening again right now in California.”
Trump was referring to elections for California governor and Los Angeles mayor held on Tuesday, for which the counting is still incomplete.
Republican Steve Hilton – Trump’s preferred candidate for governor – has called for an overhaul of the state’s notoriously slow electoral system, including the grace period for mail-in ballots.
The Trump-appointed federal US attorney in Los Angeles, Bill Essayli, has also announced multiple fraud investigations into California’s recent elections with the FBI.
Welker pressed Trump for evidence that the elections in California were rigged, noting the state had long suffered from slow vote counts, and that Republican candidates were actually performing relatively well.
“No they’re not, they’re dropping fast because it’s a rigged election,” he said. “It’s four days, and they’re not even close [to completing the count].”
Welker responded: “That’s how they count the votes in California.”
Asked again whether he had any evidence for his claims, Trump said: “All I have to do is look, and I listen.”
Welker replied: “That’s not evidence.”
The US president then began an extraordinary tirade about the American media being crooked and US elections being systematically rigged.
“You’re either crooked or you’re stupid,” he told Welker. “You know that these elections are rigged. Your network knows that they’re rigged.
“We’re like a third world country. Your elections are crooked, and you’re crooked, and Meet The Press is crooked, and so is ABC and CBS and CNN. You’re one-sided, crooked networks.”
A visibly enraged Trump signalled to his aides that he wanted to terminate the interview. “Let’s call it quits, ’cos I’ve had enough. Thank you darling, have a good time,” he said.
He then tore off his microphone, dropped it to the ground, and stepped on it.
Welker protested that she and her team had travelled from Washington DC to Wisconsin to tape the interview. But Trump said he had given her enough time and walked out.
The incident garnered significant attention in the US. CNN anchor Jake Tapper called it “wild, unhinged stuff” from a president who could not handle being politely challenged on his constant conspiracy theories.
The president spent much of last week asserting without evidence that California’s election results were “phony”.
He has also repeated lies that the 2020 election was rigged or “stolen”, and vigorously defended people who rioted at the US Capitol on his behalf on January 6, 2021.
Trump has continued defending the rioters as he backtracked on a proposed $US1.8 billion compensation fund for victims of so-called government weaponisation under Biden.
The fund was created as part of a settlement between Trump and the Department of Justice after the US president and his family sued the government he runs over a 2019 leak of his tax returns by a tax office contractor.
But the administration was forced to dump the proposed Anti-Weaponisation Fund after a backlash from some Republicans. Democrats branded it a “slush fund” for Trump’s MAGA allies and “January 6 foot soldiers”.
During the Meet The Press interview, Trump shrugged when asked whether any of the rioters who attacked US police officers should receive compensation from taxpayers.
“I wouldn’t be inclined to say so, but I’d have to see it,” he said. “The people were destroyed by dirty cops and by weaponisation. Many of those people should be compensated.”
Unlike his acting attorney-general Todd Blanche, Trump did not rule out proceeding with the compensation fund in some form. He said he did not know what was going to happen with it but he loved the idea.
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Michael Koziol is the North America correspondent for The Age and Sydney Morning Herald. He is a former Sydney editor, Sun-Herald deputy editor and a federal political reporter in Canberra.Connect via X or email.