Donald Trump hung up on NPR during a dial-in interview Tuesday when host Steve Inskeep repeatedly pushed the former president on his election fraud claims.
After badgering Trump for around nine minutes on his claims the 2020 presidential election was stolen, the ex-president got fed up and abruptly ended the interview, which was scheduled for a 15-minute time slot.
Trump blasted RINOs – Republicans in Name Only – for admitting that he lost the election, and particularly called out Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell as a ‘loser’ during his Tuesday NPR interview for saying Joe Biden won in 2020.
The interview became increasingly heated as Inskeep hounded Trump on his continued insistence that Democrats stole and ‘rigged’ the election in favor of Biden. The 45th president noted as evidence of foul play that Biden’s campaign event crowd sizes were minuscule compared to his massive rallies.
‘Nobody believes – do you think Biden got 80 million votes?’ Trump questioned to Inskeep.
‘It’s true,’ he pushed back, clearly becoming frustrated with the back-and-forth.
‘I don’t believe it,’ Trump said.
‘Let me ask you this question – how come Biden couldn’t attract 20 people for a crowd? How come when he went to speak in different locations nobody came to watch? But all of the sudden he got 80 million votes. Nobody believes that, Steve.’
‘If you’ll forgive me, maybe because the election was about you,’ Inskeep shot back.
‘If I could just move on,’ he quickly turned deflected. ‘Are you telling Republicans in 2022 that they must press your case on the past election in order to get your endorsement, is that an absolute?’
‘They’re going to do whatever they want to do. Whatever they have to do, they’re going to do,’ Trump responded.
Donald Trump (right) hung up during an interview with NPR on Tuesday after host Steve Inskeep (left) repeatedly pushed the ex-president on his claims voter fraud claims. The hang-up came after Inskeep asked Trump if GOP candidates had to repeat his fraud claims to get an endorsement in the 2022 midterms
The former president explained that Republican candidates who are ‘smart’ are aware that the election fraud angle is a winning issue because ‘people don’t want it to happen again.’
‘People have no idea how big this issue is,’ Trump said.
‘The only way it’s not going to happen again, is you have to solve the problem of the presidential rigged election of 2020. So Steve, thank you very much. I appreciate it.’ Trump said.
Inskeep, who was on-camera for the radio interview, tried to keep the former president on the phone, shouting: ‘Woah, woah, woah. I have one more question.’
‘I want to ask about a court hearing yesterday on January 6, Judge Amit Mehta – he’s gone, OK,’ Inskeep said.
The interview was six years in the making, according to NPR. Trump has repeatedly declined interview requests with the radio station, but finally agreed to speak with Inskeep on Tuesday in a call-in interview from his home in Florida.
Over the course of the interview, Inskeep pressed Trump on several different angles about the results of the 2020 election, which the ex-president still disputes to this day.
He asked Trump about Republican Senator Mike Rounds’ comments on Sunday claiming while there were ‘irregularities’ but that the ‘election was fair.’
Trump also said in the NPR interview that GOP Senator Mike Rounds was ‘wrong’ to claim ‘the election was fair’ during an interview Sunday with ABC’s This Week (pictured)
In a Monday statement, Trump accused Rounds of ‘going woke’ and said he would never endorse the South Dakota Republican again, as he did in 2020
‘While there were some irregularities, there were none of the irregularities which would have risen to the point where they would have changed the vote outcome in a single state,’ the South Dakota senator told 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 is wrong on that,’ Trump said. ‘Totally wrong.’
In a Monday statement following Rounds’ interview, Trump called him a ‘jerk,’ ‘weak,’ ‘ineffective’ and questioned whether he was ‘crazy or just stupid.’ He also claimed he had ‘gone woke.’
Rounds hit back at the former president late Monday.
‘I’m disappointed but not surprised by the former president’s reaction. However, the facts remain the same. I stand by my statement. The former president lost the 2020 election,’ Rounds said, according to Bloomberg News.