Trump told the Post

5 interesting things Trump told the Post

By ELIZA COLLINS

Donald Trump met with top editors at the Washington Post on Monday — and besides finally revealing his foreign policy team, he had some interesting things to say. Here are five noteworthy exchanges from the transcript:

Trump trashes the owners of the Chicago Cubs

“You said a few weeks ago after a family in Chicago gave some money to a PAC opposing you, you said, 'They better watch out. They have a lot to hide.' What should they watch out for?" editorial page editor Fred Hiatt asked.

“Look, they are spending vicious … I don’t even know these people. Those Ricketts," Trump said. "I actually said they ought to focus on the Chicago Cubs and, you know, stop playing around. They spent millions of dollars fighting me in Florida. And out of 68 counties, I won 66. I won by 20 points, almost 20 points. Against, everybody thought he was a popular sitting senator. I had $38 million dollars spent on me in Florida over a short period of time. $38 million. And, you know, the Ricketts, I don’t even know these people."

“So, what does it mean, ‘They better watch out'?" Hiatt pressed.

“Well, it means that I’ll start spending on them. I’ll start taking ads telling them all what a rotten job they’re doing with the Chicago Cubs. I mean, they are spending on me. I mean, so am I allowed to say that? I’ll start doing ads about their baseball team. That it’s not properly run or that they haven’t done a good job in the brokerage business lately,” Trump said.

Trump talks about his hands

"You are smart and you went to a good school. Yet you are up there and talking about your hands and the size of private…" Hiatt began, referencing the back and forth between Trump and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio over the size of the billionaire's hands and what it could mean for other parts of his anatomy.

"No …" Trump interrupted.

"Your private parts," Hiatt continued.

"No, no, no, no. I am not doing that," Trump said.

"Do you regret having engaged in that?" Hiatt asked.

"No, I had to do it. Look, this guy. Here’s my hands. Now I have my hands, I hear, on the New Yorker, a picture of my hands," Trump said, referring to the latest issue of the New Yorker magazine.

"You’re on the cover," columnist Ruth Marcus said.

"A hand with little fingers coming out of a stem. Like, little. Look at my hands. They’re fine. Nobody other than [Vanity Fair editor] Graydon Carter years ago used to use that. My hands are normal hands. During a debate, he was losing, and he said, 'Oh, he has small hands and therefore, you know what that means.' This was not me. This was Rubio that said, “He has small hands and you know what that means.” OK? So, he started it. So, what I said a couple of days later … and what happened is I was on line shaking hands with supporters, and one of supporters got up and he said, 'Mr. Trump, you have strong hands. You have good-sized hands.' And then another one would say, 'You have great hands, Mr. Trump, I had no idea.' I said, 'What do you mean?' He said, 'I thought you were like deformed, and I thought you had small hands.' I had 50 people … Is that a correct statement? I mean people were writing, 'How are Mr. Trump’s hands?' My hands are fine. You know, my hands are normal. Slightly large, actually. In fact, I buy a slightly smaller than large glove, OK? No, but I did this because everybody was saying to me, 'Oh, your hands are very nice. They are normal.' So Rubio, in a debate, said, because he had nothing else to say … now I was hitting him pretty hard. He wanted to do his Don Rickles stuff and it didn’t work out. Obviously, it didn’t work too well. But one of the things he said was, 'He has small hands and therefore, you know what that means, he has small something else.' You can look it up. I didn’t say it," Trump said.

"You chose to raise it during a debate. Can you explain why you had no choice?" Marcus asked.

"I don’t want people to go around thinking that I have a problem. I’m telling you, Ruth, I had so many people. I would say 25, 30 people would tell me … every time I’d shake people’s hand, 'Oh, you have nice hands.' Why shouldn’t I? And, by the way, by saying that I solved the problem. Nobody questions … I even held up my hands, and said, 'Look, take a look at that hand,'" Trump said, adding that by addressing it he had solved the problem.

Trump punts on addressing race and law enforcement

“Do you see any racial disparities in law enforcement — I mean, what set it off was the Freddie Gray killing, as you know. Is that an issue that concerns you?” Hiatt asked.

“Well, look, I mean, I have to see what happens with the trial,” Trump responded.

“Well, forget Freddie Gray, but in general, do you believe there are disparities in law enforcement?”

“I’ve read where there are and I’ve read where there aren’t. I mean, I’ve read both. And, you know, I have no opinion on that,” Trump said, before pivoting to his usual patter about bringing jobs back to the U.S.

Later, Marcus returned to the topic.

“But it is pretty undeniable that there is disproportionate incarceration of African Americans vs. whites," she noted. "What would you — is that something that concerns you?”

“That would concern me, Ruth. It would concern me. But at the same time it can be solved to a large extant with jobs. You know, if we can rebuild those communities and create incentives for companies to move in and create jobs..."
The questioners weren’t having it. Charles Lane, an editorial writer and columnist, pushed Trump to be more specific.
“What’s different specifically about your approach to these issues from what’s been tried in the past? Because a lot of effort has been put in just the direction you just described,” Lane asked.

“I think what’s different is we have a very divided country. And whether we like it or not, it’s divided as bad as I’ve ever seen it. I‘ve been, you know, I’ve been doing things for a long time. I see it all the time. I mean I see it so often,” Trump said.

Trump brings up Hulk Hogan v. Gawker

“Mr. Trump, you’ve mentioned many times during the campaign, in fact including this morning, instances you feel where the press has been biased or unfair or outright false in their reporting, and you’ve mentioned that you want to 'open up' the libel laws. You’ve said that several times,” Post publisher Fred Ryan asked.

“I might not have to, based on Gawker, right? That was an amazing...” Trump said.

“My question is not so much why you feel they should be open but how. What presidential powers and executive actions would you take to open up the libel laws?” Fred asked.

“OK, look, I’ve had stories written about me — by your newspaper and by others — that are so false, that are written with such hatred. I’m not a bad person. I’m just doing my thing — I’m, you know, running, I want to do something that’s good,” Trump responded before talking about his achievements as a businessman.

Ryan pressed on: "But how would you fix that? You’ve said that you would open up the libel laws."

“Well right now the libel laws, I mean I must tell you that the Hulk Hogan thing was a tremendous shock to me because — not only the amount and the fact that he had the victory — because for the most part I think libel laws almost don’t exist in this country, you know, based on, based on everything I’ve seen and watched and everything else, and I just think that if a paper writes something wrong — media, when I say paper I’m talking about media. I think that they can do a retraction if they’re wrong. They should at least try to get it right. And if they don’t do a retraction, they should, they should you know, have a form of a trial. I don’t want to impede free press, by the way. The last thing I would want to do is that. But I mean I can only speak for — I probably get more — do I, I mean, you would know: Do I get more publicity than any human being on the Earth? OK? I mean, [Editor’s note: Trump points at Ruth Marcus] she kills me, this one — that’s OK, nice woman,” Trump said.

“Would you expand, for example, prior restraints against publications?” Ryan asked.

“No, I would just say this: All I want is fairness. So unfair. I have stories and you have no recourse, you have no recourse whatsoever because the laws are really impotent,” Trump responded.

“So, in a better world would you be able to sue me?” Marcus asked.

“In a better world — no — in a better world I would be able to get a retraction or a correction. Not even a retraction, a correction,” Trump said.

Trump says he doesn’t condone violence

“You say that. But you’ve also said, ‘In the good old days, he would have been ripped out of his seat so fast, you wouldn’t believe it.’ Isn’t that condoning violence?” Hiatt asked.

“No, because what I am referring to is, we’ve had some very bad people come in. We had one guy — and I said it — he had the voice, and this was what I was referring to — and I said, ‘Boy, I’d like to smash him.’ You know, I said that. I’d like to punch him,” Trump said.

Trump was repeatedly asked about a protester who was sucker-punched in North Carolina, about which he acted confused before finally saying that was a different case than others where protesters have been violent.

Trump also defended his campaign manager over a video that appeared to show campaign manager Corey Lewandowsi grabbing the collar of a protester.

“I know [Lewandowski] went in — he took a lot of heat a couple of days ago in that same rally because he went in to get — to quiet people down, and they had a couple of signs “F-you” – it just said “F-you,” meaning the word spelled out, and you have cameras there, you know, it’s on live television, and you have guys holding signs saying “F-you Trump” or just “F-you,” and they had numerous of those — there were, you know, probably ten of those signs throughout the arena,” Trump said.

He continued: “And he went in to say, please would you move the sign, and the woman in front — and I saw it — this guy grabbed the woman in front, OK, he [Lewandowski] hardly touched him ... If he touched him at all it was just grabbing the shirt a little bit. But the guy was a real wiseguy. And he was screaming obscenities. He did grab the woman in front and ultimately he was led out by the security guy, who was right behind him.”