Former President Donald Trump’s most underrated quality is that he is the “best listener,” Breitbart News Washington Bureau Chief Matthew Boyle said during a wide-ranging interview with Steve Bannon, discussing his and Editor in Chief Alex Marlow’s recent interview with the former president and delving into Boyle’s own background with major influential players in the Republican Party.
Bannon opened up the interview by pointing out that Boyle is, perhaps, the “only living individual that received mentorship directly” from Tucker Carlson, Andrew Breitbart, and Bannon.
“I think that is correct,” Boyle said, explaining that he first worked at the Daily Caller out of college under Carlson’s leadership.
“I had gotten to know Andrew Breitbart very well during that time and worked with him on a whole ton of different stories. I didn’t actually work for Breitbart until after Andrew passed away. And then obviously, you were our executive chairman, after that happened, and you convinced me to come over and work for Breitbart after the 2012 election,” Boyle said, as he has now worked at Breitbart for over 11 years.
During the interview, Boyle discussed his and Marlow’s recent two-hour interview with Trump, with several pieces continuing to pour out from that exclusive sit-down. He briefly laid out how he prepares for wide-ranging interviews with Trump, explaining that he will “solicit input from folks that work here at Breitbart, but also around the movement,” as well as “other media outlets, you know, different politicians, etc.”
“And I’ll try to put together a list of the best things. I don’t pre-write out questions in advance. What I’ll do is I go in with a notepad, and it’s basically a chicken scratch of topics, right, like, so I’ve got like bullet points going in, I want to hit this topic, I want to hit this topic, you know, and at the top are the major topics that I really want to go into with them,” he said, providing an example of how the conversation uniquely flows with Trump:
[The] International populace story that we talked about, right? Like we got off on a little tangent about Javier Milei and he talks about, you know, how Milei called him on election night in Argentina and thanked him even though he had never spoken to Milei before. And he’s like, ‘Why are you thanking me?’ And like, he says that Milei thanked him because he said that he won because of Trump’s policies. And so then Trump turns to one of his aides in the room and goes, ‘Can you send him a bunch of MAGA hats,’ right, like the joke being that, you know, Make Argentina Great Again, just like Make America Great Again. MAGA works for, for both. But the point is that, you know, then we start following up again. Ok. But Mr. President, you know, just like in the leadup to 2016, you had Brexit, you had other international populists victories, it seems like it’s bigger this time, right? Like, you know, there’s, there’s signs of conservative populist possibly going to win in Portugal next year, in the European Parliament elections, Austria later in the year, you know, and then he starts talking about how it’s a bigger movement, and then you can really follow up on it in a way that you really can’t for a broadcast interview, right?
…
Another good example is how we played out the Jack Smith interview, right? He’s got what he wants to say about Jack Smith, and about immunity and so on and so forth. But the real question that I was kind of trying to get at with him on that, as the battle is playing out between Trump and Smith for this year is ‘who’s winning,’ right? Like who’s winning the war? And it took me a few questions to get to that headline … where Trump says that he thinks that Smith is losing.
Boyle, who is among reporters and personalities who has interviewed Trump the most over the years, also emphasized that Trump is a great listener — something, he said, is one of the former president’s most underrated qualities.
“When you’re interviewing Trump, and it’s not on camera, it’s very much a two-way street conversation. You’re asking him questions. He’s asking you questions back. It’s one of the most underrated qualities of President Trump, I think, that people don’t see out there, and it doesn’t get through in the media. He’s the best listener, I think in American politics,” Boyle said.
“I always tell people, I’ve interviewed governors, senators, world leaders, I’ve done international stories. I’ve done so many stories over the years. I’ve interviewed so many people, it’s not even funny — presidents, vice presidents, cabinet officials, so on and so forth. I’ve never once had the interviewer — except for with Trump — asked questions back at me,” he said. “And Trump does it with everybody that he’s talking to, if it isn’t like a broadcast interview.”
“When he brought up during our conversation about the blue states, it was kind of an aside. And then when he did it, then, you know, I know it’s not on my list of you know, that I have in front of me, my notepad. But I’m like, ok, wait, you’re saying you’re gonna make a heavy play for the states? What do you mean by that? Right? Like, what are some of the things that you’re going to do? That’s when he says he’s going to possibly rent out Madison Square Garden and do a rally there,” Boyle said.
“And then we talk a little bit about New York, and he walks through how the left has really destroyed New York, right?” he said, describing how the conversation with Trump flows.
Toward the end of the interview, Boyle also addressed efforts to draft him for a congressional run in Florida. While he said many people were trying to recruit him, he said he has decided that he will not pursue that this year.
“The reason being is that we have a heck of a presidential election in front of us and there are very few people around the media that are willing to tell the truth. And President Trump is going to need as many of us that are willing to, out here fighting that fight on a daily basis,” he said, emphasizing that it “doesn’t mean I [don’t] want to do it possibly down the road.”
“And we’ll see. But for now, I think I’m needed where I’m at. The movement needs me focused on telling the truth and helping lead our younger reporters here at Breitbart heading into this critical election,” Boyle added.
WATCH the entire interview below:
