President Donald Trump said the “radical left” will “control” FOX News host Chris Wallace in his duties as moderator of the first presidential debate next week.
“Chris is good, but I think I would be willing to bet that he won’t ask Biden tough questions,” Trump said Thursday in an interview with FNC’s Brian Kilmeade. “He’ll ask me tough questions, and it’ll show – it’ll be unfair, I have no doubt about it. But he’ll be controlled by the radical left. That’s what – they control him.”
PRESIDENT DONALD J. TRUMP: No role, I mean, I’ve done many interviews with Chris. I have Chris’s all time record in ratings, numerous times actually, but I get good ratings when I do Chris. So,Chris likes me because it’s all about ratings, your world is about ratings. If you don’t have ratings, you do very well. If you – I’d do you anyway, but you do very well, but if you don’t have ratings, you can forget about that business.
So, I’ve always gotten very – but I have his all time record by far in ratings. And Chris is good, but I think I would be willing to bet that he won’t ask Biden tough questions. He’ll ask me tough questions, and it’ll show – it’ll be unfair, I have no doubt about it. But he’ll be controlled by the radical left. That’s what – they control him.
KILMEADE: Yes.
TRUMP: Because they’ll be concerned. I guarantee you he won’t – and I have a lot of respect for Chris, I do, I have a lot of respect. His father was actually a friend of mine, as much as Mike could be a friend of anybody. He did me, I think twice on 60 Minutes and they were both good, but – which was shocking because Mike very rarely did good. I have the honor of having – one was a phenomenal piece actually, people couldn’t believe it.
KILMEADE: Mr. President, and it’s on YouTube, Mr. President, I will tell you for sure he is not controlled by anyone, Chris Wallace.
TRUMP: OK.
KILMEADE: But —
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Let’s see, then he’s got to ask tough questions of Biden.
KILMEADE: That’s true, do you think that you could —
TRUMP: Because added it — well, I had it last year where ABC was asking Hillary Clinton these little powder puff questions and they were going after me. I said, I thought I was debating one person, not two.
KILMEADE: But does it give you an advantage? When you – one of the categories it says, the Trump and Biden records. You know what Chris is – Chris went after you, not went after you, but to – questioned you on your record. And Joe Biden does not have that experience with Chris Wallace specifically, or I think even the Biden camp would say with anybody.
So, do you think that gives you an advantage?
TRUMP: So, Biden advantage. No, I think I’m the one without experience, I’ve just been doing this for a few years, he’s been doing it for 47 years plus. And he has a tremendous advantage, really, if you think about it, but I have a much better record than he does.
I’ve done things, the best employment numbers, the best economic numbers, the best of everything. Now we’re doing them again, you know, we close it up, we saved millions of lives, now we’re doing it again. But no, I mean, the guy with the advantage is Sleepy Joe Biden because look, he’s been doing it for 47 years.
Now, he has a situation coming out where his son and him because it’s not the son, it’s son and him, he knew everything, stole money from Russia. This just came out, 3.5 million bucks they got. And he was in charge of Russia. And then you wonder – then they say that I’m soft on Russia; I’m actually the toughest there ever has been on Russia. I guarantee you Putin would say that, I guarantee you that Putin would say that behind the scenes he tells his people with the sanctions and all the things that I’ve done and the pipeline to Germany.
