Donald Trump doesn't want to take any option off the table, no matter how strange, disturbing or foolish it may be. Throughout his career, when journalists asked the former president hypothetical questions about any topic, he never rejected the premise. His answer is almost always 'maybe' or 'yes'.
Reporters love interviews that convey new facts to the public. If a journalist, after being asked an intense question by a government official, says he really wants to raise taxes or eliminate Social Security, this provides valuable information to the public about that person's thoughts. But since President Trump appears constitutionally irresistible, the usual logic of news production does not apply. What's worse is that reporters risk giving Trump a bad look.
Last month, for example, a reporter in Texas asked Trump whether he would consider nominating the state's attorney general, Ken Paxton, to be attorney general if he were elected president. President Trump said, “Actually, that would have been the case.” “He is very, very talented. What I mean is, we have a lot of people who want it and are very good at it. But he is a very talented person.” Paxton was not included in the previously reported list of candidates and he would be a terrible choice. He's under federal investigation, admitted to violating laws protecting whistleblowers, and narrowly (and absurdly) avoided conviction during his impeachment trial last fall.
Perhaps Trump isn't ruling out the situation because he doesn't want to make a mistake or concede anything. Or he doesn't actually know enough about the topic at hand and he's biased, or (often) a combination of these. .
Sometimes the stakes of these hypothetical questions are very low. (Would you consider VAT? Of course, maybe, but who knows?) In many cases, the answer is basically meaningless chaff to the daily cycle of outrage. (Would you consider Tucker Carlson for VP? “Oh wow… I really like Tucker! I think so!”) But sometimes they have real-world implications. In a 2019 CBS News interview, Trump did not rule out his pardon for Roger Stone and eventually pardoned him. In the same interview, he considered deploying U.S. troops in Venezuela (he did not do so, but the idea caused a diplomatic upheaval, as even the most foolish ideas of a U.S. president can change geopolitics). Trump clearly outlined his own general approach: “well. I don't take anything off the table. I don’t like taking things off the table,” he told host Margaret Brennan.
Interviewers know this, and it's one of the reasons they keep asking questions. hour's Eric Cortellessa recently asked Trump whether he would resign after his second term or challenge the 22nd Amendment. President Trump responded, “I’m at the point where I can do that.” “Look, those are two terms. I've had two elections. I did much better on the second task than the first. I got millions more votes. I was treated very unfairly. They used COVID-19 to cheat and many other things. “But I was treated very unfairly.”
Trump has previously mulled a third term, so Cortellessa didn't come up with this out of the blue. One could argue that Trump is determined to end democracy. that much The main issue in this election. But one could argue that following the Constitution should be an expectation of all candidates rather than a campaign issue, and that running for a third term only gives Trump the opportunity to seek another term. He is currently discussing the possibility in public speeches.
In an interview in May 2015, Trump and bloomberg news The reporters seemed to be winking at the game they were playing.
So what I want to ask is, ‘Have you thought about this?’ the reporter began. “Are you willing to get something from meeting Kim Jong-un in person?”
“BREAKING NEWS – We have breaking news. “Is this breaking news, Jennifer?” Trump asked Jennifer Jacobs, one of the interviewers, a question that made her laugh. “It depends on what you say.” she answered. Of course, what he said was that he would do it. He ultimately met with Chairman Kim, and the meeting was deemed a misstep that would do nothing to slow North Korea's nuclear program or threats.
In these events, reporters are part of the mainstream media that uses hypotheses to create news. But sometimes a slightly different dynamic plays out in conservative media, with Trump allies having a different goal: to make Trump look ordinary. This tactic rarely works. Trump is temperamentally incapable of avoiding making news, and besides, he doesn't like being told no.
For example, last December Sean Hannity sought to dismiss claims that Trump would abuse his power if re-elected. “Do you promise tonight that under no circumstances will you abuse your power to take revenge on anyone in America?” Hanity asked. But Trump refused the lifeline. President Trump responded, “Except for the first day.” “He said, 'You don't want to be a dictator, do you?' I said: ‘No, no, no, except on the first day. We're closing our borders and drilling, drilling, drilling. After that, I will no longer be a dictator.’”
Journalists should not hesitate to ask Trump difficult questions. However, they must be aware that there is a risk of instilling bad ideas. In November 2015, Trump spoke darkly about the need to crack down on terrorism. “We will have to do things that have never been done before.” A Yahoo News interviewer then asked Trump whether Muslims “should be registered in a database for this level of tracking, or provided with a special identification card that lists their religion.” You can guess what happened next. “He wouldn’t rule it out,” the interviewer reported. The backlash was quick, but there was also great excitement among Trump supporters. This idea eventually turned into his attempt to ban people from primarily Muslim countries from entering the United States.
Perhaps the entire Trump era is a result of the following hypothetical question: In 1988, Oprah Winfrey invited Trump on her own show to talk about her trade. “This sounds to me like a political presidential speech,” Winfrey said. “I know people have talked about whether you want to run or not. “Is that possible?” Trump was skeptical, but he didn't take the issue off the table. “I probably wouldn’t do that, Oprah. Probably not. “But I’m sick of seeing what’s going on in this country, and if things get that bad, I would never want to rule it out completely.”