Local Journalist Presses Trump on His 'Never Coming Back' to Minnesota Comment: 'I Never Said...'

A reporter from St. Paul, Minnesota, recently interviewed ex-President Donald Trump, and this has brought attention to Trump’s previous comments about never returning to the state if he lost the 2020 election. However, as mentioned by Mediate, Trump was scheduled to address the state Republican party’s Lincoln Day dinner in St. Paul on Friday evening. The interview was conducted by Tom Hauser of KSTP (the local ABC affiliate of New York), and Trump connected with the journalist via a remote video call from Trump Tower.

The ex-president articulated his frustration regarding the trial's effect on his campaign schedule, which he has often complained feels very limiting. Trump, who is on trial in NYC for criminal charges that stem from his alleged hush-money payments to Stormy Daniels, also apparently gave this interview only 'minutes before' he left for the cross-examination of his former attorney, Michael Cohen. As such, the real estate mogul repeated his rhetoric of a 'witch hunt' and a 'weaponized government' in the interview. In addition, he blamed the judge and accused him of being 'very conflicted.'

The interview reached a turning point when Hauser asked Trump to respond to his comments made at a rally in Duluth, Minnesota, last September. Hauser reminded Trump of his own words: "I think at one point you vowed never to come back to Minnesota after you lost the state in 2020. Is this a signal that you think you have a realistic chance to win the state of Minnesota in 2024?”

According to CBS News, Trump rejected the statement, saying that he was the one who had won Minnesota in the year 2020. “Well, I never said I’d never come back; I never even thought of that,” said Trump. “I thought I won in 2020 – easily.”  Video footage from the 2020 Duluth rally showed Trump making the claim, which Hauser pointed out even though he mentioned that Trump was only 'joking' when he made that statement. Trump did, after all, lose in the state by a margin of 7 percentage points.

In related news, Trump did not hold back when it came to blasting Biden and their impending debate at the GOP event in Minnesota. In particular, he expressed his frustration with CNN's Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. As per Politico, Trump said, "Remember that idiot from CNN? Oh I shouldn’t say that I’m doing a debate with them, they’ll be slightly tougher. I have ‘Fake Tapper’ as the…" before he trailed off. Before that, the GOP frontrunner also said about Biden, "If he makes it through the debate, they’ll say it was the finest debate performance in history." But the buck didn't stop there for Trump, who also took the opportunity to bash the 'witch hunt' yet again: "They’ve weaponized the DOJ. That’s what their form of cheating is now."