Donald Trump doubtless expected a softball interview when he went on Fox News to talk to Bret Baier. He didn’t get exactly what he expected, and one exchange gives us particular insight into Trump’s mind.
Talking about crime, Baier first asked Trump if he was still in favor of the death penalty for drug dealers, as he proposed at his campaign launch, Trump responded, “That’s the only way you’re gonna stop it.” Baier then took a swing at Trump from the right, asking him about claims that his criminal reform law led to increased recidivism. That’s where things got viral.
“But I focused on non-violent crime. As an example, a woman who you know very well was in jail. She had 24 more years to serve, she served for 22 years,” Trump replied. Baier identified the woman Trump was referring to as Alice Johnson. Trump continued, “She was on a telephone call, and they were involved in selling marijuana, mostly marijuana, and she got like 50 years in jail.”
”But she’d be killed under your plan,” Baier noted.
”Huh?” Trump said, sounding absolutely mystified at the reference to a proposal they had just been discussing. At this point, he doesn’t even seem to realize that he’s trying to have it both ways on sentences for drug dealers.
“As a drug dealer.”
“No, no. Under my? Oh, under that. Uhhhh, it would depend on the severity.”
“She’s technically a former drug dealer,” Baier said. “She had multimillion dollar cocaine ring.”
”Any drug dealer,” Trump blurted out.
”So even Alice Johnson in that ad?” Baier clarified.
”She can’t do it, okay” Trump said, spreading his hands wide. “By the way, if that was there, she wouldn’t be killed, it would start as of now.”
Baier attempted to make sense of it: ”No, I know, but your policy–”
“No, starting now, yeah,” Trump said, his voice softening on that “yeah” as he thought he was successfully threading the “kill drug dealers but don’t kill Alice Johnson” needle. He went on, “But she wouldn’t have done it if it was death penalty. In other words, if it was death penalty, she wouldn’t have been on that phone call. She wouldn’t have been a dealer.” (In reality, multiple studies show that the death penalty is not an effective deterrent to crime. But we’re talking about Donald Trump and policy. Reality doesn’t enter the picture very often.)
Trump continued, picking up speed as he felt himself on surer ground: “Now, she wasn’t much of a dealer, cause she was sort of like … I mean, honestly she got treated terribly, she was treated sort of like I get treated. But Bret, she was treated very unfairly, but she got 48 years, and that was bad.” Then—having successfully introduced his own victim status into the conversation—he went off on a tangent about China and the Opium Wars, concluding with China rising to greatness after imposing the death penalty for drug dealers, a fittingly bonkers turn in the conversation.
Again, Trump wanting to have it both ways on one of his extreme policy proposals is not particularly newsworthy. What’s worth paying attention to here is witnessing his absolute blank, mystified response—“Huh?”—to Baier’s observation that his policy would mean the death penalty for the woman he had just bragged about freeing, and then watching the gears turning in his mind as he puts together the challenge he’s been presented with and tries to talk his way out of it. The moments where he clearly thinks he’s figured it out offers a little window into how Trump plays to his campaign audiences, responding moment by moment to applause or silence to come up with rhetoric that his fans will seize on, however little it makes sense. A transcript does not do it justice.