During a wide-ranging Wednesday interview on “The Hugh Hewitt Show,” former President Donald Trump suggested that Chinese President Xi Jinping allowed COVID-19 to spread in an effort to get Trump defeated in 2020.
Trump said he doesn’t think the China Communist Party did it on purpose but said he doesn’t “want to be naïve.” He argued that China “hated everything” he did, including imposing tariffs.
[Relevant portion beginning around the 14:40 mark]
“Do you think General Secretary Xi knew about COVID and let it spread without doing anything because he didn’t want to be disadvantaged?” host Hugh Hewitt asked.
“Well, I happen to think, yeah, I happen to think that look, the question that you’re really asking is did they do it on purpose, and I don’t think so,” Trump replied. “You know, don’t want to be naïve. There are many people that I respect that do think so, OK? And a lot of people think they did it so that I would lose the election, but I got 12 million more votes than I got the first time. So obviously, something happened. You know, I was told if you get 63 million, which I got in 2016, you get 63 million votes, you win. I got 75 million votes. I got 12 million more, more than any other sitting president ever by far, not even close. Usually, they get less, like Obama got less his second time. But I got 12 million more, a record, and lost.”
“And a lot of people think that if he did it, he did it for that reason, because of the tariffs and other things,” he continued. “You know, we took in hundreds of billions of dollars from China under me. Prior to me, we never took in 10 cents, not one dollar did we take in. They were ripping us. And you know, that’s, in fact, I noticed that the Obama people don’t have the economic courage to end the tariffs. They were talking about we’re going to end the tariffs. Well, it’s so much money is pouring in on the tariffs, and companies are leaving and coming back to the United States and going to other places.”
“Let me understand you, Mr. President. Are you saying that President General Secretary Xi may have unleashed the virus, or at least allowed it to spread recklessly because he wanted you to lose?” Hewitt clarified.
“Well, I think there’s a theory out there,” Trump responded. “That’s certainly one of many theories because I was doing very well against China. We rebuilt our military. We did things that nobody thought possible. In that period of time, we rebuilt our military. We created Space Force, which they hate, by the way. They were taking over space.”
“And they hate it. They hated everything I did,” he added. “I got along with him great on a personal — it’s like Putin. I get along with him, and I got along with Xi great. I got along with all of them. I get along with Kim Jong un. The ones I didn’t get along with were the weak ones.”
Follow Trent Baker on Twitter @MagnifiTrent
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