Trump's Axios interview

[BmorePat87]

Jonathan Sawn did a good job responding to Trump's usual tactics of lying or pivoting. When Trump says "they say", he asks "who says that?"

He tries to push Trump on the Tulsa Rally and not pushing his followers to wear masks, to which Trump then goes on a tangent about the crowd side, falsely claiming that it was 12,000 even though the venue said 6,200) and then bragging on it being the highest rated Saturday program ever on Fox News. Swan strokes Trump's ego to get him back to the question, to which Trump then deflects again saying, "we have it under control".

Swan says "How? 1000 Americans are dying a day" to which Trump says "They are dying. That's true. It is what it is, but that doesn't mean we aren't doing every we can. It's under control as much as you can control it".

Swan asks if this is really as much as they can control. Trump looks off into the distance with blank look on his face, presumably trying to figure out how to respond before going on a 30 second rant about how the federal government gave governors what they needed but most governors did a bad job.

Swan moves on and asks if, after a week of big events being canceled, Trump would stick to his new message or do another 180 and call for things to be open again. Trump then starts blaming China before Swan says "and now it's in the US and you're the President".

They move on to testing where Trump goes on a rant about testing more than any country after being asked when all Americans will have access to same day testing, which led him to say that "people say you can test too much". Swan asks him who says that. Trump responds "read the manuals. Read the books". Swan says "what manuals? What books?". Trump tries to move away before Swan asks him again which books, but Trump cuts him off and starts ranting about how other countries test. Trumps keeps going on about how testing is complicated but Swan pushes him to answer the original question.

Swan then moves on to a new topic before Trump cuts him off and says that the US tests more than anyone. Swan then takes this opening to push him on his rhetoric. Trump says that when he took over, they didn't even have a test, to which Swan says "why would you? The virus didn't even exist".

Trump continues on talking about how we have more cases because we test more, but Swan stops him and says that deaths is a more important figure to him. Trump then pulls out his own charts showing deaths per case, but Swan pushes and says that if you look at death per capita, the US is doing worse than many countries. Trump says "you can't do that". Trump then accuses South Korea of lying about deaths. The exchange is in the video below

.@jonathanvswan: “Oh, you’re doing death as a proportion of cases. I’m talking about death as a proportion of population. That’s where the U.S. is really bad. Much worse than South Korea, Germany, etc.”@realdonaldtrump: “You can’t do that.”

Swan: “Why can’t I do that?” pic.twitter.com/MStySfkV39

— Axios (@axios) August 4, 2020

Trump points to a few states where the number of deaths are going down, even though they're going up nationally. One of the states he says is Florida, which Swan immediately questions. Florida's deaths have skyrocketed. They didn't have any days with more than 77 deaths in June (only 5 above 50) where in July they had 14 days over 100, with some as high as 257. Trump claims it evened out (this was on July 28th) but Florida averaged 228 deaths a day for the rest of the month.

On the topic of Russian bounties, Trump said many people called it fake news and that he hasn't talked to Putin about it. He then tried to turn it to complaining about China and nuclear proliferation after Swan asked him if he believes the intelligence. Swan pushes him and he says the intel didn't reach his desk otherwise he would have done something with it. Swan asked him if he reads his intelligence briefs, to which Trump says he reads a lot and comprehends better than anyone and then goes on about how Indian and China are fighting and that takes up his time. Trump excused intel that Russia provided weapons to the Taliban by saying that the US armed the Taliban against Russia in the 80's. He then said Russia wouldn't get involved with Afghanistan because the last time they did they were the USSR, went bankrupt, and became Russia.

Trump said we have less troops in Afghanistan, even though that's not true. He also claimed that ISIS was 100% gone.

Swan moves on to the election, asking what it looks like for the sitting president to say he wouldn't commit to accepting the results of the election, to which Trump tried to say that Hillary writing a book about the election was the same thing. Trump says he have a "new phenomenon called mail in voting". Swan remarks "New? It's been here since the Civil War". What followed by a string of false claims which can be best summarized by PolitiFact

Quote:"They’re going to send tens of millions of ballots to California, all over the place."
This is misleading. Around 20 million people are registered to vote in California, but the statement mimics false claims he's made about California sending out ballots to "anyone living in the state, no matter who they are," falsely calling the election rigged.

In May, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, ordered all counties to send out mail-in ballots, citing health concerns amid COVID-19. But a review of Newsom’s executive order shows only registered voters would receive vote-by-mail ballots, not to anyone "all over the place."

To register to vote in California, residents must be 18, U.S. citizens, not in state or federal prison or on parole for the conviction of a felony, and not declared mentally incompetent to vote by a court.

— Samantha Putterman

"Millions of ballots going, nobody even knows where they’re going."
This is wrong. There’s no evidence that states are randomly mailing millions of ballots without any idea where they’re going.

Most states require voters to apply for mail-in ballots, according to election law experts, with exceptions for states that already primarily vote by mail, and California, which plans to mail ballots to voters because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

— Samantha Putterman

"You look at some of the corruption having to do with universal mail-in voting. Absentee voting is OK. You have to apply, you have to go through a process. Absentee voting is good."
This is a misleading accusation and a false distinction. There is no objective difference between absentee voting and voting by mail.

In the states that allow broad use of mail ballots, there is no distinction in how a voter requests "absentee" ballots and other types of mail ballots. All mail ballots, regardless of how they are requested, are treated the same once they’re cast. They all require verification before being counted.

Election experts across the country have said that fraudulent mail-in voting is exceedingly rare.

The Brennan Center for Justice, a non-partisan law and public policy institute, found that Oregon – a state that votes primarily by mail – has sent out more than 100 million mail-in ballots since 2000, but has documented only about a dozen cases of proven fraud.

He goes on with a number of claims about Portland and unmarked federal agents, saying that it needs to be done to protect the families of the agents, that Portland's mayor would have been killed by the protestors, and that he does not support investigations into illegal detention of protestors.

He then responds to being asked about if he has met with any BLM activists by saying the first interaction we had with BLM was them wanting to "fry bacon". Asked about systemic racism, he goes on about achievements in the black community, saying he has done more than anyone other than Lincoln, and that what he has done was better than the Civil Rights Act.

On John Lewis and how history will remember him, Trump says "I don't know. I don't know him. He didn't come to my inauguration. I never met him." Asked if he finds him impressive, he can't say but says "he didn't come to my inauguration or state of the unions."