Ex-President Donald Trump appeared flustered in a TV interview when confronted that his death penalty proposal for drug dealers would have applied to Alice Marie Johnson – a woman whom he granted clemency.

Trump in the Fox News interview aired Tuesday night said his presidential pardons were focused on non-violent crime offenders and brought up Johnson, whose life sentence he commuted in 2018. Johnson had served 21 years for cocaine distribution and money laundering charges. Trump promoted her pardon in a Super Bowl ad for his 2020 presidential campaign.

‘She was on a telephone call and they were involved in selling marijuana, mostly marijuana, and she got like 50 years in jail,’ Trump told Fox News anchor Bret Baier.

‘But she’d be killed under your plan,’ said Baier, referring to Trump’s remark last year that he would seek the death penalty for drug dealers if he wins the 2024 election.

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Trump paused and said, ‘Huh?’

‘As a drug dealer,’ Baier explained.

‘No, no, no,’ Trump said, trying to gather himself. ‘Under my? Oh, under that? Uhhh… it would depend on the severity, it would depend on the severity.’

Baier pressed Trump on his contradiction.

‘She’s technically a former drug dealer, she had a multi-million dollar cocaine ring,’ the anchor said.

Trump then raised the timing technicality.

‘By the way if that was there… No, she wouldn’t be killed, it would start as of now,’ Trump said. ‘So you wouldn’t go to the past.’

‘No yeah, I know, but your policy…’ Baier pointed out.

Trump cut in to reiterate that his policy would be ‘starting now’ and defended it.

‘She wouldn’t have done it if it was death penalty, in other words, if it was death penalty, she wouldn’t’ have been on that phone call. She wouldn’t have been a dealer,’ Trump said.

‘Now, she wasn’t much of a dealer because she was sort of like, honestly, she got treated terribly. She was treated sort of like I get treated.’

Trump’s critics ripped him for the exchange.

‘At the end of this clip Trump’s actual rebuttal is that his proposal merely calls for the execution of future Alice Johnsons, not *the* Alice Johnson,’ tweeted Mathew Segal, a senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s State Supreme Court Initiative.

American director and political commentator Bob Cesca tweeted: ‘Trump is deeply confused by an example.’

Trump has promised to crack down on drug dealers and violent offenders if he returns to the White House. But his challengers for the GOP nomination have criticized his ‘First Step’ signature criminal justice reform bill, which he promoted Johnson’s case as being a part of.

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