An explosive transcript from sworn testimony Donald Trump made from a deposition held in regard to a civil case against him by the state of New York for fraud was released earlier this week.
Under oath, Trump said he was too busy “saving millions of lives” by preventing a “nuclear holocaust” to pay much attention to what was happening with his company.
According to the transcript, the April 13 deposition was held at the office of the state attorney general.
The transcript records several pages of preliminaries before prosecuting attorney Kevin Wallace asked Trump about the Trump Organization as an “an umbrella organization for all of [Trump’s] real estate development and corporate affiliates” and who was making the decisions for it
“My role was gone” as a leader in the Trump Organization, Trump said int he sworn testimony transcript.
The former president reasoned that he “really wasn’t interested, believe it or not” in what the company was doing.
“I was interested 16 in solving the problem with North Korea, which was ready to blow up, and solving the problems we had with China, who was just ripping us off left and right, and making sure that Russia never went into Ukraine, which they didn’t, under our auspices and, you know, a lot of other things,” Trump explained.
“There were a lot of things that were happening in the world, as you probably know.”
For clarification, Trump was asked if he was “too busy” for the company.
“Yeah, I think you can say it. It’s another way of saying it,” Trump responded.
“I was very busy. I was — I considered this the most important job in the world, saving millions of lives. I think you would have a nuclear holocaust if I didn’t deal with North Korea.”
“I think you would have a nuclear war if I weren’t elected. And I think you might have a nuclear war now if you want to know the truth.”
The prosecuting attorney appeared unimpressed by the aversion to a nuclear holocaust.
“I’m not going to use my seven hours on nuclear war,” he said, referring to the amount of time slated for the deposition.
Most of the deposition reads like similar documents, but there are moments that The New York Times described as “contentious.”
For example, Trump attorney Christopher Kise interrupted Wallace, saying, “We’re going to be here until midnight if you keep asking questions that are all over the map.”
“Chris, we’re going to be here until midnight if your client answers every question with an eight-minute speech,” Wallace responded.
“So let’s get down to business,” he suggested.
You can read the entire transcript below:
READ: Orbán Warns Ukraine War Could Go Nuclear: “Russia Cannot Be Defeated”
