President Donald Trump sat down for an exclusive interview with Fox News host Sean Hannity on Wednesday, his first since returning to the White House.
Trump has routinely answered questions from reporters during his first week in office, including from Hannity.
In front of a primetime audience, Trump reflected on his return to the White House four years after his loss to former President Joe Biden, threatened a reckoning with FEMA, shared his view on TikTok’s future and discussed Biden’s preemptive pardons for officials and family members.
Here are the standout moments.
1. Trump reflects on return to White House
Trump looked back on his historic return to the White House in his interview with Hannity, saying his political comeback proves the policies and philosophies of the ‘radical left’ throughout the past four years are ‘horrible’ and ‘don’t work.’
The 47th president lamented the Biden administration’s policies, once again targeting inflation, the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan and the onset of the Russia-Ukraine and Israel-Hamas wars.
‘With all that being said, I think it’s bigger. It’s bigger than if it were more traditional,’ he said on ‘Hannity,’ referring to his two nonconsecutive terms. ‘I think we got there just in the nick of time.’
2. Hannity reveals what he told Trump after 2020 election loss
Hannity revealed he told Trump after the 2020 election that a return to the White House four years after the Biden administration would be ‘bigger’ than a consecutive win, comparing it to Winston Churchill’s return as prime minister following World War II.
‘Maybe I shouldn’t disclose this, but I will, and it was after the 2020 election, and you asked me a question. And we’ve known each other for 30 years, so we have a friendship, and we have a professional relationship,’ Hannity said in his exclusive interview with Trump on Wednesday.
‘And the question you asked me, ‘maybe in the end, it will be better that if I came back in four years.’ And we talked about history. After World War II, Winston Churchill was thrown out, but they brought him back. Grover Cleveland, the only other American president that did not serve consecutive terms,’ he continued.
Churchill served as prime minister twice, from 1940-1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. Trump is the second U.S. president to serve two, non-consecutive terms behind President Grover Cleveland, the nation’s 22nd and 24th president.
Hannity explained that he believed ‘it would be bigger if you came back.’ Trump agreed that it is already shaping up that way after three days in office.
‘It’s turning out to be bigger. And I think one thing is happening is people are learning that they can’t govern and that their policies are terrible. I mean, they don’t want to see a woman get pummeled by a man in a boxing ring?’ he said.
3. Trump warns FEMA faces a reckoning after Biden administration
Trump warned that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is set to face a reckoning following four years under the Biden administration, arguing the emergency agency has ‘not done their job.’
‘FEMA has not done their job for the last four years. You know, I had FEMA working really well. We had hurricanes in Florida. We had Alabama tornadoes. But unless you have certain types of leadership, it’s really, it gets in the way. And FEMA is going to be a whole big discussion very shortly, because I’d rather see the states take care of their own problems,’ Trump said.
FEMA came under the nation’s microscope last year when Hurricane Helene ripped through North Carolina, devastating residents as it wiped out homes and businesses and killed more than 100 people. FEMA and the Biden administration faced fierce backlash for its handling of the emergency, while Trump accused the agency of obstructing relief efforts in Republican areas.
‘The Democrats don’t care about North Carolina. What they’ve done with FEMA is so bad. FEMA is a whole ‘nother discussion, because all it does is complicate everything,’ he said.
‘So I’m stopping on Friday. I’m stopping in North Carolina, first stop, because those people were treated very badly by Democrats. And I’m stopping there. We’re going to get that thing straightened out because they’re still suffering from a hurricane from months ago,’ Trump said.
Trump will visit North Carolina on Friday, his first trip as president, where he is expected to tour and meet with residents who were left devastated by the hurricane in September. He will also visit California that same day, where wildfires have ripped through the Los Angeles area this month.
4. Trump has a ‘very warm spot in my heart’ for TikTok
Trump credited his campaign’s decision to go on TikTok with his strong 2024 election performance with youth voters, though he told Hannity the short form video platform must be sold by its Chinese owners to continue to operate in the U.S.
‘I think TikTok ought to be sold,’ Trump said. ‘People want to buy it.’
On his first day in office Monday, Trump issued an executive order granting TikTok more time to operate and work toward compliance with a law forcing the platform’s Beijing-based owner, ByteDance, to either divest the app to an American buyer or shut the platform down in the U.S.
He has stated that the U.S. should own half of TikTok and suggested that billionaire Elon Musk or Oracle founder Larry Ellison should purchase the app.
In the interview, Trump seemed dismissive of Hannity’s concerns that TikTok is a ‘spying app for the communist Chinese.’
‘But you can say that about everything made in China. Look, we have our telephones made in China for the most part. We have so many things made in China. So why don’t they mention that, you know?’ Trump said.
‘You’re dealing with a lot of young people,’ he added. ‘So they love it. Is it that important for China to be spying on young people and young kids watching crazy videos of things?’
Hannity replied that he does not want China spying on anybody.
‘No, but they make your telephones, and they make your computers, and they make a lot of other things,’ Trump said. ‘Isn’t that a bigger threat?’
5. Trump reacts to Biden not pardoning himself
During a discussion on Biden’s preemptive pardons for Dr. Anthony Fauci, retired Gen. Mark Milley and members of the House Jan. 6 select committee, Trump suggested the ‘sad thing’ about it was that Biden did not pardon himself.
‘I was given the option,’ Trump said, recalling the end of his first term, when political pundits speculated that Trump may pardon himself to avoid prosecution for his alleged role in the Jan. 6, 2021 riots.
‘They said, ‘sir, would you like to pardon everybody, including yourself?’ I said, I’m not going to pardon anybody. We didn’t do anything wrong. And we had people that suffered,’ Trump said, noting that his former chief strategist Steve Bannon and former trade advisor Peter Navarro were jailed for contempt of Congress.
‘[Biden] went around giving everybody pardons, and, you know, the funny thing — maybe the sad thing — is he didn’t give himself a pardon. And, if you look at it, it all had to do with him,’ Trump told Hannity.
Biden was asked in 2020 about reports that then-President Trump was considering preemptive pardons for members of his family and even himself, describing the possibility as concerning.
‘Well, it concerns me in terms of what kind of precedent it sets and how the rest of the world looks at us as a nation of laws and justice,’ Biden told CNN anchor Jake Tapper.
Four years later, he pardoned his sister, two brothers and their spouses. Biden said the array of pardons was in part because he feared ‘baseless’ and ‘politically motivated investigations’ into his family from the Trump administration.
‘The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that they engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,’ Biden said in a statement released on Inauguration Day.
Trump declined to answer Hannity’s question about whether Congress should investigate the Biden family.
‘Look, he didn’t give himself a pardon, and he didn’t give some other people a pardon that needed it,’ said Trump.
Fox News Digital’s Ashley Carnahan, Emma Colton and Breck Dumas contributed to this report.