A rambling Donald Trump made a number of extraordinary claims  while speaking to personal advisor and Fox “News” personality Sean Hannity, including:

• His economy is stupendous, even during the pandemic.
• Virginia Governor Ralph Northam murdered an infant.
• The Commission on Presidential Debates, whose chair, Frank Fahrenkopf, is a former RNC chair, is sabotaging him.
• Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer “complained” about the law enforcement who thwarted a kidnapping attempt.
• Trump never denounced the white nationalist militia group that planned to kidnap a state governor.
• If Biden is elected, the US will become a “Ninth World” country.
• Trump will have the same coronavirus treatments he received distributed to the American people “very soon” for free.
• Oh, and fish need water.

Trump declared that he is “looking to hold” a rally in Florida on Saturday and possibly following that up with on in Pennsylvania the next night. 

During most of the interview, Trump was hyper and manic.  At one point, he muted his phone, likely because of a coughing fit.  Trump said he hasn’t gotten tested to see if he’s still infected with the coronavirus in the last couple days, but he expects to get tested tomorrow.

Trump claimed as well that he doesn’t want to follow the schedule put forth by the nonpartisan Commission on Presidential Debates–because, he claims, they “oscillated” his mic during a 2016 debate against Hillary Clinton, for which Trump said they apologized–and that as president, he should just name a time and a place to have a debate with Biden.

Trump also declared that he’s “got a perfect record in debates,” claiming that he won all the ones that he’s participated in, including all the ones in the 2016 republican primaries, some of which Trump didn’t participate in.  (Fact check:  most pundits say Trump lost every debate to Clinton, and he did not come out on top in debates he didn’t participate in.)

On the last debate, Trump declared that Fox “News” host Chris Wallace “was terrible.  He was protecting Biden the whole night.”  Trump then went on to list a number of debunked conspiracies he brought up during the debate and said Wallace would not allow Trump to ask those questions.  [Editor’s note:  in a debate, the moderator asks the questions which the debaters answer.]

Trump challenged Biden to a debate, saying “Let’s get a fair anchor, someone like the great Sean Hannity.”  When Hannity uncharacteristically demurred, Trump said, “We’ll get Judge Jeanine.  We’ll get Jesse, or Pete.  Tucker!”

Trump declared, falsely, that the moderator of the next debate, C-SPAN’s Steve Scully is a “never Trumper” who once worked for Joe Biden.  [Fact check:  When Scully was 18-years-old, he had a six week unpaid internship in the mailroom of then-Senator Biden.]

Trump claimed Biden “won’t be president for three months before the wonderful Kamala [whose name he mispronounced] takes over.”

Asked about Vice President Pence’s performance in last night’s debate, Trump said, “I thought Mike was great.  Mi– Legitimately, I don’t mean because he’s with me and he’s my friend and he’s done a great job as vice president.  I thought he was great.”

Trump said that Biden will definitely pack the Courts, do away with the filibuster and “100% take away your guns.”

Trump said no one talks about guns anymore, “or life.  Is he pro-life.”  In fact, Biden brought it up during the first presidential debate and it was the subject of a question during the vice-presidential debate.

Trump said that Biden endorsed a governor of Virginia, presumably Ralph Northam, who Trump claimed “executed a baby ’cause he said a baby can be born and then you can kill ’em.”  This is an out-and-out lie:  Northam, a pediatric neurosurgeon described in an interview how care for a terminal neonate is handled with the direction of the parents.  Biden, Trump claimed, “is totally in favor of that.”

“The governor of Virginia said ‘We will execute the baby after the baby is born.’  You know, you talk about late-term abortion?” Trump rambled.  “This is early term execution.”  [Fact check:  There is no meaning to such a phrase.]

“But very importantly a Second Amendment, just don’t discuss the Second Amendment,” Trump rambled.  “He won–he’s gonna take your guns away, so everyone with a gun, you can’t vote for him ’cause you’re not going to have your gun.”  [Fact check:  Biden never said he’s taking all guns away.]

Trump claimed Biden wants to defund the police, a position Biden has explicitly rejected.  “So you’re not going to have police protection and you’re not gonna have a gun,” Trump claimed, misrepresenting what “defund the police” means.

Trump again repeated his lies about destroying suburbs, this time preying on the fears of women.  “I think I should be doing well with suburban women.  I’m the one that’s protecting them both in terms of law and order and in terms of zoning,” Trump said.  “They want to build low income housing right next to your house as the American Dream is destroyed.  Destroyed!”

[Fact check:  Nobody’s destroying the suburbs or the American Dream, and this is an obvious attempt by Trump to stir up racial divisions in the country.  He’s using the “low income housing” as a dog whistle for “Black people.”]

Hannity tried to pitch Trump a soft ball, saying that Trump has frequently condemned white supremacists and that the media puts out a lie that Trump has never done so.  Trump again did not explicitly condemn white supremacists or nationalists, instead pivoting to condemn antifa.

“And, y’know, I see Whitmer today, she’s complaining, but it was our Justice Department that arrested the people she was complaining about,” Trump falsely said.  “It was my Justice Department that arrested them, but instead she goes and does her little political act and she keeps her state closed although we just won the big case, as you know, to open up Michigan because what’s she’s doing is a horrible thing to the people.  The churches are closed.  The schools are closed, and the whole state is closed and the people are being hurt very badly by it in the form of drinking and suicides and depression.  It’s a very sad thing.”

After complaining about Biden’s promise to repeal the Trump Tax Bill that benefited the top 2%, Trump claimed that “my economy has done so great, even now, in this pandemic [Fact check:  860,000 applied for unemployment last week, GDP growth is at -32% annualized growth, and the deficit exceeded $3 trillion], which hopefully we’re rounding the turn and we have [breath] incredible cures and, and a lot of therapeutics and the vaccines are going to be coming very soon, but I’ll tell you, what I took is incredible.  [Fact check:  Trump was treated with a drug, Remdesivir, that was introduced in 2009, during the Obama Administration.  Another is an experimental treatment from Regeneron, a cocktail of monoclonal antibodies, that were developed from fetal tissue, a process republicans oppose.]   I took, I viewed it as a cure.  It’s incredible, and we’re gonna get it to everybody free of charge.  It’s going to hospitals.  It’s starting very soon.  The military’s gonna be delivering it.  But [Biden’s] looking to do big, big tax cuts.  Big, big tax increases, like at a level that’s never been seen.  Nobody’s ever gotten the tax cuts that I got.  I got the biggest tax cuts ever given, as you know, Sean, better than probably most.  But he’s going to end those tax cuts and reverse them and now people are going to pay $2,000 plus child tax credits, all that.  It’s going to be a disaster for our country.  It’s gonna, it’s gonna put our country into a depression, and your 40(k)s are gonna go down the tubes and your jobs are gonna go away and you’re going to have a depression the likes of which our country has never seen before and that possibly includes 1929.”

Speaking about the Biden environmental plan, Trump claimed “Biden agreed to this with Crazy Bernie because, y’know, the have the manifesto.  They have agreed to most of these things, and it’s gonna cost more money.  Our country will be a Ninth World country not a Third World country.  A Ninth World country.”

[Fact check:  there’s no such thing as a “Ninth World” country.  First, Second and Third World countries are defined through economic standards.  Trump just made up the term.]

“We won’t have energies.  Look at what’s happening with the rolling blackouts in California,” Trump rambled.  “Look at where California’s gonna hafta ration water.  You know why?  Because they send millions of gallons of water out to sea.  [Fact check:  that’s how rivers work.  They flow out to sea.  No one “sends” the water there.]  Out to the Pacific, because they want to take care of certain little tiny fish that aren’t doing very well without water, to be honest with you.  [Fact check:  Fish need water to live.  That’s a well established fact.]

Hannity asked about early voting and if Trump would urge his voters to go vote early.  “Well, I want them to vote, but we’ll say this, absentee’s okay [cough], because absentee ballots [cough], ‘scuse me, absentee ballots are fine, because absentee ballots you request, you ask for a ballot, you request, and that’s it.  Absentee ballots are absolutely fine.”  He continued to propagate the conspiracy about mail-in ballots claiming that it will lead to a cataclysm like mankind has never seen.

Trump claimed that “We have lots of people watching.  We have US Attorneys watching.  We have sheriffs watching.  We have US Marshals watching.”

Trump claimed that “y’know, when you buy something, you have Voter ID.  To get into the Democratic National Convention, you had to have Voter ID.”

Hannity piped in, “That’s true.”

[Fact Check:  No, that’s not true.  You had to have a photo identification or press credentials to get into the DNC, which could take many forms.  And you don’t need “Voter ID” to buy things.]