Trump hangs up on NPR host during interview

Former President Donald Trump cut short a call with NPR’s Steve Inskeep during an interview in which the radio host pushed back on Trump’s false claims of election fraud.

Video Transcript

STEVE INSKEEP: Why is it that you think that the vast majority of your allies in the United States Senate are not standing behind you? We did have that statement by Mike Rounds?

DONALD TRUMP: Because Mitch McConnell is a loser. And frankly, Mitch McConnell, if he were on the other side and if Schumer were put in his position, he would have been fighting this like you've never seen before. He would have been fighting this, because when you look at it, and this is long-- is a long way from over.

You take a look at what's going on now in Pennsylvania. Take a look at what's going on in Wisconsin. You just take a look. Now we had a lot of cases where the judges wouldn't hear them. We had a case in Nevada that was so good, when you read the papers, it's impossible the judge refused to even listen to it.

We had many cases. In fact, they say, and I can't testify, because it's been through a lot of systems, a lot of different systems, but they say, and they say very strongly, the judge is just nobody's really gotten a chance so look. Look at the United States Supreme Court. They refused to hear the case. And you had--

STEVE INSKEEP: They said there was no standing to give the case. That's correct. Can I just ask--

DONALD TRUMP: No standing, I know, no standing. And the President of the United States supposedly didn't have standing either. So I wanted to file it myself. They said, sir, you don't have standing. I said, wait a minute, I'm the President of the United States.

They just rigged an election, hundreds of thousands of votes in different states. They just rigged an election. We got-- we got a number of votes, that I think you'll agree, no sitting president has ever gotten a number of votes that I got. No sitting--

STEVE INSKEEP: A lot of votes, that's true.

DONALD TRUMP: --has ever gotten.

STEVE INSKEEP: A lot of-- a lot of--

DONALD TRUMP: No sitting President. Do you-- nobody believes. Do you think Biden got 80 million votes? I don't believe it.

STEVE INSKEEP: It's true that you got more than any sitting president, in the election [INAUDIBLE] disputed.

DONALD TRUMP: How come he couldn't--

STEVE INSKEEP: If I can, Mr. President, Mr. President.

DONALD TRUMP: 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 a sudden, he got 80 million votes. Nobody believes that.

STEVE INSKEEP: If you'll forgive me, maybe because the election was about you. If I can just move on to ask, 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--

DONALD TRUMP: They're going to do whatever they want to do. Whatever they have to do, they're going to do. But the ones that are smart, the ones that know, you take a look at-- again, you take a look at how Kari Lake is doing, running for governor.

She's very big on this issue, she's leading by a lot. People have no idea how big this issue is and they don't want it to happen again. It shouldn't be allowed to happen and they don't want it to happen again. And the only way it's not going to happen again is you have to solve the problem of the presidential rigged election of 2020.

STEVE INSKEEP: Mr. President, if I may, one more question. I want to ask about a court hearing yesterday on January 6, Judge Amit Mehta. He's gone, OK.