By Servet Gunerigok
WASHINGTON (AA) - Former President Donald Trump took aim at his successor Joe Biden, his fellow Republican rivals and Fox News during an interview aired minutes before the first GOP presidential debate Wednesday.
Trump said he skipped the event to avoid getting harassed by the eight presidential hopefuls, who he said should not be running for president.
"I just felt it would be more appropriate not to do the debate. I don't think it's right to do it if you're leading by 50, 60, one poll I’m leading by 70 points," he said in the pre-taped interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson posted on X, formerly known as Twitter.
As for Fox News, which hosted the debate, he said the network "isn't particularly friendly to me," and "Fox is way down."
During the nearly 46-minute-long interview, Trump called former Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson "nasty" and former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie a "savage maniac."
"He’s like a lunatic...His poll numbers are very, very low," he said of Christie.
- President Joe Biden
Trump told Carlson that he is seeing great enthusiasm for his candidacy.
“I have never seen spirit like it is right now, and the reason is because crooked Joe Biden is so bad,” he said.
"He's the worst president in the history of our country.”
He said Biden is worse mentally than he is physically, adding: "He's not exactly a triathlete, or any kind of an athlete. You look at him, who can't walk to the helicopter, he can't lift his feet out of the grass."
"I don't think he is going to make it to the gate. But you know, you never know," he added.
Turning to the Ukraine war, Trump reiterated his call for an end to the conflict.
"It's got to be stopped and it can be solved very easily. If I were president, it would have never started," he said.
- Indictments
The former president also commented about the indictments against him, calling them "nonsense.”
"I think the people in this country don’t get enough credit for how smart they are...I got indicted four times, all trivia, all nonsense. Bullshit, it’s all bullshit," said Trump.
He pointed to the documents Biden was keeping, saying Biden had 25 times the number of boxes of classified documents.
"And he's got them stored in Chinatown. He's got them stored in a flimsy garage underneath his Corvette...He gets millions of dollars. China pays this guy millions of dollars. See, I think he's the most corrupt president we've ever had.
"And he also has the distinction of being the most incompetent. And I believe both, I mean, he's both incompetent and corrupt," he added.
- Number one priority if elected
Trump was also asked about his number one priority if he is elected again as president in the 2024 election.
"Number one is the border and taking hundreds of thousands of criminals that have been allowed into our country and getting them out," he responded.
"Last month, we had 149 countries represented. Think of it, we had 149 countries represented, Tucker, from places that many people never even heard of coming into our country, and they’re coming in from mental institutions and they’re coming in from prisons, they’re emptying out their prisons all over South America. They’re emptying out their mental institutions. Terrorists are pouring into our country, we have no idea.”