On Tuesday, Donald Trump began an interview with the CBS Network’s 60 Minutes but walked out of the interview after he was asked some questions that he was not comfortable with. Rumors have swirled about the interview all week, and now the footage has finally been released.
Clips of the interview were previously posted by Donald Trump, in posts where he claimed that he was treated unfairly by the interviewer Lesley Stahl.
When Trump was asked if he thinks that his social media use and name-calling might turn off potential voters. This question set Trump off and caused him to walk away from the interview. Trump answered the question before leaving, saying that “No, I think I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have social media. The media is fake. And frankly, if I didn’t have social media, I’d have no way of getting out my voice.”
However, this seems to be an intentional misunderstanding of the question. The interviewer was not suggesting that he should not be using social media, but that perhaps the way he uses it might offend people. Trump glossed over this aspect of the question.
Moments later, Trump told his aide Hope Hicks, “I think we have enough of an interview here, Hope. OK? That’s enough. Let’s go.”
The 60 Minutes interviews with both Trump and his Democratic challenger, Joe Biden, drew a total of 16.8 million viewers, according to the Guardian. This is the biggest audience that the show has had since two years ago when they interviewed Stormy Daniels, the adult film star and producer who claims an affair with Trump in the past. Trump denies these allegations.
Asked whether his tweets or name-calling turn people off, President Trump says: “I think I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have social media.”
Moments later, he abruptly ended the interview. https://t.co/I6zv8qogcF pic.twitter.com/JYfPYOWGym
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) October 26, 2020
Many Trump critics say that he wasn’t even asked very difficult questions. The interviewer never asked about Trump’s associates who have been arrested or his finances, which have been a major source of controversy in recent months.
The irony of the 60 Minutes interviews is that Biden faced much tougher questions. They asked him, and not the guy who recently bragged about acing a dementia test, whether he was senile. They asked him, and not the guy who just got out of the hospital, about his health. /1 https://t.co/2DqeXZS2m0
— Lawrence Glickman (@LarryGlickman) October 26, 2020
