More than 10 months after the events of January 6th, the insurrection at the Capitol is still making headlines as those who participated in the riots are being tried and sentenced, and Donald Trump’s uncooperative allies are being forced to turn themselves in. (We’re looking at you, Steve Bannon.) At the same time, ABC News correspondent Jonathan Karl is releasing Betrayal: The Final Act of the Trump Show, a new book that’s largely centered around the events of that day, and which includes quotes given directly to Karl by some of the day’s biggest players—Trump included. And Trevor Noah, for one, thinks the former president sounds totally “gangster.”
The Daily Show host shared an audio clip of Karl speaking with Trump about the events of January 6th, in which he asks the former president—point blank—whether the rumors of him basically attempting to bully Mike Pence into manning up and standing with him were true. Here’s how that went:
Karl: There was a report, excuse my language.
Trump: Go ahead.
Karl: Not mine, it was in the report.
Trump: Yeah.
Karl: That you talked to [Pence] that morning and you said, ‘You can be a patriot or you can be a p**sy.’ Did you really say that or is that an incorrect…
Trump: I wouldn’t dispute it.
Karl: Really?
Trump: I wouldn’t dispute it.
Noah, for one, was totally tickled by the exchange. “Wow, Trump is gangster,” he remarked, then noted that “Even if he didn’t say that, [Trump’s] the type of guy who would pretend he said it, just because it sounded cool. ‘Yeah, that’s a good line, I totally said it. I said it: Patriot or p**sy. I love it.’”
You can watch the full clip above (it begins around the 2:00 mark).
