Last Friday, President Trump made time during his trip to Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin for an extended sit-down interview with NBC’s Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker, but was derailed several times by pounding rain on the roof of the facility, heated exchanges, and a premature ending as Trump abruptly walked out because he was tired of dealing with such a “crooked” network.
TRUMP: No. I had to stop a country, very powerful, very dangerous country, from having a nuclear weapon because they’d use it. They’d blow up the world. They’d blow up the Middle East. They’d blow up Israel. They’d come here. They’d blow up Europe. They’re nuts, okay?…It’s America first. I’m doing our country a service.
(….)
WELKER: So, you’re saying you didn’t break your promise. And yet, Mr. President, in your first term, you held to that promise, and it was so fundamental to who you were as a candidate, to a first-term president. What changed? Because you insisted “no new wars.”
TRUMP: Well, well. First of all, I didn’t guarantee no war. Why would I have built the strongest military in the world? I built our military. I inherited a terrible military. We had no equipment. We had nothing. I built a tremendous military. Biden gave a lot of it away, but it’s still a relatively small portion compared to what I built.
WELKER: But you said it over and over again, Mr. President.
TRUMP: Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Why would I build a military — Now, I didn’t want to use this, but I’m doing you and everybody else a big favor….I know you, you’re a big liberal, a big progressive.
WELKER: No!
TRUMP: But we were —
WELKER: I’m just a journalist.
