trump fox business phone interview
President Donald Trump made a lengthy call-in interview to the Fox Business Network on Thursday.
SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images
  • President Trump’s interview on the Fox Business Network Thursday morning went off the rails after he said he would not participate in the next debate if it’s held remotely.
  • Trump went on a variety of tangents, from appearing to blame the parents of fallen soldiers for giving him the coronavirus to ranting about Hillary Clinton’s emails.
  • The president was also obfuscating basic details about his health, refusing to disclose when he last tested negative for COVID-19.
  • “No, I’ll be tested very soon, but I’m essentially very clean,” Trump said.
  • Visit Business Insider’s homepage for more stories.

President Donald Trump made news during his call-in to Fox Business on Thursday by declaring he won’t participate in the next debate if it’s held remotely.

“No, I’m not going to waste my time on a virtual debate,” he told host Maria Bartiromo. “That’s not what debating is all about. You sit behind a computer and do a debate — it’s ridiculous.”

But there was a lot else going on.

Similar to his approach on “Fox & Friends,” Trump rambled for nearly the full hour and touched on a variety of topics.

Much of what he said on these tangents was confusing and factually inaccurate.

The other most notable thing about the interview was the lack of clarity Trump would provide on his health status.

When host Maria Bartiromo asked if he had been tested for COVID-19 recently, Trump demurred. 

Crucially, the White House has not disclosed whether Trump is still testing positive for the coronavirus or when his last negative test was.

"No, I'll be tested very soon, but I'm essentially very clean," Trump said. "They say it's over a period of six, seven days. And I was — you know an amazing thing happened to me. I went in and I didn't feel very good."

Trump, who described the virus as "particles of dust," credited his apparent recovery to the fact that he is a "perfect physical specimen." He then jumped to implying that meeting with Gold Star families was what gave him the disease.

"They come within an inch of my face sometimes. They want to hug me, and they want to kiss me, and they do, and frankly, I'm not telling them to back up. I'm not doing it, but I did say it's like, you know, it's obviously dangerous. It's a dangerous thing, I guess, if you go by the COVID thing," he said.

The rest of the interview went even more off the rails from there.

Here are the key topics he touched on, some of which have implications on the global stage while others shed light on where his focus is at following his discharge from the hospital.

  • Trump called Sen. Kamala Harris "unlikable," "a communist," and a "monster" after her performance in Wednesday's vice presidential debate.
    • "And this monster that was on stage with Mike Pence — who destroyed her last night, by the way — this monster, she says, 'No no, there won't be fracking. There won't be this, there won't be' — everything she said is a lie."

  • Trump swiped at Democratic nominee Joe Biden, saying he "won't make it two months as president."
  • He claimed that ISIS leader Abou Bakr Al-Baghdadi and Iranian Major General Qasem Soleimani were "bigger names than Osama bin Laden." Both were killed by US forces.
  • Trump reiterated his baseless claim that mail-in voting results in electoral fraud, which, he said, is a bigger issue for Americans than China or Russia.
  • Four years have passed since Trump faced off against Hillary Clinton, but he remains fixated on her emails and complained that Attorney General Bill Barr would not indict her along with President Barack Obama and former Vice President Joe Biden for "spying" on his campaign.
    • "To be honest, Bill Barr is going to go down as either the greatest attorney general in the history of the country or he's going to go down as, you know, a very sad situation," Trump said. 
  • The president also took aim at Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for not finding and sharing Clinton's deleted emails.
    • "They're in the State Department, but Mike Pompeo has been unable to get them out, which is very sad, actually," Trump said. "I'm not happy about him for that reason. He was unable to get them out. I don't know why."
  • Trump made a bizarre claim about the Electoral College, saying, "The Republicans have a disadvantage. They lose New York, Illinois, and California before it even starts."
  • He also said that Republicans will be to blame if the Senate fails to get Judge Amy Coney Barrett confirmed to the Supreme Court.
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