RETURN TO NORMAL-ISH: The Trump-Llamas Super Bowl Interview

Jorge Bonilla
February 8th, 2026 11:18 PM

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As the signs of cognitive decline became too obvious to ignore, President Joe Biden stopped granting access to the media, including for the traditional Super Bowl interview. President Donald Trump restored this norm upon reelection, sitting down this year with NBC’s Tom Llamas.

This year’s “Super Bowl interview” is an unaired portion of the previously-aired broader interview that aired across NBC platforms, and which the “media reporter” beat absolutely hated because Llamas didn’t behave like an undermedicated theater kid. Well, they’re not going to like this portion of the interview, either.

The interview starts with discussion of the Super Bowl. Llamas tries to work Trump for a pick, but Trump diplomatically demurs:

TOM LLAMAS: Mr. President, we thank you so much for your time. We really do appreciate it.

DONALD TRUMP: Thank you very much.

LLAMAS: As you know Americans are getting ready for the Super Bowl, for this great big game, and you have two teams, the Seattle Seahawks versus the New England Patriots. Who do you think is going to win?

TRUMP: Well, I've watched them both during the season, and New England is amazing because to have a second coming is pretty- pretty good. Quarterbacks both good. Seattle’s an amazing comeback quarterback and the other one is just an amazing quarterback. I think it's going to be a great game. I like both areas of our country very much. I'd better not make any predictions. You get yourself in big trouble. But I think it's going to be a really great game. Seattle has had an amazing season.

LLAMAS: Yeah. Strong defense.

TRUMP: New England has a great tradition of winning. Bob Kraft’s done a fantastic job. You know, the whole thing is going to be very exciting. The quarterback situation is interesting.

LLAMAS: They’re great. They’re both great.

TRUMP: Both great.

Staying on the Super Bowl, Llamas asks Trump about former Patriots coach Bill Belichick being snubbed for the Hall of Fame on his first ballot:

LLAMAS: That leads me to my next question, you have a really good relationship with the Patriots including the former head coach, Bill Belichick. What did you think when he was snubbed on the first ballot of the Hall of Fame?

TRUMP: I thought it was terrible. I mean, he's won so much, won so many Super Bowls, a great coach. He became a little bit controversial, I guess, after that. A little period after that. During it he was just a great coach. I thought it was very inappropriate.

LLAMAS: You think he deserves to be in the Hall of Fame?

TRUMP: Oh, yeah. It's like, “what have you done for me lately?” Well, you know, you have a great career, and he has had a little bit of a controversial year and a half two years, maybe, but what difference does that make? Now he should’ve- he should be in there right at the top.

LLAMAS: What are your plans for the Super Bowl? We know you're not going to go over there. You're going to watch here. Who are you inviting?

TRUMP: I'll be sitting- probably in Palm Beach, depending on what happens. In my position, in this job of mine, sometimes you have to move around quickly, very quickly. But we’ll be most likely at Mar-a-Lago or one of my clubs watching with a lot of people, a lot of friends. Or I may very well be in The White House.

And now a policy question: Llamas asks trump the affordability question, and Trump rattles off a list of achievements.

LLAMAS: Friends and families just like you will be coming together on Super Bowl Sunday, people are shopping this week, running the kids around, trying to keep their homes with this brutal winter we've been having. In the last year a lot of prices have come down, things like gas and eggs, but others, since you took office, have come up like natural gas and coffee. When can Americans expect those prices to come down?

TRUMP: Well, they've already come down. I think you've seen, Tom, when I took over eggs, poultry, all these things were through the roof. In fact, the first question I got, what are you going to do about eggs? It was my second day in office at a news conference and they were screaming, what are you going to do about eggs? Eggs had gone up like four times. If you've noticed over the last few days, it's only a few days, but the Democrats have gone to another subject. I think they're probably saying dictator or something. They’ve got a new word. They don't use the word affordability anymore because prices are way down. Gasoline is -- I just left Iowa, $1.99 and even $1.85 a gallon. $1.85 a gallon. That's in Iowa. Many states are cracking $2. Gasoline is way down. And, honestly, everything is coming way down. Beef is coming down.

LLAMAS: Yeah, but beef, coffee --

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: Coffee is coming down…well, it’s already come down. I'll tell you what, in the last four days -- it's only four days -- the Democrats have not uttered the word affordability. They're the ones that caused the problem. I took over a mess in every way. The border was a mess. That everybody admits. The border is great. Crime was a mess. Right now, 125 years, it's the lowest crime that we've had since 1900. So we're doing the job. But the one thing they don't say anymore is affordability because I fixed the problem that they created.

LLAMAS: Let’s stay on the economy, you just mentioned it, you inherited a mess from President Biden when it comes to the economy, but at what point is it on you? At what point are we in the Trump Economy?

TRUMP: Oh, I'd say we're there now. I’m very proud of it. 5.6%. You know, we had a GDP of 5.6 despite a shutdown. We had a 42-day shutdown, I call it the Democrat shutdown, and, because of that, I lost a point and a half. I would have been in the 7.00 GDP which hasn't been seen I don’t know- ever maybe. Maybe ever. And I think '26 is even going to be better. You know, we have hundreds of billions of dollars pouring into our country, actually trillions, $18 trillion is being invested in our country as we speak. And there are factories and plants and thousands of businesses being built all over the country. Nobody has ever seen -- I just spoke to president XI of China. Nobody has ever seen anything like it right now in America.

LLAMAS: When will we see those jobs and those factories open? Because manufacturing has been down --

TRUMP: Well, you’re already seeing it in construction because they're all building. You know, we have factories are being built, car plants are coming in from Canada, coming in from Mexico, they’re leaving Germany, Japan, they're all coming into the United States and you're seeing it in your construction numbers and, you know, we have to build them, and the plants are under construction. 

LLAMAS: In your term? You think those plants will open in your term?

TRUMP: Oh yeah. They're opening up over the next year, year and a half, yeah.

Llamas shifts to immigration, and whether the pullback of officers signals a policy change. Trump brings it back to crime.

LLAMAS: You've had successes on immigration. Some big ones. Illegal border crossings are at historic lows, but the entire country watched those videos of two Americans being killed in Minneapolis. You've gotten calls from your own supporters to make changes, and now you're pulling out some officers from Minneapolis. Are there more changes coming?

TRUMP: Well, the reason we're pulling out, because we've done a great job there. We have crime down there, despite tremendous blow back from a governor that's incompetent, and from a mayor who is just -- I don't know where the hell he comes from, but the numbers -- the crime numbers in Minnesota- in Minneapolis in particular are down 25, 30%, because we've removed thousands of criminals from the area. These are hardened criminals that came in, many of them, most of them came in through an open border. And we've done a great job. But look at Washington, D.C. It's, like, a safe city. You can walk to The White House. You don't have to take an armored vehicle. You can walk. Washington is safe. Look at what happened in Louisiana. I got a call from the governor. Please do something with New Orleans. We went there four weeks ago. Crime is down 71%. Memphis, Tennessee, crime is down 80% after five weeks. And here's the big thing. Crime historically in this country, it's down at the lowest level it's ever been. And a bad word, murder, we've had less murders than we have had in decades.

LLAMAS: One more question --

TRUMP: And do you know why? Because we’re tough on crime.

Llamas asks Trump whether there is something he can do to unify the country. Do Democrats get this question or do they get automatic benefit of the doubt? Trump points to the SAVE Act as a unifying project. Given its high polling, he might not be wrong.

LLAMAS: The Super Bowl is this sort of rare time in America, right, we're all united. It's a common experience. There's still divisions in this country, right? And Democrats will say it's all because of you, and then Republicans will say Democrats don't want to work with President Trump. They blame President Trump for everything. What's one thing you can do, really, to help Americans find common ground?

TRUMP: Well, you know, we're working on the Save America Act which is going to secure up a lot of things but secure our voting -- I think people would like to do it, and I think Democrats would, too. You know, when you go to voter ID and you ask Democrats, it’s polling at 82% with Democrats. I'm not talking about Democrat politicians. I'm talking about Democrats. We have to do something about our voting. We need strong borders. We need a fair press, which we don't have, and we need, very important, we need the strong border, the fair press and we need fair elections. We need elections where people aren't able to cheat. And we're going to do that -- I'm going to do that. I'm going to get it done. And by the way, it polls, even with Democrats. They want that.

That concluded the interview. Finally, Llamas wrapped the segment by explaining the Democrat’s position on voter ID.

LLAMAS: We should note voter ID rules do have wide public support, but the vast majority of Democrats on Capitol Hill oppose them, arguing that such rules would make voting more difficult for millions of Americans.

As Super Bowl interviews go, it was not the syrupy sycophancy we see accorded to Democrats, but the interview wasn’t overly hostile, either. Llamas went down the middle, schmoozed a bit about the game and talked some policy. The media bros will surely hate it.

 

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