Donald Trump is and remains Donald Trump – that is probably the lesson to be learned after his first appearance in a live broadcast question time in the election campaign for the 2024 presidential election. For about an hour, the former American president answered questions from CNN journalist Kaitlan Collins and viewers on the ground in New Hampshire, the state where the first primaries will take place next January. Among other things, it was about the 2020 presidential election, the recent conviction for sexual assault in New York, support for Ukraine and abortion rights.

Oliver Kühn

Editor in politics.

  • Follow I follow

Trump's appearance differed little from those he has held in recent months, his answers hardly from what he has said in the past two years. When asked why voters should send him back to the White House, he did not put forward any ideas that he would like to realize during his second presidency, but referred to the allegedly rigged 2020 presidential election.

Trump repeated over and over again the repeatedly refuted claims that there had been massive fraud during the 2020 election, and that only a "very stupid person" could not recognize it. He said that ballot boxes had been filled with fake ballots and that people had voted several times. He also repeated the slogans with which he had scored points with voters before his election in 2016: the borders were not secure and the country was in a horrible state. "We are like a third world country," he said.

"No fair trials"

In connection with the allegedly rigged election, he also continued to deny any responsibility for the storming of the Capitol in Washington. Thousands of his supporters had invaded parliament on January 6, 2021, after a speech by Trump, to prevent the certification of Joe Biden's election victory. In the days leading up to the rally in front of the White House, he called on his supporters to remain peaceful and called for this during the events, including on Twitter. He even had a printout of his tweets with him, which he showed to the camera. However, he did not want to explain why his reaction during the events was a long time coming.

In addition, he announced that he would pardon "a large part" of those convicted of the riots if he were re-elected. These are currently "in hell," he said, although among them are "good people," firefighters, police officers and others. He did not want to rule out the pardon of members of the right-wing extremist militia "Proud Boys", who were convicted a few days ago for "seditious conspiracy" in Washington. He had to examine the cases. In Washington, however, you can't get a fair trial anyway, he said.

Incidentally, this is not possible in New York either. There, the former New York real estate entrepreneur was sentenced on Tuesday for sexual assault and defamation to pay the writer E. Jean Carroll five million dollars in damages. Trump, however, stuck to his line of defense that he did not know the woman: "I swear to my children – which I never do – that I do not know the woman, never saw him, never met," Trump said. To the laughter of the audience, which consisted of Republicans and Republican-facing independent voters, he called her a "whack job." The whole thing is a made-up story.

Leadership of the country called an "idiot"

As far as American support for Ukraine was concerned, Trump also relied on old bullet points. The EU must do much more, and above all pay Ukraine much more, he demanded. The United States would spend trillions on a faraway country, while the European states would spend only a fraction of that. He said, "They're laughing at us." The whole thing would never have happened if he had still been president, he was convinced. If he wins the election, he would end the war in 24 hours, Trump said. He would meet with Russian President Putin and Ukrainian President Zelensky and find a solution. That is why it is not helpful to brand Putin as a war criminal now, because then he would only want to continue fighting for fear of arrest.