President Donald Trump shut down Fox News' Sean Hannity with three words as he delivered a tirade about President Joe Biden during the first TV interview of his second term on Wednesday.
Trump spent parts of the interview expressing his dismay over Biden's decision to grant preemptive pardons to some of the Democrat's family members and some of the Republican president's political enemies.
As their time came to an end, the Fox News host told Trump, “Let me get to the economy” and “I'm running out of time.”
“I don't care,” the new president replied.
He then returned to bashing Biden's decision-making skills, including the ex-president's decision not to pardon himself.
“This is more important because the economy is going to do great right now. I'm here, so the economy – but you have to understand that he had bad advisers on almost everything,” Trump said of Biden.
Hannity intervened and said he was being yelled at for time, but Trump continued.
“It's like the old days when the secretary of state said he never made the right foreign policy decision,” Trump said, referring to former Defense Secretary Robert Gates.
Over the course of Hannity's hour-long program, Trump also hinted at another government agency he wanted to cut and revealed the latest on the JFK assassination files.
President Donald Trump shut down Fox News' Sean Hannity with three words as he delivered a tirade about President Joe Biden on Wednesday during the first TV interview of his second term
As their time came to an end, Fox News' Sean Hannity (right) told President Donald Trump (left) “let me get to the economy” and “I'm running out of time”
But the issue of pardon was central.
In a clip shared by Fox earlier Wednesday, Trump is heard giving a cryptic warning that Biden made a mistake by not pardoning himself.
Trump reiterated that point several times during the entire interview with Hannity.
“The precedent he set for pardons is astonishing. That's a much bigger story, but people don't like to talk about it. He pardoned everyone,” Trump said. “But he didn't forgive himself.”
“Remember this: The people he pardoned are now mandated, because they were pardoned, to testify and they can't take the Fifth,” Trump claimed.
Hannity asked Trump if he would like Congress to investigate Biden's pardon.
Speaker of the House of Representatives Mike Johnson has already opened himself up to that.
“I think we'll let Congress decide,” Trump said.
President Donald Trump (left) shakes hands with Fox News' Sean Hannity (right) in the Oval Office Wednesday morning as they taped an interview that aired Wednesday evening. Hannity scored the first television interview of Trump's second term
Hannity asked the same question about his attorney general, who is expected to be former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi once she passes Senate confirmation.
“I was always against that with presidents,” Trump replied.
“Hillary Clinton, I could have had Hillary Clinton robbed,” the president added.
He then pointed to his own legal troubles — after being charged in four separate cases with a mix of crimes related to hush-money payments, the storage of classified documents and the attempt to overturn the 2020 and Jan. 6 elections.
“I've been through four hellish years,” the newly sworn-in president said. “I spent millions of dollars in legal fees and I won, but I did it the hard way.”
“It's really hard to say that they shouldn't have to go through all of this,” Trump added.
Trump also spoke with Hannity about his first trip as president — he will go to Asheville, North Carolina, on Friday to see how the rebuilding effort is going after Hurricane Helene flooded the region.
The president then flies to Los Angeles to survey wildfire damage.
Fox News Channel's Sean Hannity scored the first sit-down television interview with President Donald Trump. Hannity was at the White House on Wednesday morning to record the interview, which aired on his primetime program on Wednesday evening
When talking about disaster relief, Trump suggested he would be open to killing FEMA – the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
“All it does is complicate everything,” he complained. “FEMA has not done its job for the last four years.”
“Unless you have a certain type of leadership, that gets in the way. And FEMA is going to be a really big discussion soon because I'd rather see the states solve their own problems,” Trump said.
He then spoke highly of Oklahoma's “very competent” disaster response — and how the state voted for him in the last election.
Hannity also pushed for another of Trump's campaign promises – that he would release the classified files on the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Senator Robert F. Kennedy – the father of his chosen Secretary of Health and Human Services – and civil rights leader Martin. Luther King Jr.
Trump said that when he was president four years ago, several senior administration officials asked him not to release the Kennedy files — he was referring to one person in particular.
“I was actually asked by Mike Pompeo, Secretary of State, not to do that, and I felt like he knew something that maybe, you know, when he asked you not to do that, you kind of said, “Why?” and he felt it was not a good time to release them,” Trump said.
Trump said at the time that he respected Pompeo and the others as “professionals.”
Pompeo, a Republican from Kansas, was Trump's CIA director before heading the State Department.
“But I'm going to release them immediately,” Trump said, adding, “we're looking at it now.”
