Stay updated on Hawaii and national elections coverage
2024 Hawaii & National Election Coverage

Donald Trump has largely avoided interviews where he will be fact-checked in real time. But on Sunday, he sat for an interview on Fox News, where he was challenged directly on some of his most glaring falsehoods of the campaign.

The exchanges that resulted provided a case study in the tactics the former president uses when confronted with facts that contradict his statements.

Trump repeatedly denied knowledge of information that has long been publicly available, questioned the sources and then pivoted away to an unrelated topic.

On one point, though, he stuck by his words with no deflection or equivocation: He absolutely believed, he said, that his political opponents were an “enemy from within” who posed a greater threat than foreign adversaries.

Here’s a look at notable moments in Trump’s interview with Fox News’ Howard Kurtz:

‘I have not heard that at all’

Kurtz questioned Trump’s recent description of Jan. 6, 2021 — when his supporters stormed the Capitol in a failed attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election — as a “day of love,” and asked whether the former president understood why Americans saw it as a dark day.

Trump didn’t back down from the description, and when Kurtz pushed back — noting that hundreds of people had pleaded guilty or been convicted, and that many were charged with assaulting police officers — Trump immediately deflected to another topic. He then claimed that nobody was killed on Jan. 6 and that “nobody had guns here either.”

Several people died as a result of the riot at the Capitol, and Kurtz pointed out that some of the rioters were armed. In his response, Trump professed ignorance, though that fact has been extensively documented.

“Well, really? I’d like to know. You mean in the rally or they had some guns at their home?” he said. “Really? Well, I have not heard that at all. No, I don’t think so. They had no guns.”

Trump again falsely described Jan. 6 as “peaceful” and his defeat in the 2020 election as rigged. He then tried to talk about unrelated protests in Portland, Oregon, that had occurred months earlier.

“You’re going back to another situation,” Kurtz said. “I’m talking about that day.”

“I’m talking about another situation,” Trump confirmed.

‘I have no idea’

Trump deflected in the same way when Kurtz pressed him to acknowledge that his claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating pets were false. Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, began spreading the debunked claim in September, leading to bomb threats against schools and government offices, and widespread harassment of Haitians.

“You say you’re just reporting what had been said,” Kurtz said. “But why not say now, ‘Well, look, that turned out not to be true’?”

“I don’t know if it’s true or not true. I read something —” Trump said, before Kurtz cut him off to emphasize that the claims had been debunked.

“What about the goose, the geese, what about the geese, what happened there?” Trump demanded, referring to a related and also debunked claim that Haitian migrants were stealing geese. “They were all missing. I don’t know, Howie, Howie, Howie, I have no idea.”

Trump suggested that his message — that immigration causes social tension — was true, and again insisted that he had read horrible stories to support his claims.

“Why don’t you go after the newspaper that wrote it? Don’t blame me.”

‘I think it’s accurate’

Trump did not try to deflect when asked about his statements that an “enemy from within” threatened the United States more than foreign adversaries.

Trump’s critics point to the remarks as evidence that he will use the government to target his political rivals. Kurtz said it was “a pretty ominous phrase, if you’re talking about other Americans.”

“I think it’s accurate. I mean, I think it’s accurate,” Trump replied.

Some of Trump’s allies have tried to insist that Trump is applying the phrase to immigrants in the country illegally. On Sunday, he again made it explicitly clear that he was speaking about his political opponents.

Kurtz asked who the “enemy from within” was, and Trump identified Rep. Adam Schiff of California and former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

“They are to me the enemy from within,” he said.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

© 2024 The New York Times Company