Trump's Laura Ingraham Interview: Pittsburgh Shooter, Mail Bomber, Migrant Caravan, Other Highlights

President Donald Trump sat down with Fox News host Laura Ingraham for a one-on-one interview Monday to talk about an array of topics including the Tree of Life synagogue shooting, the mail bomber, the caravan, the term “nationalist,” and many more.

Here are the highlights from the interview:

The Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting

In the wake of the deadly shooting in the synagogue in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that left 11 people dead, Trump was criticized for not canceling his scheduled campaign rally in Indiana on Saturday. The president defended his decision to not forego his commitments during the interview.

“You make them too important if you start cancelling… you can’t these people disrupt any more than they already have which is disgraceful, what he did was disgraceful,” he said

When Ingraham asked Trump whether it was fair for the public as well as the media to claim the term “anti-Semitism” was synonymous with the POTUS, given that he had a Jewish daughter and grandkids, Trump began boasting about an award given to him by Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu, at the same time, denouncing the synagogue shooter.

“I just received an award from the state of Israel, from ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu for, thanking me because I moved the embassy to Jerusalem, making Jerusalem the capital of Israel… I am going to show you the most beautiful plaque,” he said. “This horrible person, this terrible person who did the shooting, he was not a Donald Trump fan because he said I was too close to Israel.”

“Nationalist”

Trump also stood by his use of the world “nationalist” despite criticism regarding the term being associated with far right groups and the racist phrase “white nationalists.”

“It means I love the country. It means I am fighting for the country. I look at two things, globalists and nationalists. I am somebody that wants to care of our country because for many many years… our leaders have been worried about the world than they have been about the United States and they leave us at a mess,” he said.

Mail Bomber

Having faced considerable backlash for putting “bomb” in quotes while talking about the explosive devices mailed last week to an array of entities including former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and CNN office New York, Trump condemned any affiliations insinuated between him and the mail bomber.

“He was insane for a long time before, look at his medical records, he was insane for a long time,” the president said, adding it was unfair for the media to tie his name to the bomber because they did not do so when a fan of Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) shot the House Majority Whip Steve Scalise last year or blame Obama for 2015 mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina.

“Fake News,” North Korea

When the conversation turned to what the president frequently called “fake news,” Trump picked out the example of North Korea and complained about how his achievements had been undermined by left-leaning media.

“I think president Obama would have gone to war, if he had an extra year, he would be in, right now, war with North Korea… Look at what we have done. And yet, when they talk about North Korea, they say, what’s taking so long?” he said.

Even when Ingraham asked him how it benefitted him to call them “the enemy of the people” and how his divisive rhetoric was supposed to heal the country, Trump said: "That’s a very good question, very fair. Before we finish, though, so we’ve done a great job with North Korea."

He also insinuated former President Ronald Raegan would have fought back against the media at his time if he had social media.

Caravan, “Tent Cities”

Defending his stance against letting people in the “caravan” cross the U.S. borders, Trump said: “Lot of bad people in there… people that are in gangs. We don’t want them in this country. If they want to come in this country, you have to apply like other people… If they applied for asylum, we are going to hold them until such time as their trial takes place.”

When Ingraham pressed on the topic, asking the president if there were sufficient facilities to hold the people, he came up with the concept of “tent cities.”

“We are going to build tent cities. We are going to put up tents all over the place; we are not going to build structures and spend all of this, you know, hundreds of millions of dollars – we are going to have tents; they are going to be very nice and they are going to wait and if they don’t get asylum, they get out,” he said.

Election 2020

At the end of the interview, Trump said he did not have any particular “dream person” against whom he would like to run in 2020 election. "So far I like them all," Trump said.

He added he would be fine running against Clinton again.

"I like her too, I’d be very happy with Hillary. I don’t see anybody that I wouldn’t enjoy running against, he said.