Copyright Salt Lake City Deseret News
During his Sunday interview with “60 Minutes,” President Donald Trump defended the recent ICE raids, said he doesn’t know who Binance founder Changpeng Zhao is after recently pardoning him, and also spoke on whether the U.S. will strike Venezuela. The interview, conducted by correspondent Norah O’Donnell on Friday at Mar-a-Lago, aired on Sunday evening. A 27-minute segment of the 73-minute long interview was aired on CBS, but the network published the extended version of the interview on YouTube. The full transcript without cuts was also made available. During the interview, the president also defended his announcement to resume testing of nuclear weapons, and once again blamed the Democrats for the government shutdown. Here’s a look at some of the key takeaways from the interview: Trump says he doesn’t know Changpeng Zhao Last month, Trump granted a pardon to Changpeng Zhao, “the billionaire founder of a cryptocurrency exchange who had pleaded guilty to money-laundering violations in 2023, and whose company struck a business deal in May involving the Trump family’s crypto venture,” per The New York Times. During the interview, O’Donnell questioned Trump about his decision to pardon Zhao. “I don’t know who he is,” Trump said. “I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that. And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt.” When asked where he worried about the “appearance of corruption,” Trump replied that he wasn’t concerned, but added: “I’d rather not have you ask the question. But I let you ask it.” Trump did draw a parallel between himself and Zhao, linking the crypto billionaire’s prosecution to the New York criminal case where the president was convicted of falsifying business records. “I was told that he was a victim, just like I was and just like many other people, of a vicious, horrible group of people in the Biden administration,” Trump said. When asked about Trump’s comments on Zhao, multiple Republicans in Congress said they didn’t have an answer and that it’s something only the president can answer. Rep. James Comer, R-Ky., who is the head of the oversight committee, said, “Well, I mean, I would assume he knew. But if he said he didn’t, I have to look and see what he said. Sometimes he says things and we have to really analyze and give him another opportunity to make sure he didn’t misspeak.” Trump defends recent ICE raids, saying ‘they haven’t gone far enough’ During the interview, O’Donnell noted that illegal crossings at the border were at a 55-year low, but asked the president whether raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement had gone too far. Trump responded by defending the operation, saying, “I think they haven’t gone far enough because we’ve been held back by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama.” When asked if he was “OK” with ICE’s tactics, he said, “Yeah, you have to get the people out.” He also insinuated that the people targeted by the raids were violent criminals and individuals with mental health conditions. He described them as “killers,” “murderers” or “from insane asylums.” O’Donnell also asked if the administration intends to deport people who don’t have criminal records. Trump said the policy is to deport those who come into the country illegally. “We have to start off with a policy, and the policy has to be you came into the country illegally, you’re going to go out,” he said. Trump ambiguous on whether the U.S. will strike Venezuela When asked about the rising tensions with Venezuela and the warships and fighters being gathered off the country’s coast, Trump would not say whether the U.S. will carry out land strikes on the country. “You’re a wonderful reporter, you’re very talented,” Trump said to O’Donnell. “But I’m not gonna tell you what I’m gonna do with Venezuela, if I was gonna do it or if I wasn’t going to do it.” He did say that he thinks Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro’s days as president are “numbered.” In the last two months, the U.S. has launched several fatal strikes against vessels the administration says were being run by “narcoterrorists.” O’Donnell also asked if the U.S. was going to war with Venezuela, to which Trump said: “I doubt it. I don’t think so.”
