In recent weeks, former President Donald Trump has been giving local and regional news outlets the inside scoop on some of his campaign moves over larger, national outlets.
He has told newspapers and broadcast stations in Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and New York details about his next moves on the campaign trail or in a potential second term.
Trump continues to speak frequently to national outlets, mostly on conservative stations such as Newsmax and Fox News, but he did give a detailed report to Time magazine about his vision for a second Trump term. These days, however, it seems Trump is happy to give local outlets the scoop before anyone else while he’s on the campaign trail.
The Trump campaign did not respond to the Washington Examiner’s request for comment.
KDKA, a CBS affiliate in Pittsburgh
When Jon Delano of KDKA, a Pittsburgh CBS affiliate, asked Trump about potentially placing restrictions on contraceptives such as birth control, Trump gave a vague answer.
“We’re looking at that, and I’m going to have a policy on that very shortly,” he said. “And I think it’s something that you’ll find interesting, and it’s another issue that’s very interesting, but you will find it, I think, very smart. I think it’s a smart decision.”
When national media outlets picked up the story, he backtracked. He called the reports from the national news “a Democrat fabricated lie” and that he would “never advocate imposing restrictions on birth control.”
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
Following a campaign visit to Waukesha, Wisconsin, located in a strongly Republican county outside Milwaukee, Trump told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that he would not accept the results of the election in Wisconsin unless it was “honest.”
“If everything’s honest, I’d gladly accept the results. If it’s not, you have to fight for the right of the country…But if everything’s honest, which we anticipate it will be — a lot of changes have been made over the last few years — but if everything’s honest, I will absolutely accept the results,” Trump said in an interview with the Journal Sentinel.
National media outlets were quick to pick up the line. In the same interview, he refused to accept the results of the 2020 election in Wisconsin in which President Joe Biden flipped the state blue by about 20,000 votes.
News12 New York
At a rally in the New York borough of the Bronx, Trump spoke to a hometown station: News12 New York. He gave key insights into who is on his short list for vice president, narrowing down a long list of potential vice presidential picks when asked who was on the list.
“We have so many,” Trump said. “You could take people like Ben Carson, people like Marco Rubio, or J.D. Vance. I mean, there’s so many. Elise is doing a fantastic job, but I could go on for quite a long time. We have many people who would do a really fantastic job.”
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He also gave the outlet insight into former Republican presidential candidate Nikki Haley’s role in a possible second Trump administration. Haley had been the center of debate about how much or how little she would support the former president after the two had a fiery campaign against one another.
“I think she’s going to be on our team because we have a lot of the same ideas, the same thoughts,” Trump told the station. “I appreciated what she said. You know, we had a nasty campaign. It was pretty nasty. But she’s a very capable person, and I’m sure she’s going to be on our team in some form, absolutely.”
