CNN anchor Chris Wallace insisted that former President Donald Trump was a “completely different character” when he interviewed him in the 1980s.

Wallace reacted with an “uh-oh” when MSNBC’s Jen Psaki unearthed the video clip from the 1988 Republican Convention where the future president was interviewed.

The host of the Max series “Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace” and CNN’s “The Chris Wallace Show” was on hand to promote his new book when Psaki took him on a trip down memory lane.

“We pulled a little something out of the archives, Chris,” she said on MSNBC’s “Inside With Jen Psaki” Monday. “Because you were once a correspondent at NBC News.”

“So I want to just play part of an interview you did with Donald Trump at the 1988 Republican Convention. We will see if you remember it. And then we will talk about it out on the other side,” she added before the clip played.

“What pleases me as an interviewer is I came right back at him when he said he was flirting with running.”

Chris Wallace reacts to archived footage of his 1988 interview with Donald Trump. pic.twitter.com/jtMwoe2ykK

— Inside with Jen Psaki (@InsideWithPsaki) October 15, 2024

“You have flirted with the idea of politics. Now you’re here at your first national convention. Does that get you interested in possibly making the plunge?” Wallace asked Trump in the decades-old clip.

“Now, you have to tell me something. Who told you I flirted?” the real-estate mogul replied. “I didn’t know that I flirted with it.”

“Well, you took out full-page ads in The New York Times to talk about your foreign policy. Some people would say —” Wallace said before Trump interjected.

“I feel very strongly. I do feel very strongly about the country. I love the country. But I think you’re going to have probably George Bush as your next president. He’s an excellent guy, an excellent man. He’s a friend of mine, and I’m here for that reason,” he told Wallace.

“Well, I wasn’t talking about this year, Mr. Trump,” Wallace said as the video ended.

“It’s quite a headset, Chris,” Psaki joked as the two laughed. “But I’m just interested. What did you think about him back then?”

“Well, look, he was — this was The Art of the Deal guy. He was a completely different character. I mean, he was colorful. He wasn’t running the country. He wasn’t making decisions about our rights or foreign policy,” the Trump-hating anchor responded.

“And he was there on the floor. I just happened to see him. Actually, as an interviewer, what strikes — what pleases me is that I came right back at him. And he said: ‘What do you mean I’m flirting?’ And I said: ‘Well, you took out a full-page ad.'” Wallace continued.

“And then he proceeds to say, at the Bush convention in 1988: ‘Well, Bush is going to be the candidate.’ And I said: ‘Well, we’re not talking about this year, Donald Trump,'” he added as he and Psaki yukked it up some more.

“No, it was a good back-and-forth,” he concluded. “Donald Trump, the real estate mogul, is a very different character. And you think about him and are entertained by him in a way not you not necessarily are when you’re talking about Donald Trump, the potential president of the United States.”

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Frieda Powers

Senior Staff Writer
Frieda@bizpacreview.com

Originally from New York, Powers graduated from New York University and eventually made her way to sunny South Florida where she has been writing for the BizPacReview team since 2015.

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