CNN
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President Donald Trump would not rule out investigating former President Joe Biden in a Fox News interview that aired Wednesday.
Speaking to Fox News’ Sean Hannity, Trump also repeatedly criticized California Gov. Gavin Newsom, placed possible conditions on funds for wildfire-ravaged California and vowed to punish cities that don’t not cooperate with its immigration program.
Here are the key lines from the interview:
Trump criticized Biden’s decision to pardon members of his own family and certain figures that Trump has singled out, including members of the January 6 committee and witnesses, as well as Dr. Anthony Fauci.
He then said it was perhaps a “sad thing” that Biden did not pardon himself.
“And you know, what’s funny, even sad, is that he didn’t give himself a pardon,” Trump told Hannity.
Later in the interview, he added: “Well, I went through four years of hell because of this scum that we had to deal with. I lived through four years of hell. I spent millions of dollars in legal fees and won, but I did it the hard way. And it’s really hard to say that they shouldn’t have to go through all of this. So it’s very difficult to say that.
Asked if he would like Congress to investigate his predecessor, Trump replied: “I think we’ll let Congress decide.” »
Asked if he wanted the attorney general to investigate Biden, Trump said he could have done “any number of things” about his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton.
“You know, I’ve always been against it,” added Trump, who has threatened to jail Clinton for nearly a decade.
Trump said he would seek to release FBI files on John F. Kennedy “immediately,” once the files are reviewed.
Asked by Hannity if he would release the files on the Kennedy assassination, Trump mentioned that he had already released some of those files as president, but was discouraged by the Secretary of State of the time, Mike Pompeo, to release more information.
“I did it with Kennedy, to a certain extent,” Trump said. “But some of our government officials asked me not to do it and, you know, you have to respect them.”
Trump promised early in his first term to release the files on the Kennedy assassination. In October 2017, the U.S. government released more than 2,800 documents relating to the assassination, but avoided releasing more after last-minute requests from national security agencies.
Trump said Pompeo felt “it’s just not the right time to release them.” He added that he would release the files “immediately” after obtaining the information.
Trump dismissed concerns that TikTok’s data collection could make Americans’ personal information vulnerable to China, telling Hannity: “Is it that important for China to spy on young people?” On young kids watching crazy videos? »
Trump was pressed by Hannity over concerns that TikTok — which is owned by China-based parent company ByteDance and is therefore subject to Chinese data collection requirements — is a “spy app for Chinese communists.”
“But you can say that about anything made in China – look, our phones are made in China for the most part, we have so many things made in China, so why don’t they mention it?” » Trump said.
One of Trump’s first actions after taking office on Monday was to sign an executive order delaying enforcement of the federal ban on TikTok, which took effect on January 19. During Wednesday’s interview, he told Hannity that “a lot of people want to buy” the app in the United States, which would allow them to continue operating domestically without breaking the law.
Trump’s embrace of the platform marks a turnaround from his first term, when he issued an executive order effectively banning TikTok, saying the app’s data collection “threatened to allow the Chinese Communist Party to access Americans’ personal and proprietary information” and could allow Beijing to “build files of personal information for blackmail purposes and conduct industrial espionage.”
Trump criticized Newsom’s response to the state’s recent devastating wildfires and said the federal government should “give California nothing” unless it changes its water policies.
Discussing the fires, Trump reiterated his criticism of the state’s management of its forests and blamed its water policies for exacerbating the fires, accusing Newsom of hoarding water in reservoirs in Northern California to protect the endangered delta smelt.
“I’m going to issue a statement today, I don’t think we should give anything to California until they let the water flow,” Trump told Hannity.
Although there has been a water shortage in Southern California, experts previously told CNN there is no reason to link the fires to smelt protection efforts.
CNN’s Donald Judd and Alejandra Jaramillo contributed to this report.