In his first major interview since the inauguration, Donald Trump doubled down on positions ranging from foreign relations to voter fraud and health care.
The conversation is notable for several reasons, most strikingly Trump's interest in relitigating the presidential election — which he won — and his views on torture. The latter opinions, in particular, paint a picture of a man interested in going far beyond what is commonly considered by experts in the military as legal or useful.
Here are some highlights from the conversation with ABC News's David Muir.
On Mexico:
“We have to build the wall. We have to stop drugs from pouring in. We have to stop people from just pouring into our country. We have no idea where they're from.”
On whether US taxpayers will foot the bill for the Mexico border wall:
“All it is, is we'll be reimbursed at a later date from whatever transaction we make from Mexico ... I never said they're gonna pay from the start.”
On whether undocumented immigrants who were brought to the US as children should be deported:
“They shouldn't be very worried. They are here illegally. They shouldn't be very worried. I do have a big heart. We're going to take care of everybody.”
On voter fraud:
“You have people that are registered who are dead, who are illegals, who are in two states. You have people registered in two states. They're registered in a New York and a New Jersey. They vote twice. There are millions of votes, in my opinion.”
On how much more he could have won the election were it not for voter fraud:
“I said it strongly because what's going on with voter fraud is horrible. That's number one. Number two, I would've won the popular vote if I was campaigning for the popular vote.”
“I would've easily won the popular vote, much easier, in my opinion, than winning the electoral college.”
“I would've easily won the popular vote, much easier, in my opinion, than winning the electoral college.”
On Hillary and her millions of fraudulent votes:
“Believe me. Those were Hillary votes. And if you look at it they all voted for Hillary. They all voted for Hillary. They didn't vote for me. I don't believe I got one. Okay, these are people that voted for Hillary Clinton. And if they didn't vote, it would've been different in the popular.”
“She thought she had it in the bag. She should've gone to Wisconsin, she thought she had it because you're talking about 38 years of, you know, Democrat wins. But they didn't. I went to Michigan, I went to Wisconsin. I went to Pennsylvania all the time. I went to all of the states that are — Florida and North Carolina. That's all I focused on.”
On his speech at the CIA:
“I got a standing ovation. In fact, they said it was the biggest standing ovation since Peyton Manning had won the Super Bowl and they said it was equal. I got a standing ovation. It lasted for a long period of time.”
“The people of the CIA loved the speech. If I was going to take a vote in that room, there were, like, 300, 350 people, over 1,000 wanted to be there but they couldn't. They were all CIA people. I would say I would've gotten 350 to nothing in that room. That's what the vote would've been. That speech was a big hit, a big success — success.”
On the press:
“You know, I always talk about the reporters that grovel when they wanna write something that you wanna hear but not necessarily millions of people wanna hear or have to hear.”
“I think you're demeaning. And that's why I think a lot of people turned on you and turned on a lot of other people. And that's why you have a 17 percent approval rating, which is pretty bad.”
On Chicago, where Trump recently suggested he would intervene in violent crime by sending in a federal force:
“I will send in what we have to send in. Maybe they're not gonna have to be so politically correct. Maybe they're being overly political correct. Maybe there's something going on. But you can't have those killings going on in Chicago. Chicago is like a war zone.”
On torture:
“When they're shooting — when they're chopping off the heads of our people and other people, when they're chopping off the heads of people because they happen to be a Christian in the Middle East, when ISIS is doing things that nobody has ever heard of since Medieval times, would I feel strongly about waterboarding? As far as I'm concerned we have to fight fire with fire.”
“I have spoken as recently as 24 hours ago with people at the highest level of intelligence. And I asked them the question, ‘Does it work? Does torture work?’ And the answer was, ‘Yes, absolutely.’”
“You never saw heads chopped off until a few years ago. Now they chop 'em off and they put 'em on camera and they send 'em all over the world. So we have that and we're not allowed to do anything. We're not playing on an even field.”
“We're not playing on an even field.”
On an upcoming executive order that would block Syrian refugees and halt all asylum seekers for 120 days:
“You're looking at people that come in, in many cases, in some cases with evil intentions. I don't want that. They're ISIS.”
On Iraq:
“Well, we should've kept the oil when we got out. And, you know, it's very interesting, had we taken the oil, you wouldn't have ISIS because they fuel themselves with the oil. That's where they got the money.”
On the Affordable Care Act:
“It's too expensive. It's horrible health care. It doesn't cover what you have to cover. It's a disaster.”
On divesting himself from potential conflicts of interest:
Trump said nothing about divesting himself from businesses that present potential conflicts of interest.
