The Donald Trump-Tucker Carlson interview
Donald Trump chose to skip Wednesday night's Republican debate in favor of an interview with former Fox News star Tucker Carlson. Given that the debate was a moribund affair -- lacking energy, enthusiasm, news, and candidates who seemed remotely presidential -- it might have been one of the best decisions Trump has made in public life. But there was one problem: The Carlson interview apparently was a ratings winner -- drawing 70.4 million views on X (formerlyTwitter), according to Reuters -- but it hardly was compelling television. Critics generally panned it as dull, nonsensical, and weird (with flashes of dishonesty and more weirdness). In other words, it was about what you would expect from Trump, but it certainly did not fill any vacuum left by the tepid debate.
How weird was it? The New Republic's Tori Otten wrote under the headline "Donald Trump Spent the Republican Debate Musing About civil war; Asked about civil war in an interview with Tucker Carlson, Trump began to fondly recall the January 6 insurrection." Otten, it seems, was dying to click over to the debate. She hardly found the Trump-Carlson Show to be spellbinding television. She writes:
Rather than debate his fellow Republican presidential candidates, Donald Trump appeared to condone civil war during an interview with Tucker Carlson
Trump did not attend the first Republican presidential debate on Wednesday night. Instead, he released a pre-taped interview with Carlson designed to steal the spotlight from the other candidates (and Fox News). At one point, Carlson asked Trump if he believed the United States is headed for “civil war.”
“There’s tremendous passion, and there’s tremendous love,” Trump said, before launching into praise for the people who rioted on January 6. He also lied that he had told the mob to go “peacefully and patriotically.”
“People in that crowd said it was the most beautiful day they’ve ever experienced. There was love in that crowd, there was love and unity. I have never seen such spirit, and such passion, and such love. And I’ve also never seen simultaneously and from the same people such hatred of what they’ve done to our country.”
Trump has now tacitly condoned civil war by portraying his supporters’ feelings as “passion” instead of “sedition.” This isn’t the first time that Trump appears to have encouraged violence among his followers. He notoriously told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” during the September 2020 presidential debate. And many of the people who participated in the January 6 insurrection said they did so because Trump had issued a call to arms.
No one ever will confuse Trump with a Ph.D. student in history, but to deny fundamental reality and to look back fondly on an insurrection where people, including police officers, died . . . well, a lot of people have wondered about Trump's mental health -- and you can count us among them.
Did we mention Trump's performance was weird? Here is how Otten wraps it up:
Trump spent the rest of the interview attacking his Republican opponents, whining about all of the indictments against him, and warning people about the dangers of mosquitos.
For reasons that might never be known, Trump said, "We lost 35,000 people to the mosquito."
I have no idea why Trump said that. Was he trying to compare mosquito-related deaths at the Panama Canal to deaths during an attempt to overthrow our democracy on January 6? Deep in his addled brain, I suspect that's the comparison he was trying to make. So yep, that is weird,