How Trump woke me up for surprise interview

Donald Trump is used to calling journalists unexpectedly. The American president seems to prefer an offbeat telephone conversation to an interview with the camera.

Monday evening, it was my turn. And I will be frank with you – I slept when the White House sounded.

I had spent the best part of five days to believe that there was an external chance that I got an interview with him, to mark a year since the attempt of his life in Butler, in Pennsylvania.

My report of this shooting made the headlines of the world and probably attracted the president’s attention. So I judged that this link could perhaps be a way to obtain a presidential interview-things rare enough for foreign press organizations in the United States.

Sunday evening, I was told that I was a few minutes from the call, so my team and I were ready to record, but it did not come.

Last night, I abandoned the interview that takes place and after a few weeks on the road without a day off, I was exhausted and taking a nap. Then the phone rang.

I answered with Fartment, and the voice of the press secretary Karoline Leavitt came to the speaker: “Hi Gary, I’m here with the president, let’s go.”

I rushed into my living room, by grinding my digital recorder; The line fell and I thought I had lost it. But they returned to the line and I spent almost 20 minutes talking to Trump about everything, that fateful night of Butler, his frustrations with Vladimir Putin, his new belief in NATO and his point of view on the United Kingdom.

Here are my five main dishes to remember from our surprise conversation.

He thought very about two things and he seemed quite vulnerable by speaking of the assassination attempt – it is clear that he is uncomfortable.

For a president loved by his supporters for having spoken so frankly and without filter, there were moments of reflection and long breaks before the answers that the public rarely sees.

When asked if the assassination attempt had changed him, the president transmitted a suspicion of vulnerability when he said he tries to think about it as little as possible.

“I don’t like dwell on it because if I did, it would be, you know, who changes life, I don’t want it to be that.”

Developing, he said that he loved “the power of positive thought or the power of positive non-esteed”.

There was also a very long break when I asked him if he trusted Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Finally, he replied: “I don’t trust almost anyone to be honest with you.”

Regarding domestic American policy, I asked if the president’s plan for mass deportations worked – both in terms of speed, and since some people were swept away who, the president would not want to see expelled.

The president insisted that his team had done an “excellent job” to carry out his campaign promises, citing the radical decrease in migrants crossing the United States from southern Mexico.

Part of Trump’s team expressed their frustration that the deportations are carried out too slowly. When I pushed it on the issue of the number of expulses in this second presidential term would mark a success, Trump refused to give a figure.

“Well, I don’t put a number, but I want to get criminals out quickly, and we do it, as you know,” he said. “We brought them to Salvador, many other places.”

Trump expressed his frustration with regard to Russian President Vladimir Putin – Capping a day when he threatened to hit Moscow’s economy with secondary sanctions if an agreement on the war in Ukraine was not reached within 50 days.

Having campaigned on a promise to end the war quickly, Trump seemed perplexed that he had not yet managed to conclude an agreement with his Russian counterpart to end the conflict for several years.

He again indicated that there was a gap between words and actions from Putin: “I thought we had agreed four times and then you go home, and you see, I just tackled a nursing home or something to kyiv. I said:” What was it? “”

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and other European leaders have long accused Putin of not being serious about the end of the war. For them, feelings of doubt will be nothing new.

But, when I asked Trump if he had finished with the Russian chief, he continued to leave the door open: “I have not finished with him, but I am disappointed with him.”

I pointed out to Trump that he suggested once NATO was obsolete, and he replied that he was now thinking that the Western military alliance “became the opposite of this.”

He was fresh by organizing the NATO chief, Mark Rutte – a man with whom he seems to be able to work well. The pair has exchanged hot words in front of the cameras of the world and announced that the United States would sell weapons to NATO which would then be transmitted to kyiv.

During our call, Trump said he was shaking his resentment that his country had spent proportionately more in defense than his allies.

“It was very unfair because the United States has paid almost a hundred percent, but now they pay its own invoices and I think it is much better,” he said, seeming to refer to a commitment last month by NATO members to increase defense expenses to 5% of the economic production of each country.

“We have changed NATO a lot,” he told me.

Trump underlined his respect for the United Kingdom and his Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, with whom he signed an agreement last month to remove certain trade barriers. “I really like the Prime Minister, even if he is liberal,” said Trump.

Trump stressed that the relationship between the two countries was just as “special” as many British love to believe, adding that he thought that the United Kingdom would fight alongside the United States in a war.

He seemed relaxed on light perceived against him. Although his state visit to the United Kingdom later this year will not imply a speech in Parliament, he did not insist that the legislators were recalled. “Let them go and have a good time,” he said.

Trump labeled his future King Charles host “a great gentleman”. He raised the shoulders of a recent speech that was made in the Parliament of Canada by the monarch who was considered to be an approval of Canadian sovereignty in the face of Trump’s threats.

He even had a joke. “You have a lot of different names you wear,” he said. “England, if you want to cut a few areas. And you go to the United Kingdom, and you have Great Britain and you have Great Britain. You have more names than any other country in history, I think.”