Chris Wallace's Dad Mike Once Grilled Donald Trump's Politics on '60 Minutes'

After President Donald Trump's controversial interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News this week, [...]

By Michael Hein

After President Donald Trump's controversial interview with Chris Wallace on Fox News this week, some people are revisiting another interview he did with Wallace's father years ago. Mike Wallace spoke to then-businessman Donald Trump for CBS News' 60 Minutes back in 1985. At the time, Trump claimed that he could succeed in politics if he wanted to, even suggesting that he could have negotiated an end to the Cold War.

Mike's interview with Trump was included in a documentary called Mike Wallace is Here, exploring his decades in TV journalism. While hosting 60 Minutes, he sat down with Trump in June of 1985, discussing Trump's newly-earned billionaire status and his growing cult of personality. Mike noted that at the time, Trump was in his late 30s, with years ahead of him. Mike even asked if Trump would consider going into politics.

"There are a lot of things to do. You know, a fertile imagination and a good fertile mind, Mike, it's really amazing what can be thought of," Trump said at the time. "There are so many things to do."

When Mike asked if politics was on Trump's to-do list, he answered extremely fast with a sharp, "No. Not politics." Still, the acclaimed journalist pressed the question, reading some of Trump's previous quotes back to him.

"You've said that you could do a better job of negotiating an arms control agreement with the Soviets than some of these professionals who have been trying to do it for years," Mike said. Trump became defensive, claiming: "I didn't say me, Mike, I said somebody has to do it. If it were me, that would be fine. I could do it."

"Somebody has to help this country, and if they don't, the country — and the world — are in big trouble. Because within a short period time, as sure as we're sitting here, there's not going to be a country, and there's not going to be a world."

This resurfaced interview comes on the heels of a similarly contentious conversation between Trump and Mike's son, who now works for Fox News. In it, the younger Wallace tried to push back on Trump's unsubstantiated claim that his opponent, former Vice President Joe Biden, wants to defund the police. Trump halted their interview and insisted on sending his staffers to retrieve the paperwork that he said would prove his point, which it did not. "It says nothing about defunding the police," Wallace told the president.

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