Trump refuses to answer questions about Jan. 6 conduct but says he ‘behaved so well’

In a brand new interview, former President Donald Trump refused or have shyed away from answering many explicit questions about his conduct on Jan. 6 — but maintained that it used to be his determination to problem the 2020 election, the style of which is now on the middle of 2 of the 4 indictments he faces.

He has pleaded now not to blame to all fees and brushed aside the prosecutions as politically motivated.

In the interview with NBC News’ Kristen Welker, which aired Sunday on “Meet the Press” after parts have been launched final week, Trump agreed that he used to be calling the pictures when it got here to falsely claiming that the final presidential election used to be illegitimate.

“As to whether or not I believe it was rigged? Sure. It was my decision. But I listened to some people. Some people said that,” he stated.

Trump, who is looking for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, every now and then grew offended when being interviewed through Welker, refusing to answer whether or not he referred to as regulation enforcement on Jan. 6, 2021, who he referred to as that day and the way he watched the chaos spread, claiming he “behaved so well.”

“I’m not going to tell you. I’ll tell people later at an appropriate time,” he stated.

He insisted that he sought after to move down to the Capitol “peacefully and patriotically,” echoing the speech he gave out of doors the White House previous on Jan. 6.

However, in those self same remarks, he additionally inspired supporters to march to Congress the place lawmakers have been certifying the 2020 election effects. “If you don’t fight like hell, you’re not going to have a country anymore,” he stated then.

In his NBC News interview, Trump stated he used to be “going to look” when requested if he would pardon the folk convicted of crimes on Jan. 6: “I certainly might if I think it’s appropriate.”

According to the Department of Justice, greater than 1,000 other people were arrested in reference to the federal government’s Jan. 6 investigation.

More than 300 other people were charged with assaulting, resisting, or impeding officials or workers that day, the DOJ has stated, and greater than 100 defendants were accused of the use of fatal guns.

About 140 police have been attacked on Jan. 6, in accordance to the DOJ.

On the topic of doubtless pardoning himself if he is reelected president — which might be an unparalleled transfer beneath the Constitution, undertaken through no different commander in leader — Trump advised Welker in some other excerpt from the interview that it used to be “very unlikely.”

“What did I do wrong? I didn’t do anything. Well, you mean because I challenged an election, they want to put me in jail,” he stated.

“The last thing I’d ever do is give myself a pardon,” he stated.

He stated, once more, that he deliberate to testify beneath oath at trial to thrust back at the govt’s allegation that he ordered a staffer to delete safety photos at his Mar-a-Lago property so as to hinder the investigation into his dealing with of presidency secrets and techniques whilst out of administrative center.

Trump referred to as it a “fake charge.”

Trump is charged in 4 felony instances: two on the federal degree, introduced through particular suggest Jack Smith, in Washington and Florida; one in New York state court docket; and one in Georgia state court docket.

The Washington and Georgia indictments are comparable to the marketing campaign to overturn the 2020 election effects. The Florida indictment is said to Trump’s dealing with of labeled subject matter after leaving the White House and the New York fees are comparable to the hush cash he paid to an grownup movie actress sooner than the 2016 election, which his lawyers prior to now likened to blackmail.

In the Washington indictment, Trump is accused of endeavor a “criminal scheme” to stay in energy.

Prosecutors declare the plot concerned six unnamed co-conspirators, incorporated enlisting a slate of so-called “fake electors” concentrated on a number of states; the use of the Justice Department to conduct “sham election crime investigations”; and making an attempt to enlist then-Vice President Mike Pence to “alter the election results,” which Pence declined to do.

Trump has denied all wrongdoing and stated that he is being charged on account of his politics, now not the regulation. Prosecutors dispute that.

“President Trump has always followed the law and the Constitution, with advice from many highly accomplished attorneys,” his marketing campaign stated in a remark after he used to be indicted in Washington.

In his interview with Welker, Trump stated he does not concern about going to jail and he does not assume about it.

“No, I don’t really,” he stated. “I don’t even think about it. I’m built a little differently I guess, because I have had people come up to me and say, ‘How do you do it, sir? How do you do it?’ I don’t even think about it … All I think about is making the country great.”

Welker requested what he way when he says in his marketing campaign that he is “retribution” for his supporters. He stated it used to be about restoring regulation and order to the rustic, as he noticed it, and he stated he would “never” search to use regulation enforcement to goal his warring parties.

On abortion rights, Taiwan and his spouse

On abortion, Trump, whose Supreme Court appointees have been an important in scrapping the constitutional ensure to abortion get admission to final 12 months, would now not say whether or not he would signal federal regulation that may ban abortion at 15 weeks.

Abortion warring parties have driven for strict restrictions national.

“I would sit down with both sides and I’d negotiate something,” he stated, repeating a commonplace a part of his pitch — that he is a deal-maker.

Since the Supreme Court’s determination in 2022, citizens have immediately weighed in on abortion in each conservative and liberal states and in each and every case they have got voted to offer protection to abortion get admission to.

Exit polling in final 12 months’s midterms confirmed the problem used to be necessary in swing states like Michigan.

Trump remained noncommittal on an abortion ban on the federal degree, announcing it used to be “probably better” to go away it to the states.

Trump additionally refused to answer the query of whether or not he’d ship U.S. troops if China invaded Taiwan, the self-governing island that Beijing regards as a breakaway province.

“Only stupid people are going” to answer that, he stated.

Separately, the previous president addressed former first girl Melania Trump’s loss of a presence at the path so some distance — one thing that has been referred to as out through critics right through the marketing campaign.

“She’s a private person, a great person, very confident person,” he stated of his spouse.

“She’ll be out there,” he stated, “and, honestly, I like to keep her away from it. It’s so nasty and so mean.”

ABC News’ Lucien Bruggeman, Katherine Faulders and Alexander Mallin contributed to this record.