Donald Trump’s one-on-one interview with TV host Phil McGraw, aka Dr. Phil, dropped Tuesday. The interview was Trump’s second chance this summer to ramble to the celebrity doctor on his new network, Merit Street. A lot has changed for Trump since that June interview—an assassination attempt, a new opponent in Vice President Kamala Harris, and a new ally in Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—but Trump still found time to insist that the 2020 election was stolen and ramble on about why windmills are a menace.
Let’s dig in.
“In California you have some people getting seven ballots—Democrats,” Trump said, promoting the big ol’ lie of massive voter fraud. He told McGraw that he had such a big crowd at one of his speeches there in 2020, it was impossible to believe he lost the Golden State by 5 million votes.
"If Jesus came down and was the vote counter, I would win California,” Trump insisted.
If Jesus “came down” as Trump suggests, it’s unlikely that vote counting in California would be high on his priority list of issues to manage when it comes to Trump.
McGraw gave Trump the chance to clarify that time he told a room full of Christians not to worry about voting ever again once he is in office.
Trump really struggled with this one. Bigly.
"Christians, for whatever reason, don’t vote very much, you know, proportionally. NRA people, and people that feel very strongly about the Second Amendment, they’re not voters. I don’t know why, maybe it’s a rebellious streak?
“And I said to the Christians, ‘We gotta win this election. We win this election, I’ll straighten everything out in less than four years, by a lot. Then you don’t have to, it doesn’t matt–’
“In other words, I’m saying, ‘You don’t have to vote.’ Doesn’t mean we’re not gonna have elections, we’re gonna have elections. ’But you have to vote this time, because we have to win.’
“This is the most important election in the history of our country. But you’re right, they took that, ‘you only have to vote-’ I say, ‘Vote this time, get us in. Once we’re in, we’re gonna fix the country, and it’s not gonna be important for you to come, and we’re not gonna need you voting. But we need the votes now.’ Christians have to get out and vote. Gun owners don’t vote, relatively, They don’t vote. And gun owners have to get out and vote.”
That clarified nothing, of course, so McGraw led Trump where he wanted him to go.
“So you didn’t mean ‘vote me in once, ‘cause I ain’t never leavin’?’ You’re meaning, ‘this is an important, vote this time.’”
“Of course that’s what I meant,” Trump sighed before meandering off of McGraw’s path. “And I said it that way, and everybody agrees that I said it that way.”
The Republican nominee trailed off, pondering whether the famous clip was on video, before defending his equally notorious vow to be a “dictator on day one” against “very dishonest people” who “take it and they cut it.”
“All you have to do is watch it,” Trump declared, as if millions of people hadn’t already watched the footage.
And it wouldn’t be an hour-long Trump interview without Trump tilting at windmills.
“They have all sorts of nice contraptions but they don't have--wind is fine but it, it kills the bird, birds,” Trump said. “It destroys the fields, destroys the fields. And the environmentalists love it, why do they love it? It kills the birds. Walk to the bottom of a windmill and take a look. It looks like a bird cemetery.”
When asked about the July 13 assassination attempt, Trump took some time to address his new awareness of the dangers of the (former) presidency with an oddly specific comparison.
“Look, being president is a dangerous job. It's much more dangerous than a race car driver, than anything. It's probably the most dangerous profession if you think about it, just go up and down the list.”
Firefighters, paratroopers, and teachers might have some thoughts about that.
Watch the entire interview here, if you’re into such things.
It’s so nice of Dr. Phil to take a break from spewing COVID misinformation to bring us this scintillating conversation with Trump—and one with RFK Jr. on Wednesday.
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