Donald Trump uses first interview with ABC America to insist he had 'massive' inauguration speech crowd
Updated
Donald Trump has spent his first televised sit-down interview as US President insisting his inauguration speech saw the biggest crowd in the history of presidential inaugurations.
Speaking to ABC America, Mr Trump canvassed a number of issues including voter fraud, illegal immigrants, the Mexican border wall and waterboarding.
But his first interview as President saw the issue of crowd sizes at his inauguration come up again, with Trump insisting the media has created an "unflattering" picture of the amount of people who attended the historic event.
ABC's David Muir: I guess that's what I'm getting at. You talked about the poll, the people loving your inaugural speech and the size of your ...
Donald Trump: No, because you bring it up.
Muir: I'm asking, well, on day one you ...
Trump: Well, you just brought it up. I didn't bring it up. I didn't want to talk about the inauguration speech. But I think I did a very good job and people really liked it. You saw the poll. Just came out this morning. You bring it up. I didn't bring it up.
Muir: So, polls and crowd size and covers on Time, those still matter now that you're here as President.
Trump: Well, you keep bringing it up. I had a massive amount of people here. They were showing pictures that were very unflattering, as unflattering — from certain angles — that were taken early and lots of other things. I'll show you a picture later if you'd like of a massive crowd.
In terms of a total audience including television and everything else that you have we had supposedly the biggest crowd in history. The audience watching the show. And I think you would even agree to that. They say I had the biggest crowd in the history of inaugural speeches. I'm honoured by that. But I didn't bring it up. You just brought it up.
Muir: See, I'm not interested in the inaugural crowd size. I think the American people can look at images side by side and decide for themselves. I am curious about the first full day here at the White House, choosing to send the press secretary out into the briefing room, summoning reporters to talk about the inaugural crowd size. Does that send a message to the American people that that's more important than some of the very pressing issues?
Trump: Part of my whole victory was that the men and women of this country who have been forgotten will never be forgotten again. Part of that is when they try and demean me unfairly because we had a massive crowd of people. We had a crowd — I looked over that sea of people and I said to myself, "Wow."
Mr Trump insisted his speech at the Central Intelligence Agency in front of the CIA's Memorial Wall — which honours CIA employees who have died in the line of service — was respectful.
In front of the wall, which he acknowledged as a "special wall", Mr Trump criticised media coverage of Inauguration Day in an unscripted speech that addressed the size of the crowd on the National Mall as he took his oath.
"So I went to the CIA, my first step. I have great respect for the people in intelligence and CIA. I'm — I don't have a lot of respect for, in particular one of the leaders. But that's OK. But I have a lot of respect for the people in the CIA," Mr Trump told ABC America.
"That speech was a home run. That speech, if you look at Fox … they said it was one of the great speeches. They showed the people applauding and screaming and — and they were all CIA.
"[There were people saying] 'well, were they Trump people that were put' — we don't have Trump people. They were CIA people.
"That location was given to me. Mike Pence went up before me, paid great homage to the wall. I then went up, paid great homage to the wall. I then spoke to the crowd. I got a standing ovation. In fact, they said it was the biggest standing ovation since Peyton Manning had won the Super Bowl and they said it was equal.
"I got a standing ovation. It lasted for a long period of time. I know when I do good speeches. I know when I do bad speeches. That speech was a total home run. They loved it."
What Mr Trump had to say...
On the Mexico border wall:
"I'm just telling you there will be a payment. It will be in a form, perhaps a complicated form. And you have to understand what I'm doing is good for the United States. It's also going to be good for Mexico.
"We want to have a very stable, very solid Mexico. Even more solid than it is right now. And they need it also. Lots of things are coming across Mexico that they don't want.
"I think it's going to be a good thing for both countries. And I think the relationship will be better than ever before."
On allowing illegal immigrants to stay:
"They shouldn't be very worried. They are here illegally. They shouldn't be very worried.
"I do have a big heart. We're going to take care of everybody. We're going to have a very strong border. We're going to have a very solid border.
"Where you have great people that are here that have done a good job, they should be far less worried. We'll be coming out with policy on that over the next period of four weeks."
On voter fraud:
Trump: The people that voted for me — lots of people are saying they saw things happen. I heard stories also. But you're not talking about millions. But it's a small little segment. I will tell you, it's a good thing that we're doing because at the end we're going to have an idea as to what's going on. Now, you're telling me Pew report has all of a sudden changed. But you have other reports and you have other statements. You take a look at the registrations, how many dead people are there? Take a look at the registrations as to the other things that I already presented.
Muir: And you're saying …
Trump: And you're going to find …
Muir: … those people who are on the rolls voted, that there are millions of illegal votes?
Trump: I didn't say there are millions. But I think there could very well be millions of people. That's right.
On torture and waterboarding:
"When [ISIS are] shooting — when they're chopping off the heads of our people and other people, when they're chopping off the heads of people because they happen to be a Christian in the Middle East, when ISIS is doing things that nobody has ever heard of since medieval times, would I feel strongly about waterboarding?
"As far as I'm concerned we have to fight fire with fire. Now, with that being said I'm going with General Mattis. I'm going with my secretary because I think Pompeo's going to be phenomenal. I'm going to go with what they say.
"But I have spoken as recently as 24 hours ago with people at the highest level of intelligence. And I asked them the question, 'Does it work? Does torture work?' And the answer was 'yes, absolutely'."
On keeping Iraq's oil:
Muir: You brought up Iraq and something you said that could affect American troops in recent days. You said 'We should've kept the oil but OK, maybe we'll have another chance.' What did you mean by that?
Trump: Well, we should've kept the oil when we got out. And, you know, it's very interesting, had we taken the oil, you wouldn't have ISIS because they fuel themselves with the oil. That's where they got the money. They got the money from leaving — when we left, we left Iraq, which wasn't a government. It's not a government now.
Topics: world-politics, human-interest, us-elections, united-states
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