MSNBC’s Jen Psaki confronted CNN anchor Chris Wallace with an interview he did with then-future President Donald Trump from a very different presidential election, from a time when, Wallace said, Trump was a very “different character.”
As a guest on Monday’s edition of MSNBC’s Inside With Jen Psaki, Wallace drew parallels between Trump and Nixon, and when Psaki dug up that old interview clip, Wallace mused about how much has changed about Trump:
PSAKI: Now, I want to — we pulled a little something out of the archives, Chris.
WALLACE: Uh-oh!
PSAKI: Because you were once a correspondent at NBC News.
So I want to just play part of an interview you did with Donald Trump at the 1988 Republican Convention. We will see if you remember it. And then we will talk about it out on the other side.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
WALLACE: You have flirted with the idea of politics. Now you’re here at your first national convention. Does that get you interested in possibly making the plunge?
DONALD TRUMP: Now, you have to tell me something. Who told you I flirted?
WALLACE: Well, you —
TRUMP: I didn’t know that I flirted with it.
WALLACE: Well, you took out full-page ads in The New York Times to talk about your foreign policy. Some people would say —
TRUMP: I feel very strongly. I do feel very strongly about the country. I love the country. But I think you’re going to have probably George Bush as your next president. He’s an excellent guy, an excellent man. He’s a friend of mine, and I’m here for that reason.
WALLACE: Well, I wasn’t talking about this year, Mr. Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
(LAUGHTER)
PSAKI: It’s quite a headset, Chris.
(LAUGHTER)
PSAKI: If you remember that —
WALLACE: Oh, sure.
PSAKI: But I’m just interested. What did you think about him back then?
WALLACE: Well, look, he was — this was The Art of the Deal guy. He was a completely different character. I mean, he was colorful. He wasn’t running the country. He wasn’t making decisions about our rights or foreign policy.
And he was there on the floor. I just happened to see him. Actually, as an interviewer, what strikes — what pleases me is that I came right back at him. And he said: “What do you mean I’m flirting?”
And I said: “Well, you took out a full-page ad.”
And then he proceeds to say, at the Bush convention in 1988: “Well, Bush is going to be the candidate.”
And I said: “Well, we’re not talking about this year, Donald Trump.”
(LAUGHTER)
WALLACE: No, it was a good back-and-forth.
Donald Trump, the real estate mogul, is a very different character. And you think about him and are entertained by him in a way not you not necessarily are when you’re talking about Donald Trump, the potential president of the United States.
PSAKI: Chris Wallace, great book. Congratulations. Thank you so much for joining me.