Donald Trump sauntered confidently onto an empty stage Wednesday night, joined only by two Fox News moderators. As the sole candidate featured in the town hall, he soaked up the spotlight, regaling the largely friendly audience with boasts of his one-term presidency’s successes and promises of doubling down on the same policies if returned to the White House this fall.
While Trump’s two main rivals, Ron DeSantis and Nikki Haley, slugged it out on an Iowa stage, Trump’s strong lead in the polls allowed him to opt out of the GOP primary debates entirely, including this last one just days before the Iowa caucuses.
Trump arrived on stage to cheers and chants of “USA,” and delivered his free-wheeling responses in a receptive forum nearly free of any harsh or disparaging words. At one point, a fawning questioner professed her “love” for him after he answered her question about COVID lockdowns.
In trademark style, the harshest words came from Trump himself. He kicked off the town hall by brushing aside any intrigue that Chris Christie’s decision to drop out of the race could boost Haley’s odds in New Hampshire.
“I have polls that show me leading by a tremendous amount in New Hampshire and a lot in Iowa and nationwide, we’re leading by almost 60 points, so I’m not exactly worried about it,” Trump said. “I understand New Hampshire very well. I’ve won it twice and did very well with New Hampshire. I love the people, they love me.”
But Trump was far more animated about the viral hot mic moment captured on a Christie livestream. The former New Jersey governor, who focused his campaign on trying to tear down Trump, was caught telling a group of supportive Republicans in New Hampshire that he thought Haley was “going to get smoked” and “is not up to this.”
“I thought actually, the biggest story wasn’t the fact that he dropped out. Nobody cared too much about that. But he had a hot mic,” Trump said. “She’ll be creamed in the election, and I mean, I know very well, and I happen to believe that Chris Christie is right. That’s one of the few things he’s been right about, actually.”
He ridiculed Biden as “someone who can’t put two sentences together” and repeatedly slammed DeSantis as “DeSanctimonious” while repeating his jab that the Harvard grad and Navy lawyer would be “working in a pizza shop” or working in “law firm” without his endorsement for governor.
“I endorsed him, took him from nothing to winning an election,” he recalled. “And I was all for him, and then one day, he said he’d run against me four years later after I got him in, and I said, ‘That’s not a loyal person.’”
Yet, when asked about his former statements vowing that a second term would be about payback and vengeance for his political enemies, the 45th president took a rare high road, arguing he wouldn’t have time for it.
“The ultimate retribution is success,” he said, claiming that he would return the country to “the greatest economy in history,” strong border security by finishing the wall, and a “peace through strength” foreign policy that would minimize wars.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine would never have happened under his watch, he contended.
“The recent attacks on Israel would have never happened – 100% that was not going to happen,” he argued. “They see a weak president in our country, and [Hamas] did something that was unthinkable.”
Trump also tried to tamp down comments he made in December that he would be a “dictator” for one day if he won.
“I am not going to be a dictator,” he said, blaming the media for blowing his remark out of proportion.
He then quickly pivoted to saying he would only be a dictator on two red-meat conservative issues – when it came to controlling the border and throwing out Biden’s restrictions on oil drilling.
“We’re going to do two things: Make the border so tight that you can’t get in unless you come legally … and we’re going to drill baby, drill,” he said. “After that, I’m not going to be a dictator.”
Fox News anchor Bret Baier pressed Trump on what he meant when he predicted earlier this week that there could be “bedlam” in the country over the results of the myriad prosecutions he faces. He deemed the charges he faced as political ploys and witch hunts but said “of course” political violence is not acceptable.
True to form, Trump threw out some news nuggets fueling more post-town hall media intrigue and headlines. A DeSantis supporter asked him the most critical question of the night – whether he could attract qualified people to work for him after he’s “publicly criticized and personally demeaned so many” who served in his administration.
Trump boasted that he would have no problem, and several top military minds have already expressed interest in serving. He later dropped the news that he had decided whom he expects his running mate to be, though he declined to provide a name.
“Well, I can’t tell you that really. I mean, I know who it’s going to be,” he teased.
Trump was also forced once again to explain his position on abortion when a devoted pro-life Iowa voter told him his answer would directly impact whether she could support him or not.
He began the question by taking credit for appointing three of the Supreme Court justices who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade – something he said Republicans had failed to do for 54 years until his presidency.
He then pivoted to lay out a more nuanced approach than many ardently pro-life voters back, including opposing laws banning abortion once a child’s heartbeat is detected. He said he backed more exceptions “like Ronald Reagan” because women might not even know that they’re pregnant at five weeks when heartbeats can be detected. He then suggested his views were not based on principle but sheer election expediency.
“You have to win elections – otherwise, you’re going to be back where you were, and you can’t let that ever happen again,” he said. “Gotta win elections.”
If the polls are correct and heavy snow expected in Iowa doesn’t dramatically shift the vote, Trump is poised for a big win Monday. But even strong Trump supporters in the room Wednesday night acknowledged that the former president had deeply divided the Republican party, with some GOP voters shifting to other candidates because of “four years of chaos due to your haters.”
Trump readily agreed, dramatically downplaying the widespread months of domestic unrest after George Floyd’s death and the Jan. 6 riots as reactions to Democrat-generated witch hunts and attacks.
“I think there was very little chaos,” he said, citing the absence of wars. “Most of the chaos was caused by the Democrats constantly going after me.”
Susan Crabtree is RealClearPolitics' national political correspondent.
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