[In Sunday’s interview with Kristen Welker, Trump went with his
classic playbook of vague answers and conspiracy theories.]
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PORTSIDE CULTURE

TRUMP, ON MEET THE PRESS, SHOWS HE STILL HAS NO POLICY PLANS  
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Ellen Ioanes
September 17, 2023
Vox
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_ In Sunday’s interview with Kristen Welker, Trump went with his
classic playbook of vague answers and conspiracy theories. _

William B. Plowman, NBC via Getty Images

 

Ellen Ioanes [[link removed]] covers
breaking and general assignment news as the weekend reporter at Vox.
She previously worked at Business Insider covering the military and
global conflicts.

_____

Donald Trump [[link removed]] appeared on NBC’s
Meet the Press on Sunday, ostensibly to discuss his platform for the
2024 campaign — but ultimately responding to interviewer Kristen
Welker’s questions with his trademark blend of self-aggrandizement
and conspiracy theory.

Since Trump has thus far refused to participate in the Republican
debates, Sunday’s appearance should have been a time for him to
articulate his policy vision should he be re-elected. But
unsurprisingly he failed to do so, in line with his previous
campaigning and governing style.

Trump turned serious questions about abortion
[[link removed]] policy, the war in Ukraine
[[link removed]], the economy
[[link removed]], and fiscal policy into an aggrieved
rehash of the 2020 election
[[link removed]], which he still
falsely claims was “stolen” and claimed his energy policies
[[link removed]] would have prevented the war in Ukraine
by driving oil prices down.

Sunday’s interview shows that Trump still lacks the vision,
understanding, and capability to effectively govern — and that his
only goal, as always, is self-promotion.

The interview underscored a vagueness on substantive policy
which allows Trump’s supporters and potential voters to read what
they want into his statements and feel like he represents their
interests, while also letting him double down on election-denying
conspiracy theories.

TRUMP DOESN’T KNOW SUBSTANTIVE POLICY — BUT HE KNOWS WHAT APPEALS
TO HIS FOLLOWERS

Welker’s interview attempted to corral Trump on serious policy
issues — an essentially impossible task despite her efforts to keep
him on topic.

When asked if he would sign a 15-week ban on abortion, Trump
repeatedly lied that Democrats advocate for post-birth abortion and
abortions up to “five, six, seven, eight months,” implying that
Democrats wanted late-term abortions on demand, rather than in the
medically necessary cases in which they occur.

Though Welker confronted him with reports
[[link removed]] of
women suing their states for the harm they suffered under restrictive
abortion policies, Trump doubled down on his conspiracy theories but
ultimately equivocated about whether or not he would sign a ban into
law, what exceptions should be included in such a ban, or
how Congress [[link removed]] would come to an
agreement on such a polarizing issue. “Something is going to happen
where both sides are going to come together,” he told Welker,
without specifying what that something would be or how it would come
about. However, when speaking at an event for the political arm
of Concerned Women for America [[link removed]],
a right-wing, anti-LGBTQ, anti-choice
[[link removed]] activist group, Trump did
say that he supported exceptions to an abortion ban for rape, incest,
and the life of the mother
[[link removed]].

He also vaguely promised to “make a fair deal for everybody”
between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukrainian President
Volodymyr Zelenskyy over the latter’s ongoing and illegal invasion
of Ukraine. “I would get [Putin] into a room. I’d get Zelenskyy
into a room. Then I’d bring them together. And I’d have a deal
worked out.” The details of that deal, of course, were off limits
because, he claimed to Welker, “if I tell you exactly, I lose all my
bargaining chips.” He similarly avoided answering a question about
what he would do if Xi Jinping invaded Taiwan, telling Welker, “I
won’t say, because if I said, only stupid people would give that
answer.” He later added, after being prompted, “I won’t take
anything off the table.”

In contrast to fellow Republicans who have advocated invading Mexico
to control the illicit trade in fentanyl, Trump was yet again vague,
saying only that “something has to be done, and has to be done
fairly quickly.” That last part is true — drug overdose deaths
have skyrocketed since 2014, with fentanyl or other synthetic opioid
overdoses making up the bulk of those deaths, according to data from
the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Drug Abuse
[[link removed]].

Trump again said he would lower corporate income tax rates on Meet the
Press — just how much “depends on where we are at the time” and
claimed that his tax cuts created “tremendous jobs
[[link removed]].” The Democratic incumbent
challenger, President Joe Biden
[[link removed]] meanwhile has said he wants to raise
corporate taxes to 28 percent which PricewaterhouseCoopers
[[link removed].] estimates
will raise $1.3 trillion over 10 years.

Trump in his first term already lowered corporate taxes, with
an average effective federal income tax rate of just 9 percent for
large corporations
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and 34 percent of these types of companies paying no tax at all during
the first year of the Trump tax cuts, according to a 2023 report from
the Government Accountability Office
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report from the Congressional Research Service released in 2019
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that the tax cuts had no effect on gross domestic product during the
first year of implementation — and that the plan would reduce tax
revenue by $1.5 trillion over a decade.

When Welker asked whether he would pardon insurrectionists who have
been investigated and in some cases imprisoned for their participation
in the capitol breach on January 6, 2021, Trump said he “certainly
might” pardon insurrectionists “if I think it’s appropriate.”
But footage from Trump’s speech at the conservative Pray Vote Stand
[[link removed]] summit Friday shows him telling the
audience, “The moment I win the election I will appoint a special
task force to rapidly review the cases of every political prisoner
who’s been unjustly persecuted by the Biden administration” and
pledged to “study the situation very quickly, and sign their pardons
or commutations on day one,” CNN reported Friday.

Trump’s posts on his platform Truth Social
[[link removed]] mention little about the
Meet the Press interview
[[link removed]].
However, many of his posts feature footage and links from right-wing
outlets like Real America’s Voice and Right Side Broadcasting
Network (RSBN), appealing to followers who disavow mainstream media
and look to social media and right-wing sources for their news.

Those recent posts do not concern serious, relevant policy issues like
those Welker tried to discuss on Sunday, but rather focus
on anti-trans [[link removed]] policies that Trump would
enact, denigrating the multiple investigations into his efforts to
overturn the 2020 election and his handling of classified documents,
and further entrenching his conspiracy theories regarding so-called
election interference.

Paying attention to these speeches and appearances outside of the
mainstream media indicates what Trump’s priorities are — or at
least what he thinks his followers want to hear. Trump knows who his
audience is and what to tell them to get the response he wants, like
at the Concerned Women for America and Pray Vote Stand summits. An
appearance on a mainstream show might appear on the surface to be a
good-faith effort to discuss his plans for a future presidency, he
unsurprisingly used it as a platform to air grievances and deliver
little of substance.

* Trump
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* conspiracy theories
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* grievance politics
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