According to Inskeep, the interview was six years in the making. He told the former president that he had first requested an interview with him in 2015, but was rebuffed. Trump responded, “I guess I got lucky by not doing it, right?”
The majority of the interview, before Trump cut it short, focused on his repeated false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 presidential election. Inskeep asked Trump about the comments that Senator Mike Rounds (R-SD) made about the 2020 election on ABC’s This Week.
"The election was fair, as fair as we have seen. We simply did not win the election, as Republicans, for the presidency. And if we simply look back and tell our people don't vote because there's cheating going on, then we're going to put ourselves in a huge disadvantage," Rounds said to ABC.
Trump responded to the audio clip, "No, I think it's an advantage, because otherwise they're going to do it again in '22 and '24, and Rounds is wrong on that. Totally wrong."
Trump then characterized Rounds as a "jerk," "weak," and "ineffective," claiming that Rounds "just went woke," and referring to him as a “RINO,” a term intended to criticize Republican politicians for being too moderate, or not “true” Republicans.
Trump blasted Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for his acknowledgement that the former lost the 2020 presidential election fair and square.
When asked why McConnell would do so, Trump said, “Because Mitch McConnell is a loser."
Inskeep asked Trump about Doug Logan’s comments about his findings in Arizona that, "The ballots that were provided to us to count in the Coliseum very accurately correlate with the official canvass numbers."
Logan led Cyber Ninjas’ audit of the Arizona 2020 presidential election and was a staunch ally of Trump and his baseless claim that the 2020 election was rigged.
Trump dismissed the findings, adding, “frankly, a lot of people are questioning that," in reference to Logan’s now confirmed findings that the Arizona election saw no fraud.
Inskeep asked Trump about his own attorney’s not calling the election into question over fraud. He referenced two quotes from Kory Langhofer, who contested the Arizona results, and Rudy Giuliani, who contested the Pennsylvania results.
Langhofer, on November 12, 2020, said, "We are not alleging fraud in this lawsuit. We are not alleging anyone stealing the election."
"This is not a fraud case," said Giuliani, on November 18, 2020.
Neither lawsuit - of the almost 60 brought to US courts by Trump supporters, was successful.
Trump said of the quotes, “It was too early to ask for fraud and to talk about fraud. Rudy said that, because of the fact it was very early with the — because that was obviously at a very, very — that was a long time ago. The things that have, found out have, more than bore out what people thought, and what people felt, and what people found.”
Trump would add, regarding Langhofer, “When you look at Langhofer, I disagree with him as an attorney. I did not think he was a good attorney to hire. I don't know what his game is, but I will just say this: You look at the findings. You look at the number of votes. Go into Detroit and just ask yourself, is it true that there are more votes than there are voters? Look at Pennsylvania. Look at Philadelphia. Is it true that there were far more votes than there were voters?”
The topic of Trump’s continued belief that there were more votes than voters in Detroit and Philadelphia was also discussed.
Inskeep responded to Trump’s false claim, “It is not true that there were far more votes than voters. There was an early count. I've noticed you've talked about this in rallies and you've said, reportedly, this is true. I think even you know that that was an early report that was corrected later.”
Trump did not back down, instead rebuffing Inskeep. “Well, you take a look at it. You take a look at Detroit. In fact, they even had a hard time getting people to sign off on it because it was so out of balance. They called it out of balance. So you take a look at it. You know the real truth, Steve, and this election was a rigged election,” Trump again claimed.
The prerecorded interview, which had been scheduled to last 15 minutes, ended abruptly after just 9 minutes had passed with Trump hanging up as Inskeep began to broach the former US president’s role in the deadly January 6, 2021, Capitol attack.
As noted by Inskeep, a judge is still weighing whether Trump will be held liable for the attack.