Trump storms out of NBC interview after denying his own 'No War' promises • FRANCE 24 English

[0:01] Truth or fate means we find over by the big board, Vedika Behel. [0:04] Vedika, good evening to you. [0:05] Good evening, Mark. [0:06] Donald Trump sat for an interview with NBC's Meet the Press. [0:10] It ended up with him storming off after he repeatedly made false claims about election fraud. [0:14] So tell us what happened. [0:16] Well, Mark, the US president walked out of a taped interview with NBC's Meet the Press [0:21] after he was fact-checked repeatedly by reporter Kristen Welker [0:25] when he began spreading false claims about election fraud. [0:28] Now, Trump falsely claimed that California's gubernatorial race was rigged, [0:31] and then he began spouting more untrue claims about cheating in the 2020 presidential election. [0:37] And the reporter, Kristen Welker, challenged him quite heavily on these facts. [0:41] Let's take a listen now to that exchange. [0:45] It was rigged. [0:46] It was a dirty election. [0:47] Mr. President, you've never presented evidence that the 2020 election was rigged. [0:54] Right now, look at what's happening in California. [0:56] Where's the evidence to that? [0:57] State and local officials acknowledge they are slow. [1:00] They're urging. [1:00] No, they're crooked. [1:01] They're crooked. [1:01] They're urging the votes to be counted quickly. [1:03] That's how they vote in California. [1:04] They're crooked, just like you're crooked. [1:05] Your press is crooked. [1:06] And Meet the Press is crooked. [1:08] To be fair, I'm not crooked. [1:09] But let's continue. [1:09] Really? [1:10] Well, you play right into their hands. [1:11] Let's continue. [1:12] You're either crooked or you're stupid. [1:14] You know what? [1:14] Mr. President... [1:15] A country can never be great with a dishonest press. [1:17] Listen, we traveled all the way to Wisconsin for this interview. [1:21] So, as we heard and we saw there, when she asked him for evidence of fraud in the gubernatorial [1:27] race, he accused her by attacking... [1:29] Well, he accused her and attacked her of being crooked. [1:32] But regardless, though Donald Trump has long repeated these claims, he's never been able [1:35] to find anything or been able to hold them up in a court of law, nor, as we can see there, [1:41] give a straight answer about what the evidence actually is. [1:44] And overall, Mark, NBC reported that Trump walked off about 50 minutes after he sat down [1:48] for the interview. [1:50] Indeed. [1:50] He never ceases to surprise, but somehow the surprise always seems like something we've [1:54] seen and heard before. [1:55] It's a strange Trump conundrum. [1:58] Vedika, there was also a tense exchange regarding his controversial anti-weaponisation fund. [2:04] Tell us about that. [2:05] That's right. [2:06] Just after... [2:07] Just before he stormed off, they had a tense exchange about the anti-weaponisation fund, [2:11] which is a now-dropped plan to create a $1.8 billion fund to compensate individuals who [2:17] felt that they were unfairly targeted or investigated by the government. [2:21] Now, she asked him if those people who pled guilty during the January 6th riot of... [2:26] pled guilty of assaulting police officers, if those people would be eligible for funding, [2:30] a question that Donald Trump was very irritated and uncomfortable with. [2:34] Now, he then claimed, without evidence, that the rioters were ushered into the US capital [2:39] by FBI officers and, in fact, that they took those plea deals out of fear of getting longer [2:44] prison sentences. [2:45] And then he attacked the reporter again when she said that there was just no evidence for [2:49] this. [2:50] Now, in fact, some of the most violent rioters from January 6th never even entered the building. [2:55] For example, one of the longest sentences served was to David Dempsey, 20 years in prison. [3:00] He was found to have thrown objects and makeshift weapons at officers. [3:03] He was also found to have stomped on officers' heads. [3:07] And this was all outside the Capitol building itself. [3:09] And overall, just as Kristen Welker said during the interview, there's no evidence that FBI [3:14] agents ushered anyone into the building. [3:17] Now, there were four FBI informants, they're called, who entered the Capitol. [3:21] But according to a report by the Justice Department's Inspector General, they were not instructed [3:26] to do so by the Bureau. [3:27] So, again, a claim by Donald Trump that just doesn't have any evidence behind it. [3:31] And in this same interview, Trump also challenged about the war in Iran, to which she responded [3:37] by, again, repeating falsehoods. [3:40] Tell us more. [3:41] That's right. [3:41] Just before he abruptly walked out, he was asked about the campaign promises he'd made, [3:45] no new wars. [3:46] Now, he responded by saying this. [3:49] First of all, I didn't guarantee no war. [3:51] And then he followed up later by saying, so when you say I promised, I didn't promise [3:55] anything. [3:56] I don't like these endless wars. [3:57] This is not an endless war. [3:58] Now, this is simply not true, because in 2024, Donald Trump repeatedly promised that [4:03] the US wouldn't have any wars during his second term. [4:06] There's Truth Social posts, multiple ones, in fact, from 2024, where he has said something [4:11] of the like, this election is a choice between war and no war. [4:15] But he's made these promises even more directly on the campaign trail itself. [4:20] He constantly pledged to voters that should he be re-elected, the US wouldn't be involved [4:24] in any wars or conflicts, to the point where in recent days, social media users have began [4:29] sharing montages, compilations of Trump on the campaign trail, where he's made those [4:34] no war promises. [4:35] Let's take a look. [4:37] I'm not going to start a war. [4:38] I'm going to stop wars. [4:39] No more wars. [4:41] No more disruptions. [4:42] We will have prosperity and we will have peace. [4:45] Under Trump, we will have no more wars, no more disruptions, and we will have prosperity [4:50] and peace for all. [4:52] I am the candidate of peace. [4:53] I am peace. [4:55] Now, people can debate these comments about whether Trump was talking about endless wars [5:00] or what he meant, but if we go back to what he said during that NBC interview, where he [5:04] said, I didn't promise anything, well, that just simply isn't true, because the record [5:09] shows that multiple times he made an explicit promise about no future wars, and that's even [5:14] if it's something that he's not willing to accept himself.