President Donald Trump used three words to silence Fox News host Sean Hannity when speaking about former President Joe Biden.
During the first sit-down interview of his presidency, Trump tore into Biden’s decision to grant preemptive pardons to some of his family members as well as members of the Jan. 6 committee.
Things got a bit tense after Hannity told Trump, “I’m running out of time” and “Let me get to the economy,” as their time was coming to an end.
“I don’t care,” Trump declared before going back to slamming Biden’s decision-making skills, including Biden’s decision not to pardon himself.
“This is more important because right now the economy is going to do great. I’m here, so the economy – but you have to understand, he had bad advisers on almost everything,” Trump said of Biden.
Below is a transcript of the full exchange:
Trump: “I think we’ll let the Congress decide.”
Hannity: “Would you want the attorney general to investigate?”Backward Skip 10sPlay VideoForward Skip 10s
Trump: “You know, I was always against that with presidents and Hillary Clinton. I could have had Hillary Clinton, a big number done on her, and I didn’t want to — “
Hannity: “Have you changed your mind?”
Trump: “Well, I went through four years of hell by the scum that we had to deal with. I went through four years of hell. I spent millions of dollars in legal fees and I won. But I did it the hard way. It’s really hard to say that they shouldn’t have to go through it also. It’s very hard to say that. Joe Biden, remember this, Joe Biden got very bad advice because — like he has on everything.”
Hannity: “Hunter’s laptop.”
Trump: “He got bad advice on Ukraine. He got bad advice — that war should have never started. He got bad advice on Israel. He got bad advice on the way he got out of Afghanistan. We should have gotten out with strength and dignity, not like a bunch of losers. Joe Biden has very bad advisors. Somebody — somebody advised Joe Biden to give pardons to everybody but him. They wanted to take care — “
Hannity: “Let me get to the economy.”
Trump: “Yeah, but, Sean, they wanted to — “
Hannity: “I’m running out of time.”
Trump: “I don’t care. This is more important, because we know the economy is going to do great. But you have to understand, he had bad advisors on almost everything. It’s like in the old days, when the secretary of state said he never made a correct decision on foreign policy, Joe Biden got very bad advice.”
Trump also joked about Biden pardoning many of his family members but not himself.
“Before we go to the economy and foreign policy, as long as you brought up this topic, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer, Adam Schiff, who got a preemptive pardon, all these people that got a pardon, Anthony Fauci, did he know that the NIH money through the EcoHealth Alliance was funding the Wuhan virology lab? There seems to be texts and messages and E-mails going back and forth. You talk about the UN-select committee, as you call it, the January 6th Committee, they had a predetermined outcome. General Milley, all these people, the Biden family members, Joe Biden ran and said he would never do preemptive pardons. It was an issue that came up when you were leaving your first time,” Hannity said.
“He thought — he heard that I was going to do it. I never wanted to do it. I was given the option, they said, ‘Sir, would you like to pardon everyone, including yourself?’ I said, ‘I’m not going to pardon anybody. We didn’t do anything wrong.’ And we had people that suffered, they’re incredible patriots, we had people that suffered. You had Bannon put in jail. You had Peter Navarro put in jail. You had people that suffered and far worse than that, they have lost their fortunes, they’ve lost their whatever, their nest egg, paying it to lawyers, and those people — people said — and they would not have even taken. Most of those people, they would not have even taken a pardon. This guy went around giving everybody pardons. And you know, the funny thing, maybe the sad thing, is he did not give himself a pardon. And if you look at it, it all had to do with him. I mean, the money went to him,” Trump said.
“I’ve always been — look, he didn’t give himself a pardon, and he did not give some other people a pardon that needed it. And I heard Schiff went to him and just begged him for a pardon because Schiff is a crook. Schiff is a crooked guy, he’s a crooked politician. He made up the story about Russia, Russia, Russia, he totally made it up, and then after he made it up, they found out that there was a tape of the conversation, made by, you know, I guess State Department, I don’t know, where you make calls and they make tapes sometimes, not all the time,” Trump added.
“So, he, in the meantime, made up the conversation, totally made it up, about quid pro quo. There was no quid pro quo. It was a perfect call. Tim Scott was the first one to come, he read it and he said, ‘This is a perfect call. What are you doing? You are impeaching a man for a perfect call?’ It was Schiff. Schiff, Hillary, the whole group. You know what, they should — Schiff is just a bad, sick — and he went to Biden and he demanded a pardon because he thought he did something — he knew he did something,” Trump concluded.
