Trump sits down with Logan Paul to talk Putin, 2024 election and being ‘very tough on the border’

Former president’s rambling hour-long interview dives into campaign rally rhetoric

Donald Trump continued his internet clout-chasing campaign for the presidency with an appearance on Logan Paul’s podcast, where he raised baseless claims about the 2020 presidential election and his felony convictions, said he will end Russia’s war in Ukraine, and repeated his campaign rally promises on immigration.

The social media influencer and professional wrestler, whose IMPAULSIVE podcast draws millions of listeners, also asked the convicted former president about aliens, Drake and Kendrick Lamar, Elon Musk, artificial intelligence, chicken nuggets and cereal.

Trump gifted Paul and his co-host Mike Majlak with a T-shirt featuring his mugshot with the caption “never surrender” – the photograph he took when he surrendered in Georgia on charges connected to a sprawling election interference scheme.

“It happened, you might as well monetize it,” Paul said.

Trump’s appearance – friendly and non-confrontational, leaving plenty of room for him to ramble without interruption – opened with false claims about the 2020 election, attacks on CNN (“the enemy”), and a chat about the UFC, before Trump pivoted to his son Baron, Mike Tyson and wrestlers, and whether he has ever been in a fist fight.

“Probably not,” he said.

The former president’s camp requested the interview, according to a source familiar with the plans. Paul’s team also has requested an interview with President Joe Biden.

Trump on his campaign and felony convictions

Paul suggested Trump had become a “martyr” after a jury in New York found him guilty of 34 felony counts of falsifying business records on May 30.

“Why do you have the desire to give your time and energy to a country or a system that’s trying to take you down?” he asked.

In a rambling response, he claimed that he “had a terrible result” in the 2020 presidential election, which he lost, “and what happened was disgraceful and we can’t let it happen again.”

He repeated his false claim that “millions” of people are emptying out of prisons and mental institutions to come to the US, and that Biden is “the worst president we’ve ever had.”

Trump on debating Biden

Trump said it’s “important” that he face Biden in a presidential debate, with the first planned for June 27 on CNN.

“Yep, I’ll accept,” he said. “You don’t even have to tell me that. … Let’s see what happens. I used to get along with Jake Tapper. We’ll see what happens. But it doesn’t matter.”

Trump on Russia

Trump repeated his claim that Russia’s assault in Ukraine “would have never happened” if he were president.

“It’s just a shame. All so many dead people. You look at just the soldiers, it’s a half a million soldiers between the both countries.. But so many dead people, so many towns and villages and buildings and all, I mean magnificent culture just being wiped out,” he said.

He claims that he “got along very well” with Russian President Vladimir Putin as well as Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky.

“But I was tough with him,” he said about Putin.

According to Trump, after the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, “Putin looked at that, he said, ‘Well, let’s go in.’”

Trump on the US-Mexico border

The former president claimed to have “fixed” the southern border, that it was “in really good shape” when he left office, and “drugs were at the lowest point in years.” His administration expelled the vast majority of people arriving at the border, and Trump and his allies have floated military intervention and the death penalty to combat drug trafficking and the rise of fentanyl.

“They give the death penalty in China, you sell drugs. I said, ‘I’d like you to give the death penalty to people that are making fentanyl and sending it over to our country.’ And he was going to do that. And then we had the election result. And of course Biden never picked up that conversation,” Trump said.

“So we have to be very tough on the border,” added Trump, who raised his baseless claim that people from “jails and prisons and mental institutions” were arriving at “levels that nobody’s ever seen before” into the US.