Sky News Australia’s Sharri Markson interviews Trump’s Senior Media Advisor Jason Miller discussing the possibility of a Trump social media platform and another run for president.
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Sharri Markson: Now over to the United States. Tensions are running hot between Donald Trump and senior figures in the Republican Party after Mitch McConnell launched a tirade against the Former President during the vote to impeach him. I’ve had an exclusive interview with Trump Senior Media Advisor Jason Miller and he let slip just how Trump managed to stop furious Republicans like McConnell from voting to convict him. He also revealed that Trump is actively holding meetings to set up the social media platform to rival Twitter.
Sharri Markson: I want to start with, the Republican party is now torn in terms of whether to have Donald Trump and its future. Is Donald Trump committed to the Republican Party?
Jason Miller: Absolutely, President Trump is committed to the Republican Party. Not only that, he wants to make sure the Republican Party wins back the House of Representatives and the US Senate in 2022 and I think the only possible way that there would have been any, any footsies with the idea of a third party was if there’d been some sort of move towards impeachment or any sort of bigger push. but no, President Trump is very much committed to the Republican Party and he wants to see the party win back the majorities in our legislature so that’s, that’s really going to be his focus for heading into the next next two years here.
Sharri Markson: So Jason, behind-the-scenes was that the leverage Trump had to stop people like Mitch McConnell you know, voting to impeach him. Is that his leverage that he could set up a MAGA Party, you know in 2024.
Jason Miller: Well, I think it’s a little bit of leverage and a reality. I again, I think that President Trump is being committed to the Republican party. It’s not something he was proactively pursuing. There were no serious conversations that were being, being had behind the scenes, and the only way he was ever going to even think about that as if he was pushed towards it. But, the good thing is, we’ve gone past impeachment, President Trump has been acquitted, fully, again, a second time, only president who’s been impeached twice, he’s been acquitted twice, so were past that, which is good. And I think really what a lot of folks are starting to realize here in the states is that President Trump really is the Republican Party, and so he is, he’s not only the current aspect of the party, but is the future of the party. So I think we’ve really kind of gotten past that, so hopefully we can go into a win back the majorities in 2022.
Sharri Markson: Look, I, I, I don’t think, you know, you’ve gotten past it to the extent that there are still many senior figures in the Republican Party who are, who are quit angry and you see that in the public commentary and in the news reports. There quit angry at Donald Trump’s conduct right after the election result. You know, you’d think that if Trump would have just conceded straightaway after a phenomenal result in spite of COVID and his handing of it he would have been the hero of the Republican Party but instead his credibility has been damaged and many in the party have turned on him, you know. Does he acknowledge that his conduct right after the election was a mistake?
Jason Miller: No actually I’d push back on that a little bit. If you take a look at some of the polling that we’ve done in the Battleground States, there are only 17 Battleground States out of the 50 that are really in play each election cycle and if you take a look at, 80% of Trump voters will hold it against a member of Congress or senator who votes for impeachment, 76% of Republicans overall. You take a look and 60% about actually about 63% of all Republicans want President Trump to run again for president in 2024. 70%, by the way, of Trump voters one President Trump to be the nominee for president in 2024. And so you look at the support base really is still there and there is a concern with the free and fair elections. And there are really kind of two categories, and a lot of folks in Australia might kind of wonder what really is the issue with the elections that President Trump is raising, really two parts. The first is Article 2 of our Constitution says the only the state legislature can actually go and set up the parameters for each election. So we’ve seen a number of cases, this time, where the executives or are judges went around the state legislature to set those up, so there’s concerned with that. And then there’s a number of cases with empirical examples of voting fraud and irregularities that we really want to get to the bottom of. But look, 2020 is now in the past. We’re now looking forward. But as we look to 2022 and 2024, we really want to go and make sure that we, we get to the bottom of some of these election problems we had in 2020, and that’s one of the things that President Trump is going to be leading on as we go forward. But I think most, most of the Republicans voters are definitely with him.
Sharri Markson: But Jason isn’t continuing that campaign publicly, and while it might be important to get to the bottom of any legitimate issues behind the scenes, isn’t continuing this publicly, and you know Trump gave a couple of interviews the other day where he repeated the claim that the election was stolen from him. Surely after the Capitol riots, after the impeachment it would be in the best interests of a unified, calm United States for him to at least publicly let this go?
Jason Miller: Well again, I think there are two different stories here. When we talk about the violence of January 6th, [2021] of course, everybody condones that as, excuse me, condemns that. Everyone thinks that that is terrible. You know, you look back at some of the evidence even, I was looking at some stories today online that even going back to say December 30th were there are some examples where is being raised about concerns about some of the outside groups of people might be causing some of the potential violence or a irregular activity at the Capitol on January 6th, that of course is terrible. We absolutely condemn that in the strongest terms possible, but there’s a difference between that and making sure that we have free and fair elections and that there is no funny business that goes on with it in any sort of way. But then again we’re now looking forward, we’re looking ahead. . .
Sharri Markson: It’s very difficult to draw a line between those two things because you know Trump has such a strong following and people listen to what he says and so if he does continue to push for investigations into various election outcomes or individual election results, you know people can interpret that is continuing to fight and that can again be interpreted as inciting violence, especially when he uses words like he did which was, we fight like hell, you know, and if you don’t fight like hell you’re not going to have a country any more, you know, I mean, those were Trumps words.
Jason Miller: Well, and if you saw anything from our impeachment trial we actually played those exact same words being used by Democratic Senators and Democratic house members, even Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Sharri Markson: But they don’t have the sort of, they don’t have, those Democratic senators don’t have the sort of following that Trump has
Jason Miller: That’s so, that’s true. He has a much bigger following, but when you talk about those exact same words and actually the first amendment was a, in the freedom of speech aspect, was a really big deal from the impeachment trial, and I think that was something that was really a turning point in the trial where we showed the video of over and over of the Democrats choosing the exact same words. But Sharri, I want to make sure the folks in Australia realize really kind of where the difference is here is. There is, yes there is concerns about the voting fraud and irregulars in 2020, that’s not where our focus is right now. Our focus is, as you look ahead to 2022 and 2024, how do you make sure that our elections processes that are in place and make sure they’re free and fair and how do we win that back for Republicans. So we’re looking forward at this point, we’re not working backwards.
Sharri Markson: Look, just before we move of this issue of the Republican party, I just want to ask you about a couple of people who have come out really strongly against the the president, former president, Nikki Haley one, Mitch McConnell another. Nikki Haley seem to be attempting some kind of reconciliation with Donald Trump and those reports that she tried to visit him at Mar-A-Lago. Is it true he rejected that and if so why?
Jason Miller: Well, I’ll let President Trump and Nikki Haley speak to that more directly, but I think the reality is if you’re attacking President Trump at this point you’re really attacking the Republican Party overall, because we see very closely that the Republican party wants President Trump. He’s not only the current flag bearer of the party, but he’s also the future flag bearer of the party and he’s the person that everybody really rallies around. But I think in regards to Nikki Haley, I think you can’t really have a both ways. You can’t really attack President Trump and also try to pretend to support President Trump. But you know what, we’re not so much worried about that right now we’re worried about the future and again 2022 the midterms, 2024 that’s really President Trump’s focus.
Sharri Markson: So lets move to the future, 2024. Do you think certain Trump wants to run again as a presidential candidate?
Jason Miller: I hope so, I definitely hope so.
Sharri Markson: You speak to him every day. What was he saying?
Jason Miller: I think if the election were next week, I think he would definitely like to go in the run. Obviously, several years down the road could be a little different story. We’ll see where the world is, what, what shifts or what could be different, but I think if, I think President Trump definitely would like to run again. No decision, just to be clear, no decision has been is been made yet, but I hope he does. I hope he does run again. I think, as we saw, President Trump brought in a record-setting amount of African American and Latino American voters into the party, really, really growing the party into, and in a way that we’ve never seen before. We want to keep those folks in the fold and we can do that with President Trump.
Sharri Markson: And so in the next few years, but before he has to make it a final call on that, what do you expect he’ll? What does the future hold?
Jason Miller: So, a couple things. I think we’re going to definitely be pursuing some the election reforms in some of these states to make sure that we don’t have these Article 2 constitutional violations and we do have elections that are set up that are completely within the framework that the framers intended. But I also think that you’re going to see President Trump going to make sure that we get Republicans elected to the House and the Senate. This is really his big focus and I think also, look he’s right now, he’s in Palm Beach were the weather is a little bit nicer than carried Washington DC or in, or in New York. It’s a very nice. I think he’s playing some golf. He’s catching up with some friends right now, spending time with Melania and is his youngest son Barron. So he’s relaxing a little bit. He’s had the weight of the world on his shoulders the last 4 years, but I can tell you, speaking with him everyday, he’s chomping at the bit ready to get back at it and he’s taking a look at what Joe Biden’s doing already in his first month, month and half, of his presidency and President Trump is really concerned about where Joe Biden is taking things.
Sharri Markson: Look, he’s been kicked off twitter. He enjoyed Twitter when he was on it. Do you think he might set up a another social media platform or a media platform?
Jason Miller: Good question. There have been conversations and meetings already to this point. I think there’s a very good chance President Trump could set up his own social media platform in which case, regardless of what the platform is, it’s going to be the biggest once he joins it. There are a couple of existing platforms that they’re kicking the tires on and really seeing if that’s something that he could go and join. Of course, that would be, that would be great company to invest in or be a part of because it would grow immensely overnight if President Trump doing join it. But whatever he does, whether its a new platform, whether it’s and existing platform, he’s really going to to make that in a huge way. Keep in mind that something in the neighborhood of, you know, 73, 74 million, I believe, Twitter followers when he was on, on Twitter, and folks are, folks are wanting to hear what he has to say. But the fascinating thing, here in the states, is that President Trump is still driving the news even though he’s not on social media. Every single day, he’s the one who’s driving the news. He’s out of office, he not on social media. Every wants to know what he’s doing. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a remarkable thing to see.
Sharri Markson: So I just want to clarify that he’s already taking meetings about setting up a new social media platform or an existing one, but he’s already having those meetings, you know, having just left office.
Jason Miller: Oh yay, we’ve, there have already been a number of meetings about both joining existing social media platforms and potentially setting up a brand new social media platforms, yes, there’s already been a number of meetings.
Sharri Markson: Has he been kicking around names for what a new social media platform might be called?
Jason Miller: A, there have the names of that have been kicked around but I don’t want to share them because, I’ll let President Trump do the branding. The one thing I learned working for the President is don’t try to brand anything that he might try to brand and a so that’s a, I learned that pretty quickly in working for him.
Sharri Markson: Well, absolutely you’ve worked for the President twice, back in 2016 and again in 2020, and you still haven’t been five so you must be doing something right.
Jason Miller: Yay, well, right and that’s part of that would be, not lending out potential names for social media platforms so I’m riding a hot streak and I’m going to stick to it.
Sharri Markson: We really are almost out of time. I just want to ask you something else. Take me to through, very quickly, election night. In that room when the numbers started coming in and they were looking good. You know, did the president have a sense of euphoria, a sense that he was going to win or did he realize that the ballots the next day would be different?
Jason Miller: That’s a great question. I mean, as we saw it going through election night, we saw the Florida returns, the state of Florida returns at initially and those look very good. We saw Ohio those were very strong. We saw another number of other states Whether it be Iowa, we saw early leads in Pennsylvania and in Michigan all come to the forefront.
Sharri Markson: So he did think, he did think he was going to win on that night.
Jason Miller: I think, I think it was, everybody on the team thought that we were trending in that direction. We looked very strong. Excuse me. The Fox News call for Australia, excuse me for Arizona was something that look really caught us off-guard, especially as we saw just how close Arizona was, ended up being only a few thousand votes. thought that was very, very early for Fox to go and call that. So that’s not something that was, at some point we’ll have a longer conversation about that. We definitely thought the way the numbers looked that things were definitely in our favor, and it really wasn’t until Thursday or Friday of that week when it look like we weren’t going to be re-elected to the presidency, so it’s a there so much longer story there to unpack.
Sharri Markson: Absolutely, Jason Miller thank you very much for your time, really appreciate it
Jason Miller: Thanks, Sharri.
Sharri Markson: So, there you have it. Donald Trump is in active talks about setting up his own social media platform and also the revelation that he leveraged the threat of setting up a rival political party, his own Maga party, to see him acquitted at the most recent impeachment trial. If you’d like to watch that interview again or to share it, can’t head to Facebook, you have to go to Sky News Australia’s YouTube page or to Twitter or even the Australian website. We have a report up on it as well.
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