Chris Wallace was highly praised for his recent interview with President Donald Trump on Fox News, calling Trump in the face of lies and misrepresentations.
If there’s a gap in the interview, it’s that Wallace had not questioned Trump about reports that Russia had paid the Taliban’s bonuses to kill U.S. troops.
Now Jonathan Swan, a reporter from Axios, has filled that void, and then others in an interview as strangely desirable as Wallace’s.
And Swan as serene, professional and penetrating as Wallace. This is another example of the textbook strategy, and the president’s reluctance or inability to counter it.
In a clip of the interview for “Axios on HBO” released Wednesday, Swan asked Trump if he had discussed the reward in a recent phone call with Russian President Vladimir Putin. (The interview is broadcast in full at 12:03 p.m., 1:05 a.m. and 7:35 p.m. on August 4 p.m. on HBO.
“No, it’s a phone call to talk about other things,” Trump said. “And, frankly, it’s a challenge that many other people have called fake news.”
The “fake news,” of course, has been one of Trump’s out-of-the-box choruses in his entire presidency. He uses it to verify and discredit stories he doesn’t like. “A lot of people” is another word he uses, without any detail about the identity of those people.
To his credit, Swan didn’t let go.
“Who said fake news?” Asked.
“I’m a lot of people,” Trump said, before talking vaguely about George W. Bush’s management members, “none of my friends.”
Swan stated that there is a dispute within the premium reporting intelligence network. He then showed that Trump had never discussed it with Putin.
“That’s because he doesn’t do it in intelligence, that’s why, ” said Swan.
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Trump’s reaction was a departure directly from a sitcom from the 1970s, one he had already used.
“You know it’s interesting, nobody talks about China. It’s Russia, Russia, Russia. It was like a strange reading of “The Brady Bunch” on the world stage, with Jan saying, “Marcia, Marcia, Marcia.”
He was given weirder from there.
“It never made it to my desk,” Trump said of the additional report. “You know why? Because they didn’t think, intelligence, they didn’t think it real.”
“It’s in your written report, ” said Swan.
“They didn’t think I valued it,” Trump said. “If I had come to my desk, I would have done anything about it. He never made it to my office.
It was not productive, so Swan began to think that many other people wondered, given the media reports:
“Do you have your report written on you?”
“Yes, ” said Trump. “I read a lot. They like to say I don’t read. I read a lot.”
“Have you read your intelligence report?” Swan says.
“I sense it extremely well, probably more than you’ve interviewed in a long time,” Trump said.
Swan also asked Trump about reports that Russia is arming the Taliban. That seemed to worry Trump a little bit: “I don’t know, when he claims to arm himself, do the Taliban pay?” – and then he gave Swan a mini history lesson. “Let me tell you about Russia, ” he said. “Russia was once a thing called the Soviet Union. Because of Afghanistan, it went bankrupt, so you understand.
The interview itself is of journalistic interest, as Trump acknowledges that he never discussed the reward with Putin.
But it is also remarkable in the context of the election, in just over 3 months. The White House has made Trump more popular lately, and not just for his cheerful friends at Fox News. It’s an attractive strategy, which allows Trump and his supporters to contrast the president’s readiness with that of Joe Biden, the alleged Democratic nominee, who has done few interviews (though he has done some).
Wallace said he had asked for an interview with Biden but informed him that he was unavailable.
“We’ll keep asking every single week,” Wallace said on “Fox News Sunday,” his weekly show.
I hope Biden attends an interview, but honestly, why would he? Silence has served him well: letting Trump speak turns out to be a successful strategy.
Anyway, those next few months are going to be exciting, seeing who’s talking to who and when.
And who doesn’t?
Contact Goodykoontz at [email protected]. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.
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