Former President Donald Trump told NBC News anchor and new Meet the Press moderator Kristen Welker that he never even wanted to “think about” pardoning himself while president via Media Ite.
It has been noted that Welker has been tapped to replace Chuck Todd as host of the long-running Sunday show and political mainstay.
Welker rolled out a preview of her Trump interview that will air on this week’s edition of NBC’s Meet the Press, during NBC Nightly News Thursday night, sharing a few provocative moments with anchor Lester Holt.
In one clip, Trump claimed he was advised he could pardon himself, but it would “look bad”:
LESTER HOLT: Kristen, you also asked the former president about the legal challenges that he’s facing. You brought up the topic of a pardon and he had a pretty interesting answer.
KRISTEN WELKER: Lester That’s right. Former President Trump said it’s unlikely he would consider pardoning himself if he were reelected because he said he did nothing wrong. But for the first time revealed he did consider it in his final days in office.
LESTER HOLT: Let’s see.
KRISTEN WELKER: Mr. President, if you were reelected, would you pardon yourself?
DONALD TRUMP: I could have pardoned myself. You know what? I was given an option to pardon myself. I could have hurt myself. When I left, people said, “Would you like to pardon yourself?”.
I had a couple of attorneys that said, “You can do it if you want.”.
I had some people that said it would look bad if you do it, because I think it would look terrible. I said, Here’s the story. These people are thugs, horrible people, fascists, Marxists, sick people. They’ve been after me from the day I came down the escalator with Melania, and I did a great job as president. People are ackno-, a great economy, great jobs, great this great that rebuilt the military space force everything. I could go on forever. Let me just tell you, I said the last thing I’d ever do is give myself a pardon.
