Trump refuses to accept 2020 defeat, mocks sexual abuse victim

A combative Donald Trump made a rare live appearance on longtime adversary CNN on Wednesday, repeating his false claims about the 2020 election, hurling insults and mocking a former magazine columnist he was found liable of sexually abusing and defaming.

Trump, during a one-hour "town hall" on the cable television network that he regularly denounced as "fake news" while in the White House, took questions on a broad range of subjects including the war in Ukraine, the debt limit, immigration and his multiple legal challenges.

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"Most people understand that what happened was a rigged election," Trump said of his 2020 presidential election defeat by Democrat Joe Biden.

If reelected, he said he would pardon a "large portion" of the hundreds of Trump supporters who have been jailed for their roles in the January 6, 2021 storming of the US Capitol.

"They were there with love in their heart," the 76-year-old Trump said of the rioters who attempted to block the congressional certification of Biden's win.

Reporters watch a CNN interview of Donald Trump at St. Anselm College in Manchester, New Hampshire. AFP

Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, refused to unreservedly commit to accepting the results of the next White House vote when pressed by CNN anchor Kaitlin Collins, the mediator for the event.

"If I think it's an honest election, absolutely I would," Trump said.

The former president also waded into the tense negotiations between the Biden White House and Congress over raising the US debt limit, urging Republican legislators not to do so if Democrats don't agree to spending cuts.

"I say that the Republicans out there congressmen, senators, if they don't give you massive cuts, you're gonna have to do a default," Trump said, before quickly adding that he sees such a scenario as unlikely.

Supporters of Donald Trump rally in Manchester, on Wednesday ahead of his CNN town hall meeting. AFP

The US government has never intentionally defaulted on its debt, and some economists warn that the effects could be calamitous.

On Ukraine, Trump said Russian leader Vladimir Putin made a "tremendous mistake" by invading but he declined to say who he wanted to win the war or whether he would continue to provide military aid to Ukraine.

"I don't think in terms of winning and losing. I think in terms of getting it settled," he said. "They're dying, Russians and Ukrainians. I want them to stop dying and I'll have that done in 24 hours."

Trump slammed Biden over his handling of immigration saying that Thursday, when a Covid-era policy lapses, will be a "day of infamy" along the US border with Mexico.

"You're going to have millions of people pouring into our country," he said, while suggesting that he would reinstitute a policy of separating families at the border.

"When you have that policy, people don't come," he said. "I know it sounds harsh."

Agence France-Presse