In a column for CNN, editor-at-large Chris Cillizza attempted to wade through Donald Trump's recent interview with conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt and figure out what point the former president was trying to make when recalling a conversation he had with Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a Taliban co-founder in 2020 when he was negotiating the treaty that has led to the U.S. leaving Afghanistan by the end of this month.
With Hewitt asking, "What did you communicate to Baradar, Mullah Baradar, Abdul Baradar who you talked to when you spoke to him? What did you tell him?" the former president went on a 588-word, three and a half minute ramble that Cillizza tried to break down into bite-sized chunks while discarding the digressions and irrelevant asides and Trumpian "bluster."
In one telling segment, Trump stated, "I spoke to, and sort of the known head, but nobody was sure, but now I'm sure, and I was sure then when I was speaking to him. And I knew as soon as I spoke to him. And even the introduction, I say hello, and he screamed something very tough," Cilizza suggested that the former president was clueless about who he was talking to, with the CNN analyst quipping, "If I am reading this right, Trump wasn't sure that Baradar was the head of the Taliban when the conversation first started but he figured it out once Baradar 'screamed something very tough.'"
Trump recounted, "And then he asked me one question, and I'd rather not repeat that question, because it's a very scary question. But he asked me one question, and I gave him the answer yes."
Cillizza noted the elephant in the room that Hewitt chose to not follow up on, writing, "I truly have no idea what that one question could have possibly been. And why would Trump not want to tell it to Hewitt?"
"I wanted to be out by May 1. I had spoken to him quite a bit before May 1, but we had a condition of May 1. But they missed conditions, and so therefore, I bombed and we hit them very hard," Trump recalled, with the CNN analyst calling it "surreal, " Cilizza then added that he was equally baffled by Trump seemingly claiming that -- in 2020 -- he was still unaware of the power of the presidency (Trump: "I never realized, and of course I realized the importance and power of the presidency...").
"So, Trump never realized the power of the presidency until after he had left office and was watching the Afghanistan situation from afar? Really? Of course, he also contradicts himself in the same answer when he says 'of course I realized the importance and power of the presidency' right before he says 'I never realized how important the office of the president is.' So...." Cillizza wrote before conceding, "The back-and-forth is, well, something else."
You can read the whole piece -- and listen to Trump -- here.
