Trump abruptly cuts off a radio interview and avoids talking about his responsibility in the assault on the Capitol

Donald Trump, in a June 2021 file photo SERGIO FLORES (AFP)

Since Donald Trump became president in 2016, National Public Radio (NPR) had tried unsuccessfully for an interview with the Republican president. I never did. The White House was saying

for an answer to the requests. Until this past Tuesday, when the presenter of the morning show

Steve Inskeep, was able to interview the former president by phone, who was at his Florida residence in Mar-a-Lago. The time agreed with the radio station was 15 minutes. At the ninth minute, Trump hung up the phone on the veteran journalist. The conversation aired this Wednesday morning.

For about six years I've been asking Donald Trump for an interview.

It never happened until the former president came on the line today.

Tomorrow on @MorningEdition we'll hear what he said, up to the moment that he hung up on me.

@NPR

- Steve Inskeep (@NPRinskeep) January 11, 2022

Trump was pressured by Inskeep over his unfounded allegations of voter fraud, what the Republican calls

and his insistence that the 2020 election was rigged against him.

As explained by NPR on its website, Trump decided to cut off communication when the announcer questioned him whether, as he had been saying, he would only support Republican candidates who defend his theory of electoral fraud.

The former president referred to these candidates as "very smart" and gave Kari Lake as an example, competing for the governor's house in Arizona.

ICYMI: @NPRinskeep talks with @DomenicoNPR and @MaraLiasson regarding his interview with Former President Trump.

Listen below 👇 https://t.co/uSQDZ4BJxj

- NPR (@NPR) January 12, 2022

"This issue is important to her," Trump said of Lake and the false electoral theft.

"People have no idea how big this problem is and they don't want it to happen again," Trump said.

"The only way it doesn't happen again is by solving the rigged 2020 presidential election fraud."

At the time, Inskeep tried to intervene, but Trump had already decided not to follow through.

“Steve, thank you very much.

Thank you".

And hung up the phone.

The journalist was surprised and expressed his protest, managing to say: "Eh, eh eh ... I have one more question!"

The most that the announcer could contribute was to inform listeners that the battery of questions about the responsibility of the ex-president in the assault on the Capitol in January 2021 had remained in the pipeline.

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