President Donald Trump's extended 60 Minutes interview

60 Minutes Overtime.

What did you get out of this deal that you wanted?

Well, I got sort of everything that we wanted. We got no rare earth threat. That's gone. It's completely gone. We have tremendous amounts of dollars pouring in because we have very big tariffs, almost 50 percent. We never had anything in terms of tariffs, although

I put tariffs on China, but Biden let it lapse by the fact that he gave exemptions on almost everything, which was just ridiculous. But we have billions and billions of dollars coming in, and we have a very good relationship. I mean, we have a great relationship with a powerful country. And I've always felt if we can make deals that are good, it's better to get along with

China than not. If you can't make the right kind of a deal, then not. Because you know, China, along with many other countries, they're not alone in this. They've ripped us off from day one. They've ripped us so much. They've taken trillions of dollars out of our country.

And now they're the opposite. I mean, we're doing very well with China, and hopefully they're going to do very well with us. But I do think it's important that China and the U.S. get along, and we get along very

well at the U.S. get along, and we get along very well at the top. This trade war, though, was hurting Americans. I mean, our soybean farmers, China had stopped buying the soybeans. China was withholding these rare earth materials that you need for everything from smartphones to build submarines.

Sure.

What was the crucial thing? I mean, how tough of a negotiation was President Xi?

It was a temporary hurt. It was a hurt because I was taking in a lot of money from China. We were doing very well against China. And all of a sudden, they said, you know, we have to fight back.

And so they used their powers. The power they have is rare earth because of the fact that they've been accumulating it and really taking care of it for a period of 25, 30 years. Other countries haven't. They used that against us, and we used other things against them.

For instance, airplane parts. That's a big deal. They have hundreds of Boeing airplanes. We wouldn't give them parts. We were both acting maybe a little bit irrationally, but the big thing we had was tariffs, ultimately.

I said, look, if you don't open up, then what we're gonna to do is we're going to impose a hundred percent tariff over and above what you're already paying. And as soon as I said that, they came to the table. We met in South Korea, as you saw, a lot of people watched. And we made a really good deal. And it was good for them also, I hope. I mean, I want it to be good for both sides, but

we'll be taking in hundreds of billions of dollars in the form of tariffs. You know, tariffs are incredible because they really give us great national security. As an example, when they pulled the rare earth on us and the rest of the world, if we didn't have

tariffs to fight back, I immediately instituted a 100% tariff over and above what they were already paying. And when I did that, they immediately came to the table. Without tariffs, we would not have had that privilege. We would have not have had that right. Tariffs give us national security and great wealth.

You talked about those rare earth minerals. Of course, my understanding is about 90% of them come from China. That's their...

Right now. Yeah. Within a short period of time, we'll have everything we need for ourselves. You know, we've instituted an emergency program, and we will have, within a year from now to a year and a half, we'll have everything we need no matter what kind of a threat is made.

How?

How do we do that? Because we've taken over. First of all, you saw the partnerships we've established with Japan, with Australia, with UK, with just about everybody, frankly, and we're all doing it together. You know, this wasn't a threat against the United States, this was really a threat against the world.

So the whole world has come together, I think at our behest, and rare earths, within two years rare earths will really cease to be a problem.

The one thing that China wants, but it doesn't have, is the world's most advanced semiconductors. That's what the United States has.

Will you- Chips in particular.

Chips, that's right. Will you allow the chip maker, Nvidia, to sell their most advanced chips to China?

No, no, we won't do that.

It's not on the table at all.

We will let them deal with Nvidia. Nvidia is the prime company in the world for that. And we will let them deal with Nvidia, but not in terms of the most advanced. The most advanced, we will not let anybody have them other than the United States.

Because then they would win the AI race.

Well, they wouldn't win it necessarily, but they would certainly have an equal advantage. Right now, we're winning it because we're producing electricity like never before by allowing the companies to make their own electricity, which was my idea, which nobody frankly had thought of. These massive plants that are being built are building their own electric-generating plants, along with the plant itself. And that gives them all the electric they need

without going to an old grid that's, you know, 150 years old. And they're making it themselves. And then they're selling back any excess electricity into the grid. So we benefit in all ways. But most importantly, it allows the companies to go

immediately forward. We're getting approvals done in two and three weeks. It used to take 20 years. And we are leading the AI race right now by a lot. We are leading it by numbers that people have

no idea. It's been really great. We've been very, very far reaching for it. Look, that's the new Internet. That's the new everything all put together. The AI race is a big deal.

The Press. Mr. President, you just negotiated this one-year trade deal with China. But as you know, the Chinese, they think in 100 years. They played the long game, including on our own soil.

We played the long game, too.

Our own intelligence agencies say the Chinese have infiltrated parts of the American power grid and our water systems. They steal American intellectual property and Americans' personal information. They bought American farmland. How big of a threat is China?

It's like everybody else. We're a threat to them, too. Many of the things that you say, we do to them. Look, this is a very competitive world, especially when it comes to China and the U.S. And we're always watching them, and they're always

watching us. In the meantime, I think we get along very well. And I think it's — I think we can be bigger, better, and stronger by working with them, as opposed to just knocking them out. The economy, they can produce things that we don't want to produce

because it's not really worth our while. Making undergarments, making this, you know, certain things. We don't want to do that. And we can buy them inexpensively from other places in the world, while we can lead the world in AI and chips

and lots of other things. Within two years from now, we'll have 40 or 50% of the chip market. What's happening? The biggest companies are leaving Taiwan.

They're coming into the United States because of tariffs. If we didn't have tariffs, they wouldn't be doing it.

Because-

In how many years, do you think we'll be producing-

I think in two years, we'll start opening up plants and we'll have a very substantial portion of the chip market. Right now, we have almost none. We should have had 100 percent. If we had Presidents that knew anything about business or knew what they were doing, because, frankly, they didn't, we lost 50 percent of our

automobile business. It's all coming back. We lost 100 percent of the chip. You know, it used to be all Intel and other companies. And what happened is other countries came in,

and they stole our chip business, and we didn't charge tariffs. If we would have charged, let's say, a 100 percent tariff, none of those companies would have left. But they all left. Now they're all coming back, Norah.

Because the only way they avoid the tariffs is to build in our country. If they build in our country and make their plant and make their product in our country, then it's a very simple thing. They don't have any tariff to pay. And that's what they want to do. And so instead of charging somebody a 100 percent tariff and you can make your product

outside, they come in and they make. And this is why we have $17 trillion being invested in the United States right now. Just to show you how big that is, it's the biggest in history by many times. No other country has been seen anything like it. The Biden administration, in four years, did less than a trillion.

We have 17 trillion, more than $17 trillion right now, and I'm in my ninth month. By the time we finish up, I think we're going to have over $20 trillion invested in the United States or to be invested in the United States or to be invested How would I trickle down to the average worker because of jobs because they're building plants We're bringing back the auto industry into our country. We lost

58% of the automobile manufacturing business to other countries, you know We used to be the king of automobile and automobile manufacturing and now we're not really the king anymore, you know Within a year and a half two years. we're not really the king anymore, you know? Within a year and a half, two years, we're going to be the king again. We're going to be the — as an example, I was also in Japan, as you know, in South Korea.

We had the biggest Japanese companies are investing billions of dollars of building auto plants in the United States. If I weren't elected — if I weren't elected, we would be losing all of these jobs. We would be losing far more of the auto industry. We would be nowhere in chips.

Our country would have been bankrupt, and we would have had a bigger welfare role. They would have expanded welfare and forgotten about everything else. Now we're building a country that's going to be so strong. I don't know if you saw the last numbers in terms of employment. They're all non-government jobs, not just government. Government jobs are easy.

I could immediately do anything I want with government jobs. I'd just say, we're going to add up. We're going to add on a million government jobs. And you're going to say, oh, what wonderful numbers. They don't mean anything. We are building jobs at a level that nobody has ever seen before. But when all of these plants that are currently under construction

and to be under construction, when they open, we're going to have an economy like our country has never seen before. The strongest economy in the world. We're doing very well. By the way, the stock market just hit — perfect timing for your show — just hit an all-time high.

We're doing really well.

The smart people definitely are. Can I ask you, Mr. President, on that point, though? Yeah. When the stock market is doing well, that doesn't affect everybody. Not everybody is invested in the stock market.

It does.

Oh, it does. It does.

But there have been grocery prices are up. No, 401ks.

People have 401Ks or not invested in the stock market. They've seen their grocery prices go up, inflation.

No, you're wrong. They went up under Biden. Right now, they're going down. Other than beef, which we're working on, which we can sell very quickly. So the beef, the ranchers have really taken a drubbing

over a 30-year period. Because of what I've done, the ranchers have done well. But with that, the beef price went up a little bit. We're going to get the beef price down very quickly. It'll be very nice. Just like eggs. When I first took over, eggs were double, triple, quadruple what they were. This was because of Biden.

All of these problems were caused by Biden, whether it's the people that came into our country through jails. I mean, they were released from mental institutions into our country. These problems are caused by Biden. We had an open border. Now we have a border that's, as you know, absolutely shut, other than people are allowed to come into our country,

but they have to come in legally.

I do want to talk about immigration and some other domestic issues, but just if we could stay on China for just a moment. One potential flashpoint with China, probably the potential flashpoint with China, probably the potential flashpoint with China in the coming years, is over the issue of Taiwan. The Chinese military is encroaching on Taiwan's sea

lanes, its airspace, its cyberspace. I know you have said that Xi Jinping wouldn't dare move militarily on Taiwan while you're in office, but what if he does? Would you order U.S. forces to defend Taiwan?

You'll find out if it happens. And he understands the answer to that. Why not say it? This never even came up yesterday as a subject. He never brought it up. People were a little surprised at that.

He never brought it up because he understands it. And he understands it very well.

Do you mind if I ask, when you say he understands, why not communicate that publicly to the rest of us? What does he understand? I don't want to give away, I can't give away

my secrets. I don't want to be one of these guys that tells you exactly what's going to happen if something happens. The other side knows, but I'm not somebody that tells you everything because you're asking me a question, but they understand what's going to happen. And he has openly said, and his people have openly said at meetings, we would never do anything while President Trump is president, because they know the consequences.

Less than an hour before your meeting with President Xi, you posted on social media that you instructed the, quote, Department of War to start testing our nuclear weapons immediately. What did you mean?

Well, we have more nuclear weapons than any other country. I think we should do something about denuclearization. And I did actually discuss that with both President Putin and President Xi. We have enough nuclear weapons to blow up the world 150 times. Russia has a lot of nuclear weapons and China will have a lot. They have some, they have quite a bit.

So why do we need to test our nuclear weapons?

Well because you have to see how they work. You know, you do have to. And the reason I'm saying testing is because Russia announced that they were going to be doing a test. If you notice, North Korea is testing constantly. Other countries are testing. We're the only country that doesn't test, and I don't want to be the only country that doesn't test.

Are you saying that after more than 30 years, the United States is going to start detonating nuclear weapons for testing?

I'm saying that we're going to test nuclear weapons, like other countries do, yes.

But the only country that's testing nuclear weapons is North Korea. China and Russia are not.

Russia's testing nuclear weapons. So, my understanding is that — And China's testing them, too. You just don't know about it.

That would be certainly very newsworthy. My understanding is what Russia did recently was test, essentially, the delivery systems for nuclear weapons. Essentially, missiles. Which we can do that, but what — not with nuclear

weapons. Russia's testing and China's testing, but they don't talk about it. You know, we're a open society. We're different. We talk about it. We have to talk about it because otherwise you people are going to report. They don't have reporters are going to be writing about it. We do know we're going to test because they test and others test. And certainly North Korea has been testing. Pakistan has been testing. Not

nuclear weapons is my understanding. North Korea has, but not nuclear weapons. The President But they don't go and tell you about it.

And, you know, as powerful as they are, this is a big world. You don't necessarily know where they're testing. They test way underground, where people don't know exactly what's happening with the test. You feel a little bit of a vibration. They test, and we don't test. We have to test.

And Russia did make a, you know, a little bit of a threat the other day when they said they were going to do certain forms of a different level of testing. But Russia tests. China does test. And we're going to test also. So we are going to- Doesn't it sort of make sense?

You know, you make nuclear weapons, and then you don't test. How are you going to do that? How are you going to know if they work?

We have to do that? How are you gonna know if they work? We have to do apparently we don't need to test our nuclear weapons because they're the best in the world according to experts

I've spoken according to me We have the best and I was the one that renovated them and built them during a four-year period and I hated to do it Because the destructive capability is something you don't even want to talk about But if other people are going to have them, we're going to have to have them. And if we have them, we have to test them. Otherwise, you don't really know how they're going to work. And we don't want to ever use them. And in the meantime, I've solved eight wars.

I knocked out eight wars. I have eight wars. I brought a little list for you, if you'd like to see it. stopped during an eight-month period, during eight months, before the ninth month, I stopped eight wars. The only one I haven't been successful yet, and that'll happen, is Russia-Ukraine, which I thought actually would be the easiest one

because I have a very good relationship with President Putin. But we are respected again as a country, and that's the way I've been able to stop the wars. I also stopped them because of trade.

Who's tougher to deal with, Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping?

Both tough, both smart, both... Look, they're both very strong leaders. These are people not to be toyed with. These are people you have to take very serious. They're not walking in saying, oh, isn't it a beautiful day?

Look how beautiful the sun is shining. It's so nice. These are serious people. These are people that are tough, smart leaders.

And on that note, you talk about Ukraine. In August, I mean, you rolled out the red carpet for Vladimir Putin in Alaska, but there's been...

Well, I roll out the red carpet for everybody.

But there's been no ceasefire.

No, yeah, there was.

Is he ignoring you? Because I inherited a country where he thinks he's winning. That was a war that would have never happened if I was president. So what that was that was this war but That was Joe Biden's war not my war. I inherited that stupid war. That should not have been a war That would have never happened if I were president and by the way for four years it didn't happen There was never even a doubt then the election was rigged and stolen and all of a sudden you see them forming up at the line

And now I come back and I'm gonna get that one solved too, but I brought I mean just a little list of Look at this Wars, how many did I solve? Cambodia this is Cambodia Thailand Kosovo Serbia

Congo the Congo and Rwanda, Pakistan and India. That was going to be a beauty. They shot down seven planes. Israel and Iran. You've heard about that one? Egypt and Ethiopia.

That's another beauty. Ethiopia built a big dam where there's no water going to the Nile. Armenia and Azerbaijan. And if you take a look, Israel and Hamas, which is a, you know, rough little situation, but it's going

to be ---- The Press. I do want to talk about it. I mean, you have branded yourself the peace president.

President Trump Well, I think I did pretty good. I solved --- those are eight of the nine wars I solved. I --- you know how I solved them? In many cases, in 60%, I said, if you don't stop fighting, I'm putting tariffs on both of your countries, and you're not going to be able to do business with the United States.

Why isn't that working with Putin?

It is working with Putin, I think. I did different with him because we don't do very much business with Russia, for one thing. You know, he's not like somebody that buys a lot from us because of foolishness. And I think he'd like to be. I think he wants to come in and he wants to trade with us.

And he wants to make a lot of money for Russia. And I think that's great. That's what I like.

You're going to get it done in a couple of months, do you think?

I think we're going to get it done. Yeah, I think he really wants to it wasn't for tariffs and trade, I wouldn't have been able to make the deals. But I stopped. As an example, India does a lot of business with us. They were going to war. They were going to have a nuclear war with Pakistan.

The prime minister of Pakistan stood up the other day and he said, if Donald Trump didn't get involved, many millions of people would be dead right now. That was a bad war. Ready to start? Let's shut down airplanes all over the place. That was going to be a bad war. And I told both of them, I said, if you guys don't work out a deal fast, you're not going to do any business with the United States. And they do a lot of business with the United States. And they were both great leaders

and they worked out a deal and they stopped the war. That would have been a bad war, would have been a nuclear war. I want to stay on the issue of foreign policy and let's turn to our hemisphere. There have been at least eight boats in the Caribbean destroyed by the US military. Fortunately. And now the USS Gerald Ford, that is the world's largest aircraft carrier on the way to the Caribbean. Are we going to war against Venezuela? I doubt it. I don't think so.

But they've been treating us very badly, not only on drugs. They've dumped hundreds of thousands of people into our country that we didn't want. People from prisons. They emptied their prisons into our company country.

They also, if you take a look, they emptied their mental institutions and their insane asylum into the United States of America because Joe Biden was the worst President in the history of our country. We had the worst inflation with the worst of everything But the worst thing he did was allow millions of people to come into our country that were many in many cases criminals murderers

11,000 888 murderers were let into our country Venezuela let a lot of those people in but they were from all over the world. This isn't just Venezuela They were from all over the world. We are gonna talk about what he did to our country should never be forgotten He had an open border process and people would come in and I'm not discriminating against tattoos But people would come in with tattoos all over their faces and say come on in come on in come on in

They let people in that should have never been Venezuela emptied their prisons into the United States of America and every one of those boats that you see shot down and I agree It's a terrible thing, but every one of those boats kills 25,000 Americans every single boat that you see that shot down kills 25,000 on drugs and destroys families all over our country

We will talk about immigration in a moment But I just want to talk about the scale of the military Operation around Venezuela because it has been described to 60 minutes as using a blowtorch to cook an egg Is this about stopping? I don't think so. Look is it about let me ask you though Is it about stopping narcotics or is this about getting rid I don't think so. Look- Is it about- let me ask you though- is it about stopping narcotics? Or is this about getting rid of President Maduro?

No, this is about many things. This is a country that allowed their prisons to be emptied into our country. To me, that would be almost number one because we have other countries- We don't need to blow up O of drugs. Okay, very bad. We have a closed border right now. You probably noticed that for five months in a row, they have zero, think of this,

zero people coming into our country through our southern border. And it was millions of people a year, just a little more than a year ago. Millions of people a year walked into our country, totally unchecked, unvetted.

We had no idea who they were. And we're never going to let that happen again. That's what made Biden the worst president. Because you know what? Inflation, I've already taken care of. We had the worst inflation in the history of our country.

And now we don't have inflation. It's a 2%. It's the perfect inflation. But what made him so bad? Well, the weaponization of law enforcement, all that. Look, he was bad in every way. But the worst thing that he did is allow millions and millions and millions of people to pour into our country, unvetted, unchecked. And they were criminals. They were

murderers. They were drug dealers. They were people from jails and people from mental institutions.

You have had success on immigration. I want to talk about that a minute, but on Venezuela and big success on Venezuela in particular armaduros days as president number I would say yeah, I think so yeah and This issue of potential land strikes in Venezuela. Is that true? I don't tell you that I mean

I'm not saying it's true or untrue, but I you know I wouldn't I wouldn't be inclined to say that I would do that But because I don't talk to to say that I would do that. But because I don't talk to a reporter about whether or not I'm going to strike. I'm not going to, you know, you're a wonderful reporter, you're very talented, but I'm not going to tell you what I'm going to do with Venezuela if I was going to do it or if I

wasn't going to do it.

Why do we need an aircraft carrier and strike group? It's got to be somewhere. Okay. It's a big one. It leads to the suggestion that the United States military is planning a larger operation involving Venezuela.

Well, we're not going to allow countries from, you know, it's countries from all over the world coming in. You know, they come in from the Congo where we just settled that war. But they come in from the Congo, they come in from all over the world. They're coming not just from South America, but Venezuela in particular has been bad. They have gangs, Tren de Aragua.

Do you ever hear of it? Of course. Most vicious gang anywhere in the world. They cut people's hands off if they call up the cops. You know, they call up the police and they said, did you call the police? Yes, I did.

You took my apartment. You live in my building You took my apartment. They cut his hand off. Don't ever call the police again. These are animals Wait a minute, and they came in from Venezuela Worst gang probably the worst gang most vicious gang in the world and you know what I did in Washington DC We had a lot of them took care of business. They're gone Washington DC right now is a very safe place as as it should be. Washington, D.C., before I got here, was almost like a crime capital of the world. It's a capital of this country.

To me, it's the capital of the world. You see the way they treat me. I go to Japan. I go to South Korea. I go to any place I go. And you know what I call that?

Respect for our country They didn't treat Biden that way when Biden went there first of all he hardly went anywhere I couldn't leave his bedroom, but they didn't treat Biden that way They had no respect for Biden falling up the stairs going to an airplane three times. I mean This is a man who should have never been president This was a rigged election and we have to get back We have to get to the bottom of that also, because we don't want that to ever happen again. You see what's going on. We don't ever want that

to happen again. Look what happened to our country by having Biden as the president. Our country went to hell. And if we had another couple of years, if Kamala had won the election, our country right now would be finished. It was a dead country, and now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We have the strongest stock market. We have everybody wants to come in.

A year ago, we were a dead country. Right now, we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. Think of that. And I did that in nine months, and it's only gonna get better.

Let's talk about Israel. You got the remaining Israeli hostages out of Gaza. Did. You arranged a ceasefire. However fragile that may be.

Those are major- It's not fragile. It's a very solid, you know. I mean, you hear about Hamas, but Hamas could be taken out immediately if they don't behave. They know that. If they don't behave, they're going to be taken out immediately.

How do you get Hamas to disarm, I'll get them to disarm very quickly. They'll be eliminated. They know that. Don't forget, you said I got the remaining hostages. I got all the hostages out. But I always said the last 10 or 20 are going to be tough. But we were tough also.

And they let them all out. You were tough. And now, by the way, they're getting a lot of the bodies are coming out too. Do you know a lot of the parents, it's very interesting, were the people that lost their child, you know, mostly sons, but sons and daughters, they knew they were dead in some cases. Do you know that they were as anxious or even more anxious of getting their child out, even

though they knew it was a body that we were dealing with? Then the people that had a living child, living, breathing child that they knew they were alive, if barely, because the way they lived was so horrible. And you saw yesterday, four more just came out. We're going to get them out, too. They're buried in many cases. They're buried under rubble, but we pretty much know where they were.

But I didn't get just the 20 out. I got all of the hostages out.

You pushed the Israeli prime minister to make this deal, to get a ceasefire, to apologize to Qatar. Can you push Bibi Netanyahu to recognize a Palestinian state?

Yeah, he's fine. He's fine. Look, he's a wartime prime minister. I worked very well with him. Yeah, I mean, I had to push him a little bit one way or the other. I think I did a great job in pushing him.

He's a very talented guy. He's a guy that's never been pushed before, actually. That's the kind of person you needed in Israel at the time. It was very important. I don't think they treat him very well. He's under trial for some things, and I don't think they treat him very well.

I think it should be — you know, we'll be involved in that to help him out a little bit because I think it's very unfair. I did. I pushed him. I didn't like certain things that he did, and you

saw what I did about that. They also stopped, you know, we knocked the hell out of Iran and then it was time to stop. And we stopped. Iran wants to make a deal. They don't say that. And they probably shouldn't say it. No good dealmaker would. But Iran very much wants to make a deal.

The key to Middle East peace, I made Middle East peace. For 3,000 years, they couldn't do it. I did it. And I did it with some very good partners in Israel. But the key to the Middle East peace was knocking the hell out of their potential Nuclear when we were those beautiful b2 bombers We just ordered 20 brand new ones the newest and the greatest but with those beautiful b2 bombers when they went in there and they

Blew the hell out of that, you know potential nuclear weapon site There were two of them actually and every single Missile hit every single air shaft. You know, they had to go down an air shaft. Every single one of them hit their target. I remember fake news, CNN said, well, maybe it wasn't as powerful or as good as we thought.

No, it was much turned out it was actually better. You know, the Atomic Energy Agency said the hit was even stronger than anyone ever thought possible. And those pilots did a great job. What they were able to do, and those machines, but it wasn't only them. They were surrounded by F-22s and F-16s. They were surrounded by F-35s. They were, do you know we had 52 tanker planes loading them up with jet

fuel because it was a long flight. They fly, flew for 37 hours Of course, I flew for 30 42 hours over the last few days. So I know how they feel but they flew But they were sitting in one seat. I was I was able to walk around a little bit. But yeah, they said 42 hours I've been in the air for 42 hours over a few days And that was fine because we took in trillions of dollars into our country and we also you know, what's interesting? Japan took tremendous advantage of us over the years, you know, they sold cars to us. We couldn't sell cars to them They made a fortune. We didn't make anything we lost money, but it's the exact opposite now

But you know what? They like us more now than they used to because they respect us now They didn't used to respect us and they have great respect respect for us. All of them. Every country I saw, including China. China now has great respect for us. They didn't have respect for us when they had Biden and when they had Obama.

Obama was a terrible president. Nobody wants to talk about it because they want to be politically correct. I don't care. He was a terrible president. Our country was — it really started a very bad

downward spiral. Our country was it really started a very bad Downward spiral then I stopped it then we had a rigged election and then what what Biden did to our country should never ever be Forgotten we're still on on foreign policy. So I just know I'm on all policy. I'm not talking about foreign No, no, I'm talking about everything. Well, I just talking about economy. I'm talking about everything

I wanted I wanted to ask you about the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is coming to the White House this month He has said they won't join the Abraham Accords without a two-state solution. Do you believe that?

No, I think he's going to join. I think we will have a Solution. I don't know if it's going to be two-state that's going to be up to Israel and other people and me but look the main thing is, you could have never had any kind of a deal if you had a nuclear Iran. And you essentially had a nuclear Iran. And I blasted the hell out of them.

And no President is going to do it.

The Press Are you convinced they have no nuclear capability right now?

The President Do you want to know? Do you want to know? They have no nuclear capability, no. capability now. Do you want to know that the pilots, I invited them to the White House because they were very brave. I mean I wouldn't have wanted to do it you know get in a plane and they know you're coming and you're going right into Iran airspace and you know they're very experts and you're flying in with machines. Personally I can think of other things I'd rather do. These guys are very

brave people. I mean they're real American heroes. And they told me something I didn't know. They said, sir, for 22 years, we've been practicing this route three times a year, every year for 22 years. And you were the only president that let us do our job. I said, let me ask you, is this a job you wanted to do? Yes, sir, because it was the right thing. These are really brave people.

These are really amazing people and talented people. When you can hit at midnight with no moon, with no vision, every single air shaft where that bomb went deep into that mountain and exploded and beat the hell out of it, I'll tell you what, they deserve to come to the White House. I gave them all a medal.

They deserve to come to the White House. And it was a pleasure to meet them. These are great people. We have great people in this country.

Mr. President, we've talked about foreign policy, and now let's focus on issues here at home, some of that you have already mentioned. We are now approaching the longest shutdown in American history.

Democrats' fault.

Under your presidency, we're talking about more than a million federal workers who are not getting a paycheck, including our air traffic controllers. You see there's traffic snarls out at the airports now. This weekend, food aid for more than 42 million Americans is set to expire. What are you doing as president to end the shutdown?

Well, what we're doing is we keep voting. I mean, the Republicans are voting almost unanimously to end the shutdown? All we're doing is we keep voting. I mean, the Republicans are voting almost unanimously to end it, and the Democrats keep voting against ending it. You know, they've never had this. This has happened like 18 times before. The Democrats always voted for an extension,

always saying, give us an extension, we'll work it out. They've lost their way. They've become crazed lunatics. And all they have to do, Nora, is say, let's vote. And you can open the economy could open up during our interview.

Is there something you can do? Maybe it did. Is there something you can do to bring this to an end?

All I can do is give the facts. Here's what I can't do. I can't give them a trillion and a half dollars so that they can give welfare to people that came into our country illegally. So that prisoners and that people from mental institutions and people that are drug dealers get vast amounts of money for health care. That I can't do. What I can do is I can continue to run a great country. We have the best economy we've ever had. I can continue to do that. What they should do,

look, this started a long time ago. I always said, and you know I've been very consistent, Obamacare is terrible. It's bad healthcare at far too high a price. We should fix that.

We should fix it. And we can fix it with the Democrats. All they have to do is let the country open, and we'll fix it.

But ending the government shutdown.

They have to let the country open and I'll sit down with the Democrats and we'll fix it. But they have to let the country. And you know what they have to do? All they have to do is raise five hands. We don't need all of them.

But so you're saying your plan is to tell the Democrats to vote to end the shutdown. Correct. Very simple. Ms. DeParle And that you will put forward a health care plan?

The President No. We will work on fixing the bad health care that we have. Right now, we have terrible health care at too expensive for the people. Not for the government, for the people.

The people are paying-

Ms. DeParle But, Mr. President, with all due respect, you've been talking about fixing

the health care. We were one vote short. And a couple of senators that we currently have made the mistake, and they made a big mistake. John McCain made a mistake, frankly. We were one vote short.

We would have had great health care. And I've been saying ever since, we can fix it. It's too expensive. It's got two things. It's too expensive and it's lousy health care. It's too expensive for the people. They're going to get a very big increase this year. Well, they're going to get an increase if you don't extend the subsidies. No, no. But the subsidies is part of it.

We're supposed to spend trillions of dollars to take care of something that is defective. What I'm saying is we can make it much less expensive for people and give them much better health care.

But where is that plan?

And I'd be willing to work with the Democrats on it. The problem is they want to give money to prisoners, to drug dealers, to all these millions of people that were allowed to come in with an open border from Biden and nobody can do that.

Not one Republican would ever do that.

My understanding is if those health care subsidies are not extended, premiums will double for many of the people that are on it. And I was looking into it. Three quarters of these people will see their health care premiums double. Live in states where you won in the last election. I mean, even here in Florida has the highest number of residents on Obamacare in the country.

And I'm saying we can fix it, Nora.

But if the subsidies are not extended, they're not

gonna be able to afford health insurance.

It was a defective plan put into line by Barack Hussein Obama, who is a lousy president, not nearly as bad as Biden, by the way, who, by the way, is building a museum that's like four times over budget. It'll never open. Built in a neighborhood that, you know, it's just not going to work.

The neighborhood doesn't even want him. And it's a disaster. The same guy that did his museum, which is a total catastrophe, came up with a bad health care plan and for the sake of one vote we would have had, you know? It's so sad thinking back.

I hear you.

If we had the vote, that one vote, we would have great health care at a much lower cost and that's what I want. But I don't want to give a trillion and a half dollars to prisoners and drug dealers and people that came into our country from mental institutions. What they allowed to come into our country, and we're getting them out, but what they allowed to come into

our country, Nora, is horrible. So, ready? We can make it good.

Ms. McEnany, I don't want to get into a back- too

much of a back and forth on this. The President No, no, but here's all they have to do. Open up the country. Open up the country. We need five of their votes. We only need five votes. And already a couple of Democrats, a few Democrats are already voting. They want to open up.

And we'll fix all of those problems. Those problems are much easier than what I just did with solving all these wars. Last question. We had nine wars on our planet. I solved eight of them. I have one to go, Russia-Ukraine. I thought that

was going to be one of the easier ones, but it's not because Putin is tougher than people.

You have helped end these government shutdowns in the past when they came about. I did. I did. And you did it by bringing them.

I'm very good at it. You brought members of Congress to the White House. extorted by the Democrats who have lost their way. There's something wrong with these people. So then what happens on November 15th

when the troops don't get a paycheck?

Schumer is a basket case, and he has nothing to lose. He's become — I just left Japan. He's become a kamikaze pilot.

This guy — It sounds like this is not going to get solved.

This guy is a kamikaze. He would rather see the country fail than have Trump and the Republicans do well. But the people don't want that.

I hear you.

It sounds like- So we have a record-setting country right now, and we're not going to be extorted by a man who's grossly incompetent, who is going to be defeated by any one of five different candidates.

We don't want to let that happen.

It sounds like this is not going to get solved. Say it. Sounds like it's not going to get solved, the shutdown. It's going to get solved, yeah. Oh, it's going to get solved. How? We'll get it solved. Eventually, they're going to have to vote. You're saying the Democrats will capitulate. I think they have to. And if they don't vote, that's their problem. Now, I happen to agree to something else. I think we should do the nuclear option. This is a totally It's called ending the filibuster. Did you see John Thune said today they're not going to do that? Well, John and a few others, but you know what?

The Republicans have to get tougher. If we end the filibuster, we can do exactly what we want. We're not going to lose power. The theory is, oh, then we'll do it, but then when they get into power someday, they'll do it. That's true, but you know what? So you think John Thune? We're here right now. No, I like John Thune. I think he's terrific. But I disagree with him on this point.

He said today he wasn't going to do it.

Well, that's too bad. You know, I mean, I think we're much better off. Because here's the problem. The Democrats will do it in the first week in office. The Democrats — and I get along with them great. We've had a great relationship. And I also know there are other Republicans that feel the other way.

And I understand that, too, but they're wrong. The Democrats will do it. If they get into power, and someday, I guess they will. Who knows? It's hard to believe when they have men and women

sports, open borders, open everything, a transgender for everyone. The Democrats will do it in their first day in office. And the only reason they didn't do it is because of cinema and because of a man named Joe Manchin from

West Virginia. He's a good man. And they disagreed with it. Now, wait. Had they approved it, I think just one of them, had they been able to get those votes, you would

have had the nuclear option used. You would have had the filibuster ended, and the Democrats would have used it. So I say to the Republicans that want to be, you know, all like, oh, well, we're above all that, the Democrats will do it. See, the Republicans have much better policy. We have smart policy.

We have great policy. That's how we win. The Democrats are vicious. They're vicious. They have horrible policy, but they are the most vicious human beings on Earth. They are people that weaponize government.

They do a lot of bad things. But the good thing is, from our standpoint, from the standpoint of winning, is they have the worst policy of — it's hard to believe. Think of it. Open borders, men playing in women's sports, transgender for everybody. I mean, I could go point — these are not 80-20.

These are 99-to-1 issues. And they don't change. I just watched this morning a show where —

The Press. Mr. President, can I ask you about the economy?

Just one thing. I watched a show this morning where a show where- Ms. Trump, can I ask you about the economy? Yeah, just one thing. I watched a show this morning where a very well-known Democrat congressman was fighting like hell for men playing in women's sports. They don't change. They don't learn. Who was that?

I don't want to tell you. You'll be able to check it.

Just check your local TV. Okay. of your economic plan is tariffs. The Supreme Court is going to hear arguments this week on whether you have the authority to impose these sweeping tariffs without congressional approval. The lower courts have ruled against you. That's why it's in the Supreme Court right now.

Very close rulings, yeah.

What happens to your economic plan if the Supreme Court invalidates your tariffs?

I think our country will be immeasurably hurt. I think our economy will go to hell. Look, because of tariffs we have the highest stock market we've ever had. Because of tariffs, 401ks at the highest level that, and this is millions and millions of people that we've ever had, 401ks. I think it's the most important subject discussed by the Supreme Court in a hundred years. If they don't, if they take away the power of tariffs from us, and it has to be quick

and nimble. You can't have Congress, where hundreds of people have to look, they can't even agree to continue a country. You can't have Congress. This has to be quick and nimble.

As an example. Well, you just, I finished that sentence. You said, if they take away my power to do tariffs what it would be a very sad day

For the United States of America. We're making a lot of money. We're respected again all over the world We have great national security. Let me give you an example With China, they were you know, very strongly threatening us frankly with the rare earths And then I said well if you're gonna play that card I'm gonna put a 100% tariff on over and above if you're going to play that card, I'm going to put a 100% tariff on over and above what you're already paying, which was 55%, which was very high.

A lot of money coming in tremendous money like we've never seen. I'm going to put a 100% tariff on everything over and above. And you know what happened? We got a phone call 20 minutes later. We'd like to talk if they take away the right to tariff They if we're forced to use Congress to approve They can't approve anything. They would be sitting around for years debating whether or not we should use tariffs You want that power you want that exact you need it to run to protect our country

This is a national security tariffs Tariffs are national security. If you take away the right to tariff, and remember this, tariffs have been used against

us. And can you just answer that question that tariffs have led to inflation, they have led to an increase in cost of living for most Americans.

They haven't led to inflation. We have no inflation. We have no inflation. Biden had inflation and he didn't have tariffs. He didn't have tariffs. He didn't use tariffs. You know why he didn't use them? Because he's not smart enough to use them.

But the companies say they've passed on more than 30% of these costs to the American consumer. The tariffs. I mean, somebody has to pay for it.

Yeah, you have to pay, but we don't have any inflation. Inflation is the real test of paying. Everybody said, oh, if you do tariffs, inflation. So Biden had the highest inflation in the history of our country by far. Okay. No tariffs. I have very modest tariffs compared. Let me tell you, these tariffs ultimately are so good that at some point when they're used properly and I use them more properly than anybody's ever even dreamt possible. Think of it. We've become rich. We're taking in trillions of dollars,

and I have no inflation. And I have total national security. When I put the 100 percent tariff on China, over and above what they were already paying, which was about 55 percent, so 155, they came to the table immediately,

and they made a deal with us that was a very fair deal. That's called national security. And then I didn't make them pay the 100 percent. That would have been instituted. That would have come to four on November 1st.

I know our time with you is limited. Nora, Nora, listen to me.

I hear you. If I didn't have the power of tariff, we would be, we would be like a subject nation. We'd be subject to everyone else. Everybody uses tariffs on us. If I wasn't allowed to use tariffs on them, we would be a third world nation.

I know your time is limited, so I do wanna make sure I get through more of these topics. Immigration, you campaigned on immigration. You largely won the election on a promise

to close the border.

You did a great job, don't you think? And you succeeded on that. Illegal crossings at the southern border are at a 55-year low. More recently, Americans have been watching videos of ice, tackling a young mother, tear gas being used in a Chicago residential neighborhood,

and the smashing of car windows. Have some of these raids gone too far?

No, I think they haven't gone far enough because we've been held back by the by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama. You're okay with those tactics? Yeah, because you have to get the people out, you know, you have to look at the people. Many of them are murderers, many of them are people that were thrown out of their countries

because they were, you know, criminals. Well, you promised in your campaign that you were going to deport the worst of the worst. Violent criminals, rapists.

Well, that's what we're doing.

But a lot of the people that your administration has arrested and deported aren't violent criminals. Landscapers, nannies, construction workers.

Landscapers, you're a criminal.

No, look, look.

The family of U.S. service members. I need landscapers and I need farmers more than anybody, okay? Is it your intent to deport people who do not have a criminal record? We have to start off with a policy, and the policy has to be you came into the country illegally, you're going to go out. However, you've also seen you're going to go out, we're going to work with you, and you're going to come back into our country legally, because we have a lot of good people. We have some great people. But, you know, the problem we have, and people don't like talking about —

Ms. McEnany, these are very — wait. These are very smart countries. Their leaders are very smart. They're very streetwise. They might not have gone to the finest schools, but they're very streetwise. They want they don't want their good people. They want people that are bad out. So they what do they do? They open their jails. They let them out. They get rid of their drug deals

They let him out, but you know, I'll say get out the people that are on welfare that aren't working In other words, they have people that just don't work. They don't want people that just don't work So they put them into our country But if someone is and we've accepted all of these people because of Biden's open border policy, where people would walk in totally unchecked and unvetted, murderers and everybody else.

When will you declare mission accomplished on immigration?

Well, it takes a long time because, you know, probably I say 25 million people were let into our country. A lot of people say it was 10 million people, but whether it was 10 or I believe I'm much closer to the right number. Of the 25, many of them should not be here. But we're cleaning up our cities.

You know, I campaigned on crime, but I've done a much better job on crime than I thought. You know, the crime number is a way down, even though we have a lot more people in our country that really shouldn't be here, and many of them are stone-cold, hard criminals. When I look at D.C. now, you can walk down the

middle of the street, you can have your daughter, who's 10 years old, meet you at the park, she's going to be okay.

She would have been murdered.

Well, I live in D.C. Well, you tell me. How big a difference is D.C. now compared to what it was a year ago? Right? I mean, you have to be honest with me. People walk — people in the White House, they walk up to me.

Young ladies, I've never seen them. Sir, thank you very much. I know — they don't even have to tell me what they're thanking me for. But when I ask why, he said — one girl said, I'd get into uber and I felt dangerous even in uber they'd attack the car Okay It wasn't even safe then

Sir, I now walk to work every day and I walk I I'm so safe There's nothing going to happen 100 safe and you know that too nor I want to ask you about you live here You know that too. I want to ask you working too hard. I haven't been out and about That's not a fair answer. You see I get in my car and go to work and I go home It's like you know what the difference is like day and night

Want to ask you more about some American cities? We are about we're on the eve a number of big state and local elections One of the most watched is the one for mayor of New York City. Yeah, Zorhan Mandami 34 year old Democratic socialist

He's the front man is not socialist communist

He's far he's far worse than a session some people have compared him to a left-wing version of you charismatic breaking the old rules What do you think about that?

Well, I think I'm a much better looking person than him, right? Okay. Well former governor Andrew Cuomo

Who you know is campaigning for mayor He recently said that if Mondami becomes mayor of New York City that you will take over New York Cuomo said this He said he will be President Trump and Mayor Trump. He's gonna take over New York and send tanks down Fifth Avenue.

Oh, it's so crazy. Look, when I left New York, we were at the epitome of, it was a great city. It was doing great. It was a great city,

but there was some bad signs because we had a guy named de Blasio, who was the worst mayor. Like I say, Biden was the worst president. De Blasio was the worst mayor in history.

But what if Mondami becomes mayor?

It's gonna be hard for me, as the president, to give a lot of money to New York, because if you have a communist running New York, all you're doing is wasting the money you're sending there. So I don't know that he's won and I'm not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other but if it's going to be between a bad Democrat and a

Communist I'm gonna pick that bad Democrat all the time to be honest with you this past Tuesday

Well speaking to American troops in Japan you talked about US cities They're having trouble with crime and you said if we need more than the National Guard We'll send more than the National Guard. What does that mean send more than the National Guard. We'll send more than the National Guard. What does that mean, send more than the National Guard?

Well, if you had to send in the Army or if you had to send in the Marines, I'd do that in a heartbeat. You know, you have a thing called the Insurrection Act. You know that, right? Do you know that I could use that immediately,

and no judge can even challenge you on that, but I haven't chosen to do it because I haven't felt we need it. So you're going to send the military into American cities? Well, if I wanted to, I could, if I want to use the Insurrection Act. The Insurrection Act has been used routinely by presidents, and if I needed it, that would mean I could bring in the Army, the Marines, I could bring in whoever I want. But I haven't chosen to use it.

I hope you give me credit for that. I want to ask you about another matter. James Comey, John Bolton, Letitia James were all recently indicted. There is a pattern to these names. They're all public figures who have publicly denounced you. Is it political retribution? You know what? You know who got

indicted? The man you're looking at. I got indicted and I was innocent. And here I am because I was able to beat all of the nonsense that was thrown at me and yet when you go after a dirty cop like Comey or a guy like Bolton who I hear has I don't know anything about it I hear he took records all over the place who knows Letitia James is a terrible dishonest person in my opinion. No I was just asking is it political retribution?

Comey's known as a dirty cop. I'm not known as a dirty person. They indicted me many times. Indicted me. They were after me. I'm looking at you now, President of the United

States. I went through numerous indictments and two impeachments, and you tell me that I went after people? These people are dishonest. Look, Biden didn't have a clue. He illegally used, as you know, a machine, the auto pen,

in order to give pardons to people. The only pardon he signed, it looks like, was his son, Hunter. He signed Hunter's, so Hunter, you're free. Congratulations, Hunter. But everyone else, I think those pardons were all just a waste of time.

Did you instruct the Department of Justice to go after them?

Not in any way, shape, or form. No, you don't have to instruct them because they were so dirty, they were so crooked, they were so corrupt, that the honest people we have, Pam Bondi's doing a very good job, Kash Patel's doing a very good job,

the honest people that we have go after them automatically. But they instructed them to go after me because the records now have been found. So when you tell me about, I went after Comey, Comey's low on the totem pole. They went after the president of the United States. Do you know that they raided my house in Palm Beach, Florida called Mar-a-Lago? They raided my house.

I had 78 or 98 FBI agents with arms. Come into my house and you're telling me, Nora, that I went after some lowlife named Comey who's a judge to be a crooked guy. He lied all over the place. He lied to Congress and did many other bad things.

For that, you should be ashamed. No, no, I was just asking, is this retribution on your part?

No, it's the opposite. I think I've been very mild-mannered. You're looking at a man who was indicted many times and I had to beat the rap. Otherwise, I couldn't have run for president. They tried to get me not to run for president by going after me and by indicting me. But even during my term, on a perfect phone call, I got impeached. This call was perfect. Tim Scott from South Carolina, highly respected, a legitimate person, totally

legit. He read the transcript. Thank goodness we had a transcript of the call. The call I got indicted on, a call on Ukraine of of all places, with the President of Ukraine. It was a perfect phone call. Tim Scott said, I just read the transcript. The President didn't do anything wrong. It was perfect.

And that was the end of the indictment, pretty much. But I had to go through a whole process. You know, the Democrats knew that I wasn't guilty because they didn't know the call was — I didn't know either. The call was essentially taped. So we knew exactly what the call- when they found out that the call was taped, Nancy Pelosi went crazy. They said, you made me go into this mess. She screamed

at all these people that made her do it. Bad people like Schiff, et cetera, et cetera. So what happened is she went nuts. And to conclude and they said let's do it Anyway, they did it anyway, and I won very easily as you know But you can't then accuse me of weaponizing government. They were horrible human beings They went after the president of the United States. They went after my children. They went into my wife's, uh, drawers. They went into my wife's closets. They held the dresses up. She came back. She said, Oh, what happened?

What happened? Because she's a very meticulous person. Everything's nice and neat. All of a sudden, everything's like they went into my office. They took things that I was allowed to have filed under the Presidential Records Act that I was allowed to have filed under the Presidential Records Act that I was allowed to have. I had records. I was allowed to have them. Only the president's allowed. But I was — and it was nothing very significant anyway. There was, like, nothing. Wait, just one second. They opened these — I'm a very meticulous

person, too. I have files. Beautiful. They took the files, threw them all over the phone, all over the floor. They were all over the floor. And they took pictures of them. This is my office. I said, what the hell? That's not my office.

They took files. They threw them all over. And they took pictures and they released them to the public that this is President Trump's office. We caught him with all of this stuff, like it was all over the floor of my office. These are crooked people. These are dissenters.

So don't ask me about, did you go after — Letitia — Letitia James, in my opinion — and I only say in my opinion because I guess the lawyers would prefer that I say that because I have a much stronger opinion — she's a total crook. She's a lowlife. Comey's a dirty cop. Bolton actually helped me a lot because he was crazy.

He's the one want him and Cheney, a couple of people got Bush to go out and blow the hell out of the Middle East and then take, you know, then leave. And actually, Bolton helped me because every time somebody saw Bolton standing behind me,

foreign countries, they conceded. You know why they conceded? Because they said, Bolton's a nutjob, Trump is going to take us to war. But I don't listen to people that are stupid.

Go ahead.

This is a question about pardons. The Trump family is now perhaps more associated with cryptocurrency than real estate. You and your sons, Don Jr. and Eric, have formed World Liberty Financial with the Whitcoff family, helping to make your family millions of dollars.

It's in that context that I do want to ask you about crypto's richest man, a billionaire known as CZ. He pled guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws. The government at the time said that CZ had caused significant harm to US national security, essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around. Why did you pardon him?

OK, are you ready? I don't know who he is.

I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that, and I heard it was a Biden witch hunt. In 2025, his crypto exchange Binance helped facilitate a $2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial's stablecoin. And then you pardoned CZ. How do you address the appearance of pay for play?

Well, here's the thing. I know nothing about it because I'm too busy doing the other.

But he got a pardon?

But he got a pardon? No, I can only tell you this. My sons are into it. I'm glad they are because it's probably a great industry crypto. I think it's good You know, they're running a business They're not in government and they're good. My one son is the number one bestseller now My wife just had a number one bestseller. I'm proud of them for doing that. I'm focused on this

I know nothing about the guy other than I hear he was a victim of weaponization by government. When you say the government, you're talking about the Biden government. It's a corrupt government. Biden was the most corrupt president and he was the worst president we've ever had. I only care about one thing. Will crypto be? Will we be number one in crypto? Crypto has turned out, and in that sense I've been right, crypto has turned out to be a massive industry, if you want to call it that. And I'm very proud to say that we are far and away ahead of China and everybody else. Now,

China's getting into it very big right now. If you want to go after people, you're going to kill that industry, and it'll be very bad. Tremendous number of jobs. I campaigned positively on crypto, very openly. I campaigned. Biden campaigned against it. When Biden found out that I was getting like 100% of the crypto vote, which was a lot,

he switched totally, and he went in favor of crypto. They went totally in favor. They had many people under indictment. They let them all go. They let them all go. They let them all go. You know that.

Many people were under indictment. Biden was a corrupt president. Biden went all in on crypto at the very end because he thought he could get some votes. It didn't work. They voted for me. I want to make crypto great for America.

That's the only thing. I don't want to have somebody else have crypto and have China be number one in the world in crypto, because in crypto, it's a kind of an industry where basically you're going to have number one and you're not going to have a number two. And right now, we're number one by a long

shot. I want to keep it that way. The same way we're number one with AI, we're number

one with crypto. I don't want to keep it that way. I know my time is limited with you So I want to be respectful of a view mr. President the issue of political violence I want to get to because you were nearly assassinated in Butler, Pennsylvania Charlie Kirk assassinated Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro's house was firebombed

Minnesota lawmaker murdered. What's your message to those on the left and the right who would seek to commit acts of violence?

Well, I think primarily on the left.

A little bit of both, but I

think primarily on the left. I think they have to tone it down. I think they have to approve the shutdown so it's not shut down. I think it's very bad what they're doing. They're hurting people. You know, if you think about it, if people aren't going to get paid, they're going to be, you know, a lot of angry people out there.

They want to get their food. They want to get the money so they can live. In some cases, whatever they want to get, they want to get. I think by the Democrats not giving us the votes. I think it's I think it endangers both parties. I think it's very bad. There's never been a case like this. This is you know, this is fairly standard stuff. You do extensions are almost automatic. In fact, they were virtually automatic. This is the only time they don't

want to do the extension because they're losing so badly that they said maybe we have some leverage. One of the senators said that maybe this is the first time we have some leverage. One of the senators said that. Maybe this is the first time we have some leverage. But they really don't have leverage because the Republicans can't be extorted in order to ruin our country.

The Press Do you feel like we're at a breaking point, given everything that you just said?

The President No. No, it's been much worse. I mean, over history, it's been much worse.

The Press Sure. Well, it's been much worse. Sure, the political violence that, you know, we just outlined the number of members of people in public

Yeah

That have been targeted and then I just read that there's now a number of your cabinet secretaries and aides who are now living on military bases. Yeah

Usually when people talk they're not the problem. It's the ones that don't talk in terms of that But yeah, I think it's it's a lot of the rhetoric. Look, they call me a Nazi all the time. I'm not a Nazi. I'm the opposite. I'm somebody that's saving our country.

But they call me Nazi. They have talking points. You know, they have just talking points. And the press is largely responsible for it. The fake news, what they've done. I think one of the greatest terms I've ever come up with is fake news.

What they've done to our country is very bad. They have to change around. Now, nobody believes the fake news. Nobody believes them. I mean, they've gone. You talk about popularity.

You talk about approval. Their approval numbers have gone from, like, in the 90s to in the teens now. We need borders. We need fair votes. And you really need a fair press.

If you can.

And you do. You have some great journalists, some great reporters, but you have some terrible, terrible dishonest journalists. And I see it all the time because I'll give them a story and they'll have it.

Even my trip with China, it was so successful. But of all the Wall Street Journal, they said Trump lowers tariffs. That was the headline. Trump lowers tariffs. That wasn't what happened. I lower tariff in order to get everything that anybody could possibly dream of.

The point wasn't lowering tariffs. I put it behind number, I cut it, and I got everything. And yet the headline in the Wall Street Journal, beautiful picture of myself and presidency, everything nice, but the headline was, Trump lowers tariffs. That wasn't the story. The story was Trump got everything, got everything,

including world peace. We're respected as a country. We're not threatened right now, and we're not going to be threatened. As long as we have a strong, smart president, we're never going to be threatened. As long as we have a strong, smart president, we're never going to be threatened by anybody.

There's been a lot of talk about 2028 and who will be at the top of the Republican ticket. Can you set the record straight you're not going to try and run for a third term?

Well, I don't even think about it. I will tell you, a lot of people want me to run, but the difference between us and the Democrats is we really do have a strong bench. I don't want to use names because it's, you know, inappropriate, but it's too early.

Three and a quarter years.

The Press But people do like when you start talking about whether you like J.D. Vance or Secretary Rubio.

The President I do like J.D. Vance. I like Marco Rubio. We have a great bench, so I don't want to start talking about elections. It's too early one thing. I can tell you the 2020 election was rigged and a lot of people say when it's rigged you're allowed to do it again It was rigged and it's been caught and a and you see the same information that everybody else does and it's coming out now in spades But with all of that

We have a great bench. We have unbelievable people. You could go up and down my Cabinet. We have great people. They don't. They have a guy that's ruined the state of California. Ruined it.

Destroyed it. And I have a lot of property out there, I can tell you. They've ruined the state of California. He has been terrible. Other than he's got a good line of bullsh-t.

That's all it is. He's ruined the state. And he's one of the people running. Jasmine Crockett. She's a low IQ person. They say she might run for president. Jasmine Crockett. This is a very low IQ person. AOC. I watched her speak the other day. Almost the first time she was screaming, she was like a crazy person. She's got not a good speaker, doesn't have, I don't think, but you never know what it is. You never know what it is that can spark an election. When Joe ran, the first time, I thought he was

terrible. He was horrible. I won by a lot. The second time he was running, he was doing very poorly, had a bad debate, and they replaced him in the middle of the election. This could only happen to me. They replaced him with somebody. The press got behind her.

Oh, they were so behind her. But eventually, she failed because she couldn't speak. She wasn't a very intelligent person, in my opinion, but she couldn't speak properly. She could not speak. And actually, 60 Minutes paid me a lot of money. And you don't have to put this on because I don't want to embarrass you, and I'm sure

you're not. You have a great — I think you have a great new leader, frankly, because the young woman that's leading your whole enterprise is a great — from what I know — I don't know her, but I hear she's a great person. But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me a lot of money because they took her answer out that was so bad it was election-changing two nights before the election, and they put a new

answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can't have fake news. You've got to have legit news. And I think that it's happening. I see-

The Press.

Mr. President?

I see good things happening in the news. I really do. And I think one of the best things to happen is this show and new ownership, CBS and new ownership. I think it's the greatest thing that's happened in a long time to a free and open and good

press. Mr. President, can I also ask you, we're now at the end of your first year of this second term. What do you hope to accomplish in the next three years? The President Well, I hope I can have the same

year that we had. Look, we have been acknowledged to have the greatest nine months. You know, it's nine months. The greatest nine months in the history of the presidency.

So if I can keep that going, I'll be very happy because, you know, what we've done, what we — I inherited a mess. And I've fixed it other than it will take a while to get all the criminals the real criminals the ones the real bad ones Out but we've gotten a lot of them out. We've gotten a lot of the murderers out We've gotten a lot of the people from jails out and we've taken them back to their countries when some cases They're so dangerous that we've actually had to put them in our jails because we didn't want them coming back. I

Want to just keep it going pretty much the same way. I want safety in our cities. Our cities are a mess. And I hate to say it, they're Democrat-run cities. If you take the top 25 cities, they're almost all, almost every one of them is run by Democrats.

Cashless bail.

I'll give you an example.

And to people who say they're struggling with cost of living expenses,

what could you do about that? Well, let me just say, cashless bail is a disaster. It's got to be changed. Sanctuary cities really have to be changed. The sanctuary, you know what they're sanctuary for? Criminals. Things, some basic things have to be changed. But one of the things I really have focused on is making Chicago great again.

Making, and we're DC from being so bad to so beautiful, such good. The restaurants are booming. You can't get into a restaurant. They were closing and now they're all opening. You can't get a restaurant now. You can't get into a restaurant.

But if you want to buy a restaurant or own a restaurant, you almost can't find it. I want to make this happen all over the country. I want it to be like that in New York, in L.A., in Chicago. I want to do it as much as can. You know, by the way, Memphis, we're there now. Memphis was a dangerous hellhole, 65 percent down in crime.

And this is after two weeks. We can do it all over the place. It's turned out to be a new passion for me, making our city. I had no idea we could be that successful. I thought it would take a much longer period of time. Do you know in Washington, in 12 days it was really good,

in one month it was close to perfect.

And for those that are suffering with cost of living increases and saying they're living paycheck to paycheck?

Well, I'd be very upset with Biden because we don't have any of those problems. We don't have inflation. You know, essentially, we don't have any of those problems. We don't have inflation. You know, essentially, we don't have inflation. I inherited the worst inflation in history of our country. We don't have inflation.

We're down to 2%, even less than 2%. A couple of items like beef, I'm getting down. But our groceries are down.

Healthcare premiums?

I can fix healthcare. Give them better healthcare for less money. Obamacare is hurting people. Obamacare was a disaster from day one. I can fix it and make it good. I'd really rather start with a fresh plate,

but if it's required to keep it, we can make it much better. But it's bad health care, and they're going to get big increases, and that has nothing to do with me. That has to do with the fact that it was originally put into play. It's a shame. But we can make it better.

Energy is way down. You know, you're going to have $2 gasoline very soon. Nobody could believe it. You were at $4, $5, $6, and even $7. Look at the cost of gasoline in California, what it was. I brought it down. Problem is, when I bring it down here in California, they put more tax. They tax the gasoline to such an extent.

No, we're in great shape. This country is in great shape. We're ready to really rock. As I say often, we were a dead country. We were a dead country one year ago. Now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. Leaders have said that to me.

Just recently, they said that to me. Even President Xi, he said, I'd like you to be congratulated. He said it so beautifully. I'd like you to be congratulated on the incredible job you did in bringing back the United

States of America. President Xi said that to me.

The Press I know we're out of time, but just on that matter, when we talk about that, because I know how closely you follow the stock market, do you worry about an AI bubble?

I guess. I worry about everything, you know? I mean, you know, I'm a worrier. I worry, but you know what I do? I worry, and then I fix it. I fix it. That way I don't have to worry. behind AI? Well, there's a lot of money. And right now, I'm taking advantage of it because we're leading AI. You know, we're leading it by a lot.

China's in second place, but we're leading it by a lot. We have the greatest minds of any country anywhere in the world, and we're using that. I'm using those great minds to help us. Now, will something happen later? I guess, you know, something. But it could also be something very good happens. And I hope it's going to be very good.

But if it's not so good, we're protected. Our country is doing great. We're strong. We're solid. We've never been, I think we haven't been like this and maybe ever, maybe ever. We have a great country and you should be very proud of it.

Mr. President, thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Nora. Thank you very much, Nora.

Thank you.