Day 745: Trump’s big pre-Super Bowl interview was just verbal diarrhea

Donald Trump sat down for a rare non-Fox News interview that aired Sunday before the Super Bowl on CBS’s Face the Nation.

While Margaret Brennan asked a number of hard-hitting questions, Trump was reduced to his standard, incoherent rambling.

On military strategy in Syria and Iraq:

BRENNAN: But you- but you also campaigned saying that, you know, President Obama made a big mistake by telegraphing his military moves. You’re telegraphing your retreat.

TRUMP: I’m not telegraphing anything. No, no, no. There’s a difference. When President Obama pulled out of Iraq in theory we had Iraq. In other words, we had Iraq. We never had Syria because President Obama never wanted to violate the red line in the sand. So we never had Syria. I was the one that actually violated the red line when I hit Syria with 59 Tomahawk missiles, if you remember. But President Obama chose not to do that. When he chose not to do that, he showed tremendous weakness. But we didn’t have Syria whereas we had Iraq. So when he did what he did in Iraq, which was a mistake. Being in Iraq was a mistake. Okay. Being in Iraq- it was a big mistake to go- one of the greatest mistakes going into the Middle East that our country has ever made. One of the greatest mistakes that we’ve ever made —

On Afghanistan and negotiating with the Taliban:

TRUMP: Look, whether we should have been there in the first place, that’s first question. Second question —

BRENNAN: That’s where 9/11 was launched from.

TRUMP: — we’ve been there for 19 years, almost, we are fighting very well. We’re fighting harder than ever before. And I think that they will- I think they’re tired and, I think everybody’s tired. We got to get out of these endless wars and bring our folks back home. Now, that doesn’t mean we’re not going to be watching with intelligence. We’re going to be watching, and watching closely. North Korea —

BRENNAN: Isn’t that harder when you don’t have troops on the ground?

TRUMP: Well, everything’s harder. But, you know you pay a big price for troops on the ground. We’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars on military. We’re the policemen of the world and we don’t —

BRENNAN: Because the concern in here by your intelligence chiefs, though, is that you could in that vacuum see a resurgence of ISIS.

TRUMP: Sure.

BRENNAN: See a resurgence of terror groups like Al-Qaeda —

TRUMP: And you know what we’ll do? We’ll come back if we have to. We have very fast airplanes, we have very good cargo planes. We can come back very quickly, and I’m not leaving. We have a base in Iraq and the base is a fantastic edifice. I mean I was there recently, and I couldn’t believe the money that was spent on these massive runways. And these- I’ve rarely seen anything like it. And it’s there. And we’ll be there. And frankly, we’re hitting the caliphate from Iraq and as we slowly withdraw from Syria. Now the other thing —

On race and — apparently — the economy:

BRENNAN: In a CBS poll we just took, 63 percent of Americans say they disapprove about how you’re handling issues of race in the US.

TRUMP: Well —

BRENNAN: What do you think of that?

TRUMP: What has happened is very interesting. The economy is so good right now. You saw the jobs report just came out. Three hundred and four thousand added jobs, which is a shocker, for the month. A shocker to a lot of people. They thought it was going to be half that number. The African-Americans have the best employment numbers in the history of our country. Hispanic Americans have the best employment numbers in the history of our country. Asian-Americans the best in the history of our country. You look at women, the best in 61 years. And our employment numbers are phenomenal, the best in over 50 years. So I think I’ve been given a lot of credit for that. And in terms of race, a lot of people are saying well this is something very special what’s happening.

On Robert Mueller and the special counsel’s probe:

BRENNAN: What surprised you about some of the questions that Robert Mueller asked you?

TRUMP: Well, look the Russia thing is a hoax. I have been tougher on Russia than any president, maybe ever. But than any president.

BRENNAN: But when it comes to the investigation that the special counsel’s conducting- I mean 34 people have been charged here. Seven guilty pleas —

TRUMP: Excuse me. Ok, you ready? Ok, you ready? Of the 34 people, many of them were bloggers from Moscow or they were people that had nothing to do with me, had nothing to do with what they’re talking about or there were people that got caught telling a fib or telling a lie. I think it’s a terrible thing that’s happened to this country because this investigation is a witch hunt. It’s a terrible witch hunt and it’s a disgrace —

BRENNAN: Do you think it should be made public?

TRUMP: — when you look at General Flynn where the FBI said he wasn’t lying, but Robert Mueller said he was, and they took a man and destroyed his life. When you look at so many of the things that have happened- why didn’t they go after Hillary Clinton for her emails? She had thirty three thousand emails that were deleted after receiving a subpoena from Congress —

BRENNAN: And according to the special counsel —

TRUMP: Excuse me, but Margaret, why —

BRENNAN: — they were posted on WikiLeaks and your friend Roger Stone was just indicted for his involvement there and for lying.

TRUMP: First of all, Roger Stone didn’t work on the campaign, except way way at the beginning long before we’re talking about. Roger is somebody that I’ve always liked, but a lot of people like Roger some people probably don’t like Roger, but Roger Stone’s somebody I’ve always liked. I mean Roger’s a character but Roger was not- I don’t know if you know this or not- Roger wasn’t on my campaign except way at the beginning —

The entire interview consists of Brennan asking questions and Trump giving anything ranging from a pseudo-non-answer to an outright lie. He used one of his favorite crutch phrases, “we’ll see what happens” (or something extremely similar) no less than a half dozen times, frequently when stuck on trying to explain something. Trump is rarely able to understand details, like when he says the U.S. should have never been in Afghanistan or if the U.S. has to go back to the Middle East it’ll be easy because the U.S. has “very fast airplanes.”

745 days in, 717 to go

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