President Donald Trump in the Cabinet Room of the White House on February 6, 2018 in Washington, DC.
Mandel Ngan | AFP | Getty Images
Former President Donald Trump abruptly hung up on an interview with an NPR reporter who had pressed him with questions about his much-repeated lie that the 2020 presidential election was stolen.
The interview Tuesday with veteran journalist Steve Inskeep came after six straight years of Trump and his team declining NPR’s requests for a one-on-one discussion.
They had agreed to speak for 15 minutes, a transcript of the interview shows. But shortly after the nine-minute mark, Trump suddenly ended the call — just as Inskeep started to ask a question about the deadly invasion of the Capitol last year by a mob of Trump’s supporters.
Inskeep kicked off the interview with a question about the coronavirus pandemic, asking Trump what advice he would give to unvaccinated Americans, who are significantly more likely to lean Republican than Democratic.
Trump initially demurred, taking the opportunity to first attack the Biden administration’s vaccine requirements and then promote alternative Covid therapeutics, rather than encourage the unvaccinated to get inoculated against Covid.
Read more of CNBC’s politics coverage:
By JAMELLE BOUIE Donald Trump knew as well as anyone that he had lost the 2020 presidential election fair and square. He knew there was no conspiracy to commit voter fraud — no mysterious mail bal...