Trump talks foreign policy, potential vice presidential pick in town hall ahead of South Carolina primary

GREENVILLE, S.C. (WCBD)- Cheers and chants of “USA!” filled the ballroom as former President Donald Trump took centerstage for a town hall in Greenville, S.C. just days before the state’s Republican presidential primary.

Trump, who has won every GOP contest this cycle, hopes to deliver a knockout blow to former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley’s campaign in Saturday’s primary.

A new survey released Tuesday by Emerson College Polling/The Hill found that 58% of decided South Carolina voters said they would support Trump, putting him 23 points ahead of Haley in her home state.

During the Fox News town hall, which was pre-recorded in front of a live audience, the network’s Laura Ingraham offered the former president the chance to clarify several recent comments including those regarding the death of Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny.

As he did in a social media post days after the news broke, Trump again compared Navalny’s sudden death to the legal challenges he’s currently facing.

“Navalny is a very sad situation and he’s very brave, he was a very brave guy,” Trump said. “He went back. He could have stayed away and frankly probably would have been a lot better off staying away and talking from outside of the country as opposed to having to go back in.”

“And it’s a horrible thing, but it’s happening in our country, too,” Trump continued. “I got indicted four times…all because of the fact that I’m in politics.”

Ingraham pressed Trump further, asking whether he believed he could become a “potential political prisoner,” but Trump eluded the question.

“If I were losing in the polls, they wouldn’t even be talking about me and I wouldn’t have had any legal fees,” he said.

Ingraham also allowed Trump to respond to a recent comment by former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in which she suggested that Russian President Vladimir Putin has a financial influence over Trump.

“What does he have on Donald Trump that he’d have to constantly be catering to Putin?,” Pelosi asked during an interview on MSNBC’s “Inside with Jen Psaki.”

In response, Trump maintained that his administration was tough on Russia, referencing sanctions that were imposed on Russia’s Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline to Germany.

He also claimed, as he has many times previously, that Putin would not have invaded Ukraine if he had been in office.

“Oh, it did happen. So what are you going to do about it?” Ingraham interrupted.

“It would have never happened. You know it. But it would have never happened. Putin would have never done it, for two reasons: Number one, I said, don’t do it. He would never have done it. And the other reason was, oil prices were low,” Trump replied.

Turning to the presidential race ahead, Trump took a question about would look for in a vice president if he were the Republican nominee and used it to praise Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), fueling speculation that the 58-year-old senator could join the ticket.

Well, always, the first quality has to be somebody that you think will be a good president because if something should happen, you have to have somebody who’s going to be a great president. A lot of people are talking about that gentleman right over there,” Trump said, pointing to Scott in the audience.

“He’s been so great. He’s been such a great advocate. I have to say…Tim Scott, he has been much better for me than he was for himself. I watched his campaign and he doesn’t like talking about himself but boy does he talk about Trump,” he continued.

The hour-long discussion also featured a few questions from audience members.

When asked by one woman — and later by Ingraham — how he could assure voters that he would be focused on “improving the state of our country” during a second term and not settling old scores, Trump said he doesn’t “care about the revenge thing.”

“My revenge will be success,” he said.

Trump and Haley are spending the week in South Carolina, making their final push for votes ahead of the Feb. 24 primary.

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