President lashed out at Terry Moran in tense TV interview, which included questions about deportations and tariffs
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Joseph Gedeon in Washington Thu 1 May 2025 02.17 AEST
Donald Trump lashed out at an ABC journalist in a tense TV interview to mark 100 days of his second term in office, in which among other confrontations he angrily pushed correspondent Terry Moran to agree with him that a doctored photo was actually real, telling him: “Why don’t you just say yes.”
The 40-minute interview in the Oval Office veered off course when Moran pressed Trump on the case of Kilmar Ábrego García, a Salvadorian man living in Maryland who was deported despite a protective court order. When Moran pointed out that the supreme court had ordered García’s return to the US, and suggested Trump had the power to comply by making a single phone call, the president bristled.
“I could,” Trump said – contradicting weeks of his administration’s insistence that he could not – but added: “I’m not the one making this decision. We have lawyers that don’t want to do this.”
“You’re the president,” Moran said, then after talking over each other, Trump said: “No, no, no, no. I follow the law. You want me to follow the law. If I were the president that just wanted to do anything, I’d probably keep him right where he is.”
“The supreme court says what the law is,” Moran pointed out.
The exchange deteriorated further when Trump insisted García had MS-13 tattoos on his knuckles, while Moran – after several times gently disagreeing and trying to move to a new topic – eventually pointed out that the image Trump was referring to had obviously been digitally altered.
“Why don’t you just say, ‘Yes, he does’ [have a gang tattoo] and, you know, go on to something else,” Trump said.
The US president added: “You do such a disservice … This is why people no longer believe the news, because it’s fake news.”
He then claimed he picked Moran to do the milestone interview “because frankly, I never heard of you”, and added: “Hey, they’re giving you the big break of a lifetime, you know – you’re doing the interview.” (read on)