We Watched Trump’s 60 Minutes Interview. It’s Nuts.

Hey everybody, it's me, Sam Stein, manager at The Bulwark. I'm here with Will Southan, and he has decided to do something very gracious. You watched Donald Trump's 60 Minutes interview. I did too. It took place tonight, Sunday, November 2nd. Will, I will say, before we get into the substance of this interview, I will say

there's some history about 60 Minutes and Donald Trump. My understanding is that 60 Minutes is legally obligated under both the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions to air the entire footage of the interview, not make a single edit or cut, and if they do, they are obligated to pay whoever sues them $15 million in restitution. Is that your understanding of the law as it stands? Yeah, that's definitely the law. And of course, Donald Trump, the subject of the interview, is allowed to put literally put words in the mouths of the Senate majority leader

and put a put a mustache and a sombrero on the House minority leader.

Look, guys, there's no way to sugarcoat it. Nobody likes Democrats anymore. We have no voters left because of all of our woke trans bullshit.

All of that is totally legal at the same time.

Okay, I'm referring obviously to the fact that Donald Trump sued Paramount over the 60 Minutes interview that they did with Kamala Harris right before the election. They had made a cut, a normal editing cut that happens all the time in her interview. He said it was an in-kind contribution to her campaign. It was ridiculous. Paramount, however, happened to have a fair amount of business before the government,

including a merger with Skydance that they wanted to complete. And so they paid the fine and they bought the free press. Now here we are with Trump one year later from a roughly around then, sitting down for six minutes. In reality, it was a 90-minute interview they announced on the show. Obviously, if you are familiar with the title of the show, it's 60 minutes, so they couldn't air on 90. They did. They did edit it down. They did

put a full transcript up online, which I'm grateful for. And I'm just joking. No one should sue them stupid. All right, well, what are your main takeaways from the substance of the

interview?

Well, first of all, it's just interesting to see a deranged man expressing that kind of confidence close. I mean, he's nuts. He's completely nuts. And we can go through some of the reasons. But to see him up close with that camera angle, he's got the orange face.

He's got the pink behind it, the pre-bronze look. But he's so confident in his delusions. And Sam, this interview, this was the first time that he came back from all the... So we had the shutdown going on here, Trump going overseas, you know, getting Asia, Middle East, and this is the first time he comes back and he really gets grilled on what's happening here.

Yeah. Well, so what's interesting about... I guess not that interesting, but what's notable, the transcript actually makes clear that they started the interview itself with a hefty portion of foreign policy. It's a lot of China, Venezuela, Israel. And then it was, after that, they went into the domestic stuff, which I found interesting

because when you watched it on TV, it started with the domestic stuff and then went to the foreign policy. And it felt like, just as a sort of a theater critic here, his energy got sort of zapped over the course of the interview.

When in reality, if you look by the transcripts, he was starting with foreign stuff, and he just wasn't as interested as he was with the domestic stuff. On the domestic stuff, he talked about the shutdown, which was what they aired first.

What were your main thoughts on how he was approaching it? Well, he wasn't approaching it. I mean, that's the crazy thing. Here's this guy who's like projecting such action overseas. I'm doing all this stuff with trade deals, with nuclear, with the Middle East and all that. Norah O'Donnell asks him what, she literally says, what are you doing as president? What are you doing as president to lead us out of the shutdown?" And he says, they just have to keep voting. They just have to. It's a they

thing. All we're doing is we keep voting. I mean the Republicans are voting almost unanimously to end it and the Democrats keep voting against ending it. He has no

answer to what he personally will do. He's like, I won't be extorted. He will not lead and this is him looking right in the camera and saying, I'm not going to do anything. It's not my fault, not my job.

Right.

And the juxtaposition was kind of interesting, because there was a point when he was asked about, and again, foreign policy, domestic policy. He was asked about his meeting with Putin in Alaska. And in Norah O'Donnell, she says, you rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin in Alaska, and he interjects pretty quickly, and he goes,

well, I roll out the red carpet for everybody.

I mean, you rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin in Alaska, but there's been...

Well, I roll out the red carpet for everybody.

But not everybody. He's not talking to Democrats. That's someone he will not roll out the red carpet for. He won't roll out any carpet carpet for. He won't roll

out any carpet for them. He'll put a prayer on them. Am I hallucinating or didn't Volodymyr Zelensky, the president of Ukraine, come into the Oval Office and get berated by Trump and J.D. Vance? Like I don't think of that as a red carpet. Like that was more like a red wedding? I mean.

You said thank you once.

A lot of times.

No.

Even today.

It seems like it's not exactly a fair deal.

Did you workshop that line?

No, I just like it.

That's pretty good, man. OK, yeah, that was notable. The other part, and again, read the transcript because it becomes more apparent how little plan he actually has when you read it. But she's like, well, this is all about health care. And what is your plan?

If you don't like Obamacare, you think it sucks, what's your plan? And he's just like, we'll get on it. We'll get to that. And then she's like, but what's your plan? And he's like, well, we'll deal with that. We almost got rid of Obamacare, and it's terrible, but we'll deal with it. So you're saying your plan is to tell the Democrats

to vote to end the shutdown?

Correct, very simple.

And that you will put forward a healthcare plan?

No, we will work on fixing the bad healthcare that we have right now. We have terrible healthcare at too expensive for the people.

Not for the government, for the people. But Mr. President, with all due respect, you've been talking about fixing the health care insurance since 2015. But since 2015 you've said you'd fix it.

I've been talking about it for a long time. We almost did it. We were one vote short.

We would have had great health care. And he clearly has no plan. I mean just absolutely, which isn't a surprise obviously. They've been going around this thing for, you know, a decade now and they don't have a plan to replace and they never will. You think he'd have something to say with a little bit more substance, but not, not this guy.

Yeah, no, I mean, what is the number of times that Donald Trump will be asked this question and will not have an answer to it? And we keep having the same thing. It's the groundhog day, right? Like what was the campaign one?

Oh, concepts. I have concepts of a plan. So just a yes or no, you still do not have a plan? I have concepts of a plan.

And like, so like, Sam, you know how politics works? The politician, like, you go back with your team and they're like, okay, that was not a great answer. Let's have something for next time. But it's been next time and next time and next time and he's still got nothing. Let me ask you, how'd you think Nora did? I thought she was OK.

The thing, the big, look, the big problem with Trump, see, I watch everything Trump does. And what Trump really likes is to have 20 reporters around. And he's got like more than 10 of them are these nutty.

Yeah, because you can stop.

You can be like, oh, no, no, no, next question. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Totally. Right. Your network is a failing network. Your fake news NBC, fake news ABC. So he goes to somebody else and now this president has like 15 people out of the 20 who are just these nutball right wing, you know, non-reporters, sycophants who just feed him what he wants. So he always can move on. So what I thought was great is you have one interviewer and she gets to persist if she does her job. And I think she did try to get him to answer her questions.

Yeah, no, I think people are generally, not always, but often a little too tough on the Trump interviewer because he is whatever you want to say to the guy. He's very good at deflecting and bullshitting and getting out of there. I mean, it's very hard to pin him down and he'll talk over you. And like, it's very hard to pin him down and he'll talk over you and like it's just a really hard job I thought you did a good job There are parts where like he's just gonna steamroll and there's one part where he did and you know

They made the push back on the edit, which I thought was important That was when he was when she was pressing him on these political prosecutions Comey and Bolton and Letitia James this is verbatim did you instruct the Department of Justice to go after them and Trump says no and

Not in any way shape or form. No, you don't have to instruct them because they were so dirty. They were so crooked They were so corrupt that the honest people we have Pam Bondi's doing a very good job Cash Patel is doing a very good job the honest people that we have go after him automatically and I'm just thinking to myself

I know I saw that Truth Social post. Like, I didn't hallucinate that. I saw that Truth Social post. Now, she didn't mention Truth Social post. They did include that in the edit.

But in a Truth Social post from September addressed to Attorney General Pam Bondi, President Trump endorsed the idea that former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James

were quote, guilty as hell. Right. But I think they owe Trump about 20 million dollars for doing that because that wasn't in the interview, right? Like, like, this is a lawsuit coming. This is, but this is like where the mental illness comes in. The guy just looks you right in the face. And Sam, I think he, he believes his own bullshit I really do. So he says not in any way shape or form he just erases from his mind and they show the thing in which he's literally the thing begins with Pam. Go after these three people.

It was literally a direct message.

Yeah. Right so like so you know you really do need them at that point to just put up there on the screen as they did, like here is the evidence that this man is lying to you.

To your point, because the lies and the mistruths come so rapidly, it's really impossible to sort of stop and be like, no, no, no, no. But there were a few where I thought more pushback could have come. So he said this, we had the worst inflation in the history of our country and now we don't have inflation. It's at 2%.

It's the perfect inflation. I mean, that's just statistically wrong. We had a 12-month report, it was at 3%. He just went and said that. This one kind of was funny to me because, I don't know, I've researched this one and done some reporting on it, but they're talking about tariffs and whether they've led to inflation. He said, we have no inflation, we have no inflation.

Biden had inflation and he didn't have tariffs. He didn't use tariffs. You know why he didn't use them? Because he's not smart enough to use them. And in fact, this is why it's so funny, Biden continued Trump's tariffs and enhance them like that became a big thing that Biden wouldn't eliminate the China tariffs on electric vehicles and Trump himself in

other appearances has said that Biden continues some of his tariffs so like guys like it's like he says tells you one story and then he tells you another story can I just pick on the inflation thing for a second look Trump bullshits people all the time and like the inflation rate is one of them he'll tell you it's this a average person like I don't know what the inflation rate is one of them. He'll tell you it's this. Average person like, I don't know what the inflation rate is, but Trump gets specific about prices

and he'll tell you the price of eggs has gone down, the price of bacon has gone down, the price of this or that. And real people, ordinary people, they can answer that question because they buy things.

They can tell you whether. So when Trump says the price of it's gone down and that they know that it's gone up, that kind of stuff won't wash. And I wonder if he can get really nailed on that in the election.

It's funny that you said that because he wasn't, that's when they asked about the grocery prices, he wasn't very specific about that, except for saying, yeah, the price of beef has gone up, but we're working on that.

Inflation.

No, you're wrong.

They went up under Biden. Biden right now, they're going down other than beef, which we're working on. But he was very specific on the macro stuff. So the inflation stuff, but you know, just how far we've come, honestly, he did say, you know, classically Trump, the 2020 election was rigged and stolen. And it just kind of, it was like a, it was like a little raindrop in a river, right? It's like, it's so immaterial at this point and so inconsequential to these interviews. And yet you think about it, you're like, this is the biggest, most pernicious lie

that he tells. And we're past the point where people feel the need to push back about it

because it's just so constant. It's very sad. He does. He's so he has said this probably about 150 times since he returned. And not only does he say it, Sam, now he says the part where he says, just what you did. I say this, I used to say it and people would object. Now I say it and no one even argues with me. The fact that he doesn't get pushback anymore, including from the press that are just too jaded, like they've said it a hundred times that it's not true. So they just stop and he gets away with it and now he's advertising that as some kind of acknowledgement that he's that he was right

Well people might be saying well, I didn't know I just say that's not true. Mr President and she probably could have but if he says that if you say that's not true you get You know ten minutes of him Relitigating it in a way that you know exactly how it's gonna go So you do have to make that call but it is so depressing that he even notices how bad this is.

I want to read you my favorite part, well one of my favorite parts. Let's play the Mom Donny one where he talks about their respective looks.

Some people have compared him to a left-wing version of you, charismatic, breaking the old rules. What do you think about that?

Well, I think I'm a much better looking person than him, right? All right, that was a real chuckle. But that wakes me wasn't my favorite line. My favorite line was him talking about, there's this news report that they're going to start to test nuclear weapons again. And obviously that's not great, right? Like, I don't think anyone's like super psyched that we're going to like test nuclear weapons. And it's not great because he believes that Russia and China are testing nuclear weapons, or Russia and North Korea, and our own government saying, no, that's not true, they're testing

the launchers. Anyways, he says this, he goes, doesn't it make sort of sense, you know, you make nuclear weapons and then you don't test. How are you going to do that? How are you going to know if they work? Right, right. But Sam, I think you put your finger on it when you talked about the launchers. Okay. What does it mean to test nuclear weapons? Right? There's all kinds of things you can test in the system without detonating the damn thing. Right? Right. So there. Yes, there are tests conducted to make sure that parts of the system work. But if we get to the point where you've got to like, set it off, like, that's where we sort of cross this line. Oh, no. And then if you start really like going down the logical rabbit hole here,

which I did, I mean, does he think that you have to like test all of them? Like, how do you know if one works and not the other? Like, what are we talking about?

Big guy.

Ah, this is tough stuff.

I mean, here's what he taught. He does tariffs, right? how tariffs work, but he talks about it. And that's one thing. But when we shift over to nuclear weapons and he's doing the same ignorance, that's a big problem.

This is the guy at the end of the bar after a few drinks stuff here. It's like, you know what? How do we know they work if you haven't tried them? It's like, yo, buddy, just have another beer. All right, before I do that, I want to know if you have any final

observations or thoughts or things you want to talk about from this interview.

There was one other thing that I thought was so weird. He was asked about nuking the... he said he's going to nuke the filibuster, right? He's like, nuke the filibuster, get this nuclear order.

Just to be clear, because we just talked about nuclear order. Not literally nuke, but yes God and so Nora Donald says to him John Thune the Senate majority leader says he's not gonna do that and

Donald Trump says he goes well

That's too bad. He said today. He wasn't gonna do it. Well

That's too bad. And that's all he has to say. This is a guy who snaps his fingers and Republicans fall in line So he's like, oh, that's too bad? When in the history of the world, Trump said, oh, that's too bad. If he wanted to do it, Sam, you know he would make them do it.

Well, the alternative theory, I do think he wants to do it because he's been bringing it up since term one and he always gets rebuked. The alternative theory is that there's like some things he gets his back into, and then there's some things if you just tell him no, he's kind of like a big wimp about it. Maybe he doesn't spoil for the fight all the time, but you don't think he actually wants

it? I think if he were desperate to end the shutdown, he would make them do this.

He'd turn the screws to Thune? Maybe. Maybe.

Okay.

Here's your quiz. I think you're going to do fine here. A repeated name that came up during this interview was Joe Biden. He blamed Joe Biden for just about everything. Like, just about everything. You could go down the list. We read a few of them. Inflation, jobs, Venezuela, drugs, Russia, Ukraine, Israel, Iran, everything. It was Biden, Biden, Biden.

Alright, this is a 90 minute interview. How many times in that interview do you think the word Biden was uttered? And that includes Biden administration. Oh, hell. The problem is you've seen the whole transcript that I've only watched the air portion. I control F'd. Yes. I'm talking about the whole transcript if you had to guess how many times Joe Biden was mentioned in this I

Literally only saw Biden. I was shockingly saw him mentioned few times relative to how often Trump usually mentions Biden You know, I I would guess 10

Wrong way wrong

42

Those were edited out Sam. I'm telling you those were edited out two times. He. 42. Holy shit. Those were edited out, Sam. I'm telling you, those were edited out.

42 times he mentioned Biden. He did mention Obama. He mentioned Obama 10 times. Right. So maybe you were thinking about Obama. Yeah, no, a lot of blame casting here.

Look, the larger, the truthiness is Trump mentions Biden all the time, and it's just so weird because he wants to kind of erase Biden but it's like the new boyfriend who can't stop talking about the old boyfriend. You know who's really the king here, it's the guy who keeps being mentioned by the one who came after. It's so true. All right man, this was fun. Nothing else. Trump should do these more so we have more fun videos to make. Will Salton, thank you buddy. Talk to you later. For everyone who watched us, appreciate it. Appreciate you watching us. We do this for you. We sift through these transcripts for you. We sift through these transcripts for you.

So subscribe to the feed for us.