Fox anchor grills Donald Trump on his tough week: 'Are you in the process of blowing your campaign?'
In the pretaped interview that aired Sunday, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace pressed Trump again and again on some of the recent firestorms dogging his campaign, including his campaign manager's simple-battery charge, his relatively poor poll numbers in next Tuesday's Wisconsin primary, his flip-flop on abortion policy, and more.
"This may sound harsh, but are you in the process of blowing your campaign for president?" Wallace asked Trump in the opening question.
"I don't think so," Trump replied.
He continued:
I think that we're doing very well. Don't forget you have been thinking about that or asking me that question numerous times since June 16. I've had the statement made many a times: "He just blew his campaign." Only to end up having higher poll numbers.
Wallace then jumped into Trump's plummeting favorability rating among female voters.
"In the latest Fox poll, 67% of women nationally now have an unfavorable view of you. If you had purposely set out to turn off voters, especially women voters, over the last two weeks, I'm not sure you could have done a better job," he told Trump.
Trump shrugged off the question.
"All I can do is do what I do," he replied.
But the mogul suggested he regretted retweeting an unflattering photo of the wife of his top GOP rival, Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas. Trump recently told New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd that it was a "mistake."
"Was this my best week? I guess not. I could have done without the retweet, etcetera, etcetera," Trump told Wallace.
Wallace soon turned the conversation to Trump's comments last week on who would be punished in a hypothetical world in which abortion were illegal in the US. Trump initially said the women who have abortions should be punished, but then walked that back and said only those who perform abortions should be penalized.
"You did something pretty remarkable. You offended both the pro-life and the pro-choice movement with one statement," Wallace said. "Do you agree it was a mistake?" he asked.
"I would have rather answered it in a different manner, yeah. I would have rather answered it in a different manner," Trump said.
A number of other tough questions were fired off against Trump.
Wallace asked Trump if he had a "learning curve" on policy. He asked if Trump, who called NATO "obsolete," if he was aware of how many of the military alliance's soldiers died in Afghanistan. He asked why Trump's campaign manager, who was recently charged with misdemeanor battery, didn't simply apology for grabbing a reporter. And so on.
Watch part of the interview below:
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