President Donald Trump spent two hours “guest-hosting” Rush Limbaugh’s radio show on Friday, at one point dropping a curse word while talking about sanctions from Iran. The president seemed to imply a threat against the country and did not acknowledge his use of a curse word on a nationally-broadcast interview. This interview fed into some critics’ perception that Trump’s medical state and the drugs he is taking have skewed his judgment.
Trump told Limbaugh that the U.S. Military’s nuclear program “is all tippy-top now,” and then turned to Iranian sanctions. He said: “They’ve been put on notice. If you f— around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are going to do things to you that have never been done before. And they understand that.” The slightly delayed version of Limbaugh’s show managed to censor the curse word out, but footage from Limbaugh’s in-studio camera kept it intact.
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“If you fuck around with us, if you do something bad to us, we are gonna do things to you that have never been done before.” — the President of the United States pic.twitter.com/RfDKchaw7i
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) October 9, 2020
Trump was discussing a nuclear deal that his predecessor, President Barack Obama, brokered with Iran. Trump has since pulled out of that deal and was explaining to Limbaugh why he believes it was the right move. He said: “You don’t see the terror the way you used to see the terror.”
Still, Trump did acknowledge that his administration has been trying to impose new sanctions on Iran, and he told Limbaugh confidently that he believes they will do so if he is reelected. He claimed that Iran is “dying to have me lose.”
Trump spent two hours on Limbaugh’s show on Friday and later had his first on-camera interview since he was diagnosed with COVID-19, in an appearance on Fox News’ Tucker Carlson Tonight. He spoke at length about the pandemic in both cases and his personal experience with the virus. The two interviews were full of false or contradictory information and misleading claims about the president’s illness.
Trump claimed that “negotiated” with his doctors about the terms of his hospitalization, rather than following their advice to recover quickly and to avoid infecting others. “I really tended to listen but generally maybe I wouldn’t but I did tend to listen to this group,” the president said.
Still, Trump refused to specify whether or not he had tested negative for the coronavirus yet, and whether his doctors had signed off on his in-person rally on Saturday. The president also continued to make alarming and untruthful claims about mail-in ballots and other aspects of the elector process, with less than a month to go before the 2020 presidential election.
