Donald Trump 60 Minutes interview released in full

Donald Trump has posted his entire interview with 60 Minutes online. Here are the best bits from the fiery clash, including his abrupt walkout.

Donald Trump has posted his entire interview with 60 Minutes online, three days before it was due to air.

Mr Trump sat down for the interview earlier this week but walked out early, and has since complained repeatedly about the performance of CBS journalist Lesley Stahl.

Today the US President followed through on his threat to release the whole interview, posting the White House’s raw footage on Facebook.

“Look at the bias, hatred and rudeness,” he told his followers, adding that the moderator of tonight’s final presidential debate, NBC White House correspondent Kristen Welker, was “far worse”.

Mr Trump will face off with Democratic nominee Joe Biden at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee on Thursday night – midday on Friday (AEST).

As he teased the release of the footage, Mr Trump tweeted that he would “soon be giving a first in television history” by releasing the “full, unedited preview of the vicious attempted ‘takeout’ interview of me by Lesley Stahl”.

“Watch her constant interruptions and anger,” he wrote. “Compare my full, flowing and ‘magnificently brilliant’ answers to their ‘Qs’.”

In a statement, CBS said 60 Minutes was “widely respected for bringing its hallmark fairness, deep reporting and informative context to viewers each week”.

“The White House’s unprecedented decision to disregard their agreement with CBS News and release their footage will not deter 60 Minutes from providing its full, fair and contextual reporting which presidents have participated in for decades,” CBS said.

“Few journalists have the presidential interview experience Lesley Stahl has delivered over her decades as one of the premier correspondents in America and we look forward to audiences seeing her third interview with President Trump and subsequent interview with Vice President Pence this weekend.”

Look at the bias, hatred and rudeness on behalf of 60 Minutes and CBS. Tonight’s anchor, Kristen Welker, is far worse! #MAGA

Posted by Donald J. Trump on Thursday, 22 October 2020

Here are some of the highlights from the interview.

‘READY FOR TOUGH QUESTIONS?’

It starts with a pretty striking exchange between Mr Trump and Stahl.

“Are you ready for some tough questions?” Stahl asks.

“You’re gonna be fair. Just be fair,” Mr Trump replies.

“Last time, I remember you saying to me, ‘Bring it on,’” she said, referring to previous interview.

“No, I’m not looking for that. I’m looking for fairness, that’s all,” said the President.

“You’re going to get fairness. And you’re OK with some tough questions?” asked Stahl.

“No, I’m not,” Mr Trump said. “You don’t ask Biden tough questions. It’s terrible. It’s terrible. You know that.”

It’s not clear 60 Minutes would have aired this exchange, as it came before Stahl confirmed the crew was ready to start the interview.

ECONOMY CLAIMS ‘NOT TRUE’

Mr Trump says he created “the greatest economy” in US history before the coronavirus hit, but Stahl replies, “You know that’s not true”.

“You wouldn’t say that to Biden, what you just said to me,” Mr Trump shoots back at her.

“If he had it, you would never say that to Biden. We had the best stock market price ever, and we’re getting close to that price again. We had the best – everything was the best.”

The US economy was indeed pretty healthy before the pandemic.

The unemployment rate was as low as 3.5 per cent, the best since the 1950s.

Other measures, such as GDP and wage growth, were more average, so Mr Trump is not correct when he claims “everything” was the best.

But what we’re dealing with here is exaggeration and embellishment, not an outright falsehood.

“Every number, virtually every number was the best. We had the best economy ever,” Mr Trump continues.

“The other side was starting to call, ‘Let’s get together.’ There was going to be unity. And then we got hit with the plague.”

LAPTOP ‘CAN’T BE VERIFIED’

Mr Trump brings the discussion to recent revelations about Mr Biden’s son Hunter Biden’s business dealings – contained in a trove of emails and other documents found on an abandoned laptop allegedly belonging to the former Vice President’s son.

He demands to know why Stahl is not asking any questions about the issue.

There has been a definite reluctance among left-leaning media outlets to report on the story, which was first broken by the New York Post earlier this month with other outlets including Fox News since corroborating some of the emails.

The New York Post and Fox News are owned by News Corp, publisher of news.com.au.

“I think it’s one of the biggest scandals I’ve ever seen and you don’t cover it,” Mr Trump tells Stahl. “You want to talk about insignificant things.”

She replies, “Well because it can’t be verified. I’m telling you –”

“Of course it can be verified – excuse me, they found the laptop,” the President cuts in.

“It can’t be verified,” Stahl says.

“What can’t be verified?” he asks.

“The laptop,” she says.

“Why do you say that?” Mr Trump asks.

“Because it can’t be verified,” she insists.

Mr Trump begins to say “even the family on the laptop” – apparently to point out the Biden campaign has not denied the authenticity of the emails but instead made vague claims of “Russian disinformation”.

“He’s gone into hiding for five days, he’s gone into hiding,” Mr Trump says.

Stahl says Mr Biden is “preparing for your debate”.

“Oh, it’s taken him five days to prepare? I doubt it,” he replies.

‘NO EVIDENCE’ OF SPYING

In a similar vein, Mr Trump says the “biggest scandal” was when the Obama administration “spied on my campaign”.

“There’s no real evidence of that,” Stahl says.

There is, in fact, quite a bit of evidence Mr Trump’s campaign was spied on.

“Of course there is, it’s all over the place,” Mr Trump says. “Lesley, they spied on my campaign and they got caught.”

Stahl isn’t having it.

“Can I say something? You know, this is 60 Minutes, and we can’t put on things we can’t verify,” she says.

“You won’t put it on because it’s bad for Biden,” Mr Trump says.

“We can’t put on things we can’t verify!” Stahl says, raising her voice.

“Lesley, they spied on my campaign,” he repeats.

“Well we can’t verify that,” she says.

“It’s been totally verified,” Mr Trump says.

“No.”

“Just go down and get the papers,” he continues.

It’s not clear but Mr Trump is possibly referring to various documents related to the Russia probe he has ordered declassified.

“They spied on my campaign, they got caught,” he says.

“No.”

“And then they went much further than that, and they got caught,” he continues. “And you will see that, Lesley, and you know that, but you just don’t want to put it on the air.”

Stahl replies, “No. As a matter of fact I don’t know that.”

RISING CASES LINKED TO TESTING

In another contentious exchange, Stahl suggests “it’s like the gods have conspired” against Mr Trump’s re-election chances, with coronavirus infections and unemployment claims both rising weeks out from polling day.

“I don’t think so at all, no. I think we’ve done a great job with COVID. And we’ve hired –” Mr Trump says.

“The numbers are going up,” Stahl points out.

“Excuse me, 11.4 million people – why, because the last report was just a little bit off,” he continues.

Mr Trump is referring to the September jobs report, which found the US had added 11.4 million jobs since losing 22 million in March.

Stahl still wants to talk about the virus numbers.

“No, sir, excuse me. Cases are up in about 40 states,” she says.

“OK, you know why cases are up, also? Because we do more testing. If we didn’t do testing, cases would be way down,” Mr Trump tells her.

“Why are you saying they’re not up? You’re saying things that people can see –” Stahl starts to say.

“No no, what I’m saying to you, Lesley, is the following. We do more testing than any other country in the world by far,” the President argues.

“If we did half the testing, we’d have half the cases. If we did no testing, like many countries, we would have no cases. Because we do so much testing – the fake news media loves to say cases are up. The fact is, we’ve done a very, very good job.”

“Cases are up,” Stahl tells him.

“That’s right, because we’re doing so much testing,” Mr Trump insists.

“Will you at least say cases are up?” Stahl asks.

“Yes, cases are up. Because we’re doing tremendous testing, and we’re finding where there is a problem,” he says.

“Testing is a good thing, but it’s also very misleading.”

For the record, daily infections are indeed rising in the US. It is currently recording over 60,000 each day.

‘SUCH A MISLEADING QUESTION’

Mr Trump gets a little more agitated when Stahl brings up something he said during a recent political rally.

The President has been appealing to suburban female voters, one of his worst-performing demographics, by highlighting his decision to rescind an Obama-era regulation known as Affirmatively Furthering Fair Housing.

Proponents argue the rule reduced barriers to racial discrimination but critics say handed undue power to the federal government to dictate zoning and land-use.

At his rallies recently he has told suburban women he “saved” their neighbourhoods by preventing low-income housing being built near their homes.

“Suburban women, will you please like me? I saved your damn neighbourhood, okay?” he said at a rally in Pennsylvania last week.

In the 60 Minutes interview, Stahl starts to ask, “You said the other day to suburban women, ‘Can you please like me?’”

“Oh, I didn’t say that. You know, that is so misleading,” Mr Trump interjects.

“I say jokingly, suburban women, you should love me, because I’m giving you security, and I got rid of the worst regulation.”

He tells her that the “the way you said that is why people think of you and everyone else as fake news”.

“I said kiddingly, ‘Suburban women, you should love me. I got rid of a regulation that would bring low-income housing into suburbia, it would destroy suburbia.’ And I said that in a joking way,” he says.

“The way you have is like, oh, like I’m begging. I’m kidding. Play it, and I’m kidding. That is such a misleading question, Lesley.”

Technically, Stahl never actually asked her question. She had been using the quote as a way into discussing Mr Trump’s problems appealing to women.

“You’re behind with suburban women in the polls,” she points out when the President falls silent.

“I doubt it. I doubt it. I doubt it,” he replies.

“I’m saving suburbia. He’s going to destroy suburbia.”

CORONAVIRUS ‘NOT MY FAULT’

The discussion circles back to the pandemic, with Stahl suggesting women “don’t feel you’re being upfront” about it.

The pair talk over each other, with Mr Trump repeating that “we are rounding the corner” as Stahl accuses him of “deliberately downplaying it”.

“We’re doing well,” he says.

“We understand the disease. I saved millions of people. You know, 2.2 million people were supposed to die. If you go back and you look at your models, 2.2 million people. We saved tremendous numbers of people.”

The model Mr Trump referred to was published back in March, by epidemiology professor Neil Ferguson.

As things stand, the US death toll is 227,000, which is undeniably better than 2.2 million, but still significantly worse than any other country. Brazil has the second-highest toll, about 70,000 deaths behind.

“I closed it very early from China, heavily infected, and even from Europe heavily infected,” Mr Trump says.

“We’ve done a good job. We’ve done maybe a great job. What we haven’t done a good job on is convincing people like you because you’re really quite impossible to convince, but that’s OK.”

Mr Trump imposed a partial travel ban on China at the start of February. There were exceptions to the restrictions, and thousands of people continued to fly into the US from China. His travel ban on Europe came in mid-March.

“We got hit by something – not my fault, not your fault,” he says.

“We got hit by something that came out of China. I got stuck with it. And let me tell you, before it happened, we were doing so good.”

TRUMP DEFENDS FAUCI CRITICISM

Stahl brings up Mr Trump’s recent criticism of Dr Anthony Fauci, one of the top advisers on his coronavirus task force.

“You called Dr Fauci and other health officials idiots,” she says. “And I’m wondering –”

Mr Trump cuts in, “Dr Fauci – where did I call him, where did I call him an idiot? What? Where did I call him an idiot?”

“You called them idiots,” she says.

The remark in question here was made during a phone call Mr Trump held with campaign staff earlier this week. The campaign invited reporters to listen in.

“People are saying, ‘Whatever, just leave us alone.’ They’re tired of it. People are tired of hearing Fauci and all these idiots,” Mr Trump said on the call.

Mr Trump says to Stahl that Dr Fauci has “been wrong a lot, I like him, but he’s been wrong a lot”.

“I wonder if you think that masks don’t work,” she says.

Mr Trump begins to point out the “Dr Fauci originally said”, but Stahl interrupts, “What do you say? Do you say masks don’t work?”

He replies that “it’s a very complicated subject”.

“Well let me just tell you, you mentioned Dr Fauci – Dr Fauci said don’t wear masks, then he said wear them,” Mr Trump says.

Stahl asks what he thinks.

“I feel masks possibly work,” he says.

“But certainly, you want to stay away a certain distance, socially distance … But I would say a mask works, and I have nothing against masks, and I tell people to wear masks.”

‘YOU’RE SO NEGATIVE’

She then asks about his recent rallies, and Mr Trump replies that “a lot of people” are wearing masks.

“People aren’t!” she says.

“And I’m watching all these people jammed in together, and I’m seeing most of them without masks. And I’m wondering the message that you’re sending with these pictures.”

Mr Trump insists that there are “many, many masks” at his “record-setting rallies”, saying there are “numbers of people like nobody’s seen before”.

Things turn pretty cranky when Stahl challenges that claim, saying “you used to have bigger rallies”.

“No, these are much bigger than I ever had,” he replies.

“I don‘t want to –” she begins to reply.

“You know, you’re so negative,” Mr Trump says. “You’re so negative. These are the biggest rallies we’ve ever had. You just come in here with that negative attitude. These are the biggest rallies we’ve ever had. We are having numbers like we’ve never had.”

She tries to return to the mask subject.

“Excuse me, no, but you made a statement,” he says. “There’s more enthusiasm right now for us than we ever had before. Ever. And you will see that in a short period of time.”

The Trump campaign does not release attendance figures, so we don’t know the specific crowd sizes he’s drawing at the moment. They do quite obviously number in the thousands.

TRUMP GRILLED ON HEALTHCARE

Stahl then grills Mr Trump on the healthcare plan he has been perpetually promising is just weeks away from being released.

“You said that it was going to be great, you said it’ll be ready, it’s going to be ready, it’s all ready, it’ll be here in two weeks, it’s going to be like nothing you’ve ever seen before,” she says. “And of course we haven’t seen it. So why didn’t you develop a health plan?”

Mr Trump insists, “It is developed. It’s fully developed. It’s going to be announced very soon.”

“When? You’ve been saying that over and over,” Stahl asks.

“When we see what happens with Obamacare, which is not good,” he replies.

“When we see what happens with Obamacare. And it will be much less expensive than Obamacare, which is a disaster, and it will take care of people with pre-existing conditions.”

There is a case before the Supreme Court at the moment that could result in Obamacare being struck down. It’s going to hear arguments a week after election day.

If the law is struck down, a bunch of Americans will lose their health insurance – unless something new is passed.

“Your plan was to repeal and replace,” Stahl says. “And if the Supreme Court finishes Obamacare, there will be all these people stranded, because there’s no replacement.”

“No, we will make a deal, and we will have a great healthcare plan, with less expensive, less expensive, and a much better plan,” Mr Trump says.

“But you keep saying that. Why haven’t we seen it?” she replies.

Mr Trump says “you have seen it” and that he’s “been putting out pieces all over the place”.

Stahl then drills down on how he would protect Americans with pre-existing conditions from losing their insurance.

“I’ll protect it. They’ll be totally protected,” he says.

She asks how.

“They’ll be protected, Lesley!” he replies.

This continues back and forth several times.

THE FINAL EXCHANGE

As you know, the interview does not end well. Mr Trump cuts it short after about 38 minutes, and did not return for a planned joint “walk and talk” with Vice President Mike Pence afterwards.

This was the final exchange.

“You know, I didn’t want to have this kind of angry –” Stahl says.

“Of course you did. Of course you did,” Mr Trump says.

She insists, “No I didn’t.”

“Well then you brought up a lot of subjects that were inappropriately brought up,” he says.

She reminds him that she said she was going to ask him tough questions.

“They were inappropriately brought up, right from the beginning,” he says.

“Your first question was, ‘This is going to be tough questions.’ When you set up the interview, your first statement was –”

She cuts in, “You’re President. Don’t you think you should be accountable to the American people?”

“Listen,” he replies. “Your first statement to me, ‘This is going to be tough questions.’ I don’t mind that. When you set up the interview, you didn’t say that. You said, ‘Oh let’s have a lovely interview.’ And here’s what I just say, you don’t ask Joe Biden – I saw your interview with Joe, the interview, it was a joke.”

She says she never interviewed Mr Biden. Mr Trump says he’s talking about 60 Minutes.

“I see Joe Biden given softball after softball,” he says. “I’ve seen all of his interviews. He’s never been asked a question that’s hard.”

Stahl tells Mr Trump to “forget him for a minute” and repeats “you’re the President, you’re President”.

“Excuse me, Lesley, you started with me, your first statement was, ‘Are you ready for tough questions?’ That’s no way to talk. That’s no way to talk,” he replies.

Someone off camera interjects to say the joint interview with Mr Trump and Mr Pence was meant to start in about five minutes, so they would need to wrap up soon.

The CBS crew was fine to keep rolling, but the President said he thought “we have enough”, and ends the interview there.