Donald Trump urged Republican lawmakers to let the US default on its debts unless Democrats capitulate to demands for “massive” spending cuts, a significant intervention by the former president as Washington contends with a looming fiscal crisis.
Trump made the comments on Wednesday in a hotly anticipated primetime televised town hall from New Hampshire, the critical early voting state. Addressing an audience of largely Republican voters, Trump clashed with CNN moderator Kaitlan Collins in a wide-ranging back and forth in which he refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war with Russia, or whether he would support a federal ban on abortion.
The former president, who remains the frontrunner in an increasingly crowded field of Republicans vying for their party’s nomination for president in 2024, also repeated his false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him, and suggested he would pardon “a large portion” of his supporters who have been convicted of crimes relating to their actions at the US Capitol on January 6 2021.
When asked about the fight in Washington over the debt ceiling, Trump shrugged off concerns about a default, which the US Treasury has warned poses a “catastrophic” risk to the global economy.
“It’s really psychological more than anything else. And it could be really bad, it could be maybe nothing, maybe it’s a bad week, or a bad day, who knows?” Trump said.
The White House has called on Congress to raise the debt ceiling without condition, while Republican lawmakers have sought to tie lifting the borrowing limit to large spending cuts.
President Joe Biden met congressional leaders from both big parties at the White House on Tuesday and the two sides agreed to enter talks, but worries of a possible default remain high given the apparent lack of common ground between them. US Treasury secretary Janet Yellen has warned the government risks running out of money as soon as next month.
In remarks that will pile pressure on Kevin McCarthy, the Republican Speaker of the House, Trump said: “I say to the Republicans out there, congressmen, senators, if they don’t give you massive cuts, you’re gonna have to do a default.”
Trump said he did not think a default would happen because “the Democrats will absolutely cave”, but added that it would be “better than what we’re doing right now, because we’re spending money like drunken sailors”.
“We might as well do it now because you’ll do it later. Because we have to save this country,” the former president added. “Our country is being destroyed by stupid people, by very stupid people.”
When asked about Russia’s war in Ukraine, Trump repeated his claims that if he were in the White House, Vladimir Putin would have never invaded Ukraine, and argued that if he were president, he would be able to have the conflict “settled in one day”.
Trump repeatedly refused to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win the war, saying, “I don’t think in terms of winning and losing, I think in terms of getting it settled.”
He also sidestepped questions about whether, as president, he would support more aid from Washington to Kyiv. Instead, he called on “Europe to put up more money”.
Trump appeared on CNN just one day after a jury found him liable for the sexual abuse and defamation of a journalist in a Manhattan department store in the 1990s. On Wednesday night he repeated his claims that he did not know the woman, E Jean Carroll, and mocked her, calling her a “whack job”.
Biden, who was returning to Washington after a day of appearances in New York, did not appear to watch the town hall, after televisions on Air Force One were reportedly changed from CNN to rival cable channel MSNBC.
But the president made several responses to Trump on Twitter, including an appeal for people to donate to the Biden 2024 campaign.
“It’s simple, folks,” he wrote. “Do you want four more years of that? If you don’t, pitch in to our campaign.”
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