Donald Trump Interview on the Will Cain Show

48 hours after his conviction in the first televised interview after his conviction in New York, Former President Donald Trump on the Will Cain Show. It is the Will Cain Show streaming live at FoxNews.com on the Fox News YouTube channel, the Fox News Facebook page, and always on demand wherever you get your audio entertainment. Just subscribe at Apple or on Spotify. Make sure you hit subscribe on YouTube, and you can always watch episodes of the Will Cain Show, including interviews with Tony Robbins, Jordan Peterson, or Dwayne the Rock Johnson. But today, an interview, an exclusive interview, the first interview after his conviction in New York with former President Donald Trump. (01:03) On Saturday, my co-hosts and friends on Fox and Friends Weekend, Rachel Campos-Duffy, Pete Hegseth, and myself traveled out to Bedminster, New Jersey to sit down with the former president, to sit down with Donald Trump. Portions of that interview have aired over the weekend on Fox and Friends. As is the nature of TV, what was an hour and 20-something- odd-minute interview has to be reduced into 10-minute segments. From the beginning, I said, but I want the whole thing. I want the whole thing for the Will Cain Show. (01:44) In the middle of that interview, Donald Trump said, "More time, let's give them more time." In that interview said, "Let it run. I know you can't. I know you're not in charge of it, but let it run from start to finish." And I agree with him. You deserve context. You deserve to hear the entirety of the conversation. So we have the opportunity today here uniquely, exclusively to hear the entire interview with Donald Trump. And I think it is the fullest context you will get. (02:12) You know that I pride myself. You know that I love interviewing people. I'm very curious. I want to dig. I want to get deeper, and I will have some limitations in this interview. Again, setting out the conditions and the dynamics up front. I have nothing if I don't have my honesty with you. I went into this knowing it's not a regular interview with Will Cain. That's because I'm sitting with two other individuals, two individuals that I trust, that I respect, in Rachel Campos-Duffy and Pete Hegseth. But as is the nature of a three-person interview, you have to take turns. You have limited ability to follow up. We all don't have different directions and different directions we're trying to pull, but we all have our own unique minds. And so, that changes an interview. Well, more, again, if we're being honest, interviewing Donald Trump is wrestling a bear. I mean, he will go where he wants to go. I think there's one point in this interview where he's asked about the trial in New York and we end up talking about how many cars are parked in Afghanistan. (03:15) I mean, he goes where he wants to go, but I did notice something through the course of an hour and a half. He does come back. He does come back to the original question, and I don't think he filibusters in the way so many politicians do in order to avoid the question, he just indulges every parenthetical in every direction that he wants to go in an interview while still coming back to the original question. So it's a ride, it's wrestling a bear, and all that adds up to being a bit different of an interview for the Will Cain Show, but a unique opportunity to be the first people to talk to him after his conviction in New York City. So I hope you today will enjoy, will share with your friends, will subscribe on Apple and Spotify and on YouTube, this conversation with the former president. Here is Donald Trump.

Well, Mr. President, welcome to Fox and Friends Weekend.

Thank you.

Thanks for being here. This is your first interview since the verdict. It's been 48 hours. Where's your head at?

Well, look, I'm fighting for the constitution. I'm fighting for the same thing that you three, I watch you all the time and same thing that you do. You fight for freedom, you fight for your country. These people are sick, they're sick, they're deranged. I talk about the enemy on the outside and the enemy from within. You have Russia, you have China, but if you have a smart president, you always handle them quite easily actually. We have a lot of advantages. But the enemy from within, they are doing damage to this country. They want open borders. They want high interest rates. They now want to quadruple your taxes, quadruple. (04:55) All my life, I watched politics and it was always like politicians want to lower taxes, not quadruple them. There's a whole sickness going on right now. So we're doing really well. It's very interesting. Jury came in, it was a tough venue. We tried to get out of the venue, we tried to get out of the judge, but we tried to get out of both. Wouldn't even think about it. So we had probably maybe the worst area in the whole country for me in terms of vote. I'm sure if I sat down and explained it to that section of the world, we could probably make progress. But one of the worst sections, and they always bring them to these sections. DC, there, places where Republicans, not just me, Republicans get virtually no votes. (05:39) But the good news is that I think we've set a record beyond all records for fundraising. That's like a poll. And another one just came out just before I got in that were six points higher than we were before. So I don't know if that holds up. I mean, I'm just not sure, but people get it. It's a scam. And the Republican Party is really, they've stuck. They stick together in this. They see it's weaponization of the Justice Department, of the FBI, and that's all coming out of Washington. You may think it's brag, take a look at who opened the case. I'm not allowed to talk about it because I have a gag order. I'm probably, I guess the first presidential nominee and the leader, leading crooked Joe by a lot that's not allowed to talk. Maybe they're doing me a big favor, who knows? But I'm not allowed to talk. I'm gagged. Nobody's ever heard of it. (06:32) Guys would say to me that aren't as well versed, but they know about freedom and the constitution. They say, "They can't gag you." It's all coming out. It's weaponization and it's a very dangerous thing. We've never had that in this country. They do have it in other countries, in South American countries. You know a little bit about it, right?

Well, that actually leads me to my question. I think for a lot of Americans, what's happened to you feels foreign. This has never happened here before. But for Hispanic Americans, people coming from Latin America, this feels very familiar. And in those countries, people are imprisoned. Instead of going to the ballot box and fighting there, they're on house arrest. They're told they can't run for office. What is your message? And by the way, I think a lot of Hispanic Americans, I hear from them, they're scared about what they see. What's your message to them about what happened to you and about how scared they are that our country is turning into the countries that they left behind, the corrupt, dysfunctional countries they left behind.

And they are scared and they're great people, very entrepreneurial, great energy. And as you know, I'm doing very well with them. I mean, I don't think anybody's ever had poll-

Do you think this is why a little bit?

I think a little bit. I think we just, well, even before people understood what was going on, I was doing well with the, you call them Hispanics, you know there's about 15 different names.

I know.

Latin Americans-

Just don't say Latinx.

Latin Americans, South Americans, Hispanics, a lot of different words, but we all know what we're talking about. And they've always liked me and I've always liked them. I've done well from the beginning. In 2016, I won the entire border along Texas, and they're all like 85%. And it's been great from the beginning. And now, I'm leading. I think I'm leading over this guy, this guy that can't put two sentences together that's destroying our country. Look, he's the worst president in the history of this country. And he's a danger to the country and they have misinformation. Donald Trump is a threat to democracy. It's just words. He doesn't even know what it means, but it's like there, a slogan. I'm a threat to democracy. I'm the opposite. They're the threat to democracy. (08:35) And now, I hear they're starting to go over the lines with Russia and Russia's getting a little bit nasty like maybe we'll start using nuclear weapons. These people are really not a threat to democracy, a threat to the country, just to this country surviving beyond democracy, beyond anything. So now, they tell Ukraine it's okay to start going and popping off Russia. How did we get in this mess? If I were president, there would've been no Ukraine... not one Ukrainian would've been killed. Not one city would be knocked down. I mean, the place is a disaster right now. Most of the cities are knocked down. I guess they're saving Kiev for, they probably want to use it a little bit, so they're waiting. They're just lobbing missiles in. Not much they can do about it. But now, they want get aggressive and they want to fight back and it's okay. But boy, that's a big statement. And the N-word is being mentioned.

Right.

And the N-word is the nuclear word. And we're probably in real numbers, 250 billion and Europe's in for about 70. And I say, why isn't Europe? Why aren't the European nations, which would be NATO, which I kept together, which I was able to keep together by getting them to pay. They weren't paying, we were paying for the whole thing practically. There were only eight nations that were paid up, including us. And I got hundreds of billions of dollars from them. I said, "Look, if you don't pay, we're going to leave. We're not going to defend you if you don't pay." And they paid. That's why they have the money now because of what I did, because Obama didn't do anything. He'd go and make a speech. Bush didn't do anything. Nobody did anything. And I looked at the statement, I'm good at statements, I look at a statement and I said, "Nobody's paying. We're paying." (10:19) We were paying for, I'll bet you 90%, could even be more than that. And then, they take advantage of us on trade very badly, almost as badly as China. Nobody would believe that. But the European nations take tremendous, they don't buy our cars, they don't buy our farm products, they don't buy anything. And then we're supposed to defend them. So I said, "No, you got to pay up. You got to pay up. You're supposed to." (10:42) One of the leaders said to me, "Does that mean that if we're attacked by Russia, that means you're not going to defend us?" I said, "Are you telling me you're delinquent?" That's a real estate term. Are you delinquent, like delinquent on your rent? "Are you delinquent?" "Yes, if we don't pay." I said, "No, no, we're not going to protect you." The next day, billions of dollars started pouring and it was amazing. If you said the other, why would they do it? And that's what they've done for years. But now, they're talking about a different level of war. Now, they're talking about getting aggressive, but they have to be careful because they're being beaten pretty badly. They're being beaten pretty badly, and what a mess. (11:20) To think it would've never happened, Israel would've never happened, Ukraine would've never happened, and Israel would've never been attacked. And you wouldn't have had inflation and you would've had a great military. You would've had a lot of things right now that you don't have, and you wouldn't have an electric car mandate, which is one of the great jokes of all time. And I think everybody should have an electric car if they want one, but they should be able to buy other forms of propulsion.

Yes.

Mr. President, I want to return to the verdict and I want to explore something you've said several times already in the conversation. You've referenced these people. I'm sure you've seen the video of Joe Biden when he was asked about the verdict and he gave sort of a smirk to the camera.

Terrible, terrible. Remember, Bragg didn't want to do the case. He came out, he said, "There's no case and how can you have a witness like so-and-so." I'm not allowed to mention the name. Can you believe this? This guy's allowed to have shows, television shows. I'm not allowed to mention the name. It's so unfair. But regardless, you have to really play the hand that you're dealt. And then, you had a jury that was from a certain persuasion, would've been hard to do no matter what, but I did absolutely nothing wrong. I mean, absolutely. Think of it. I hate when they say, a bookkeeping, this and that. It's not, it's called, think of it, expense. I use the word expense. Legal expense. I pay a lawyer. He wasn't a fixer, he was a lawyer at the time. I pay a lawyer, and he's a lawyer. It's called legal expense. (12:51) A bookkeeper without ever speaking to me because she did the right thing, who's been with me for years, marks it down as legal expense. In other words, I paid a legal expense. It's marked down as a legal expense and they say that's a fraud. What am I going to call it? Did you ever see a ledger? Do you ever a study accounting? The line's like about an inch long and an eighth of an inch wide. You can't write the story, but there is no story. If you pay a legal expense and you write it down as a legal expense, and then they indict you and they go to a grand jury and they don't use Bob Costello's testimony, they use almost none of it. They didn't want him before the grand jury because he's very persuasive. This judge didn't want him to talk. They shouldn't have allowed certain people to testify. It was totally wrong that they did that. (13:37) So everyone tells me this is the easiest case they've ever seen to overturn, but they don't care because they want to last till after the election. Now, the only problem they have is that so far my poll numbers have gone up. You explained this to me because I don't, Pete maybe can explain it. I maybe will. I don't know. Maybe Will can. They're smart in Texas, but the poll numbers have gone up substantially. I don't know if that's going to remain that way. They're tired of it, weaponization. They call it lawfare.

You changed your tone at some point during the trial. I would say maybe a bit more hopeful in the beginning and then towards the end you said something to the effect of even Mother Teresa couldn't be acquitted in this venue. Was there a moment in the trial that you felt like it turned or you saw that it was headed in a certain direction?

Well, when you object to something, your lawyers object, good lawyers, professional lawyers, good records, nice people. I've had a lot of lawyers that weren't nice and sometimes you're better off that way. These are really fine people. They'd object, not accepted, not accepted, not accepted. When the government, meaning the DA Bragg, when he said something, all right, good, that's fine. Go more and more and more. But the main thing is that this was turned down by the Southern District. This is over years. This could have been brought seven years ago. They tried to rush it because they wanted it before the election, but this could have been brought seven years ago, but they didn't have any attention. (15:02) A case like this has never been brought before and there's never been a case where a state has gone after federal election. In other words, that's for a federal, that's for the Southern District to go. Southern District turned it down. We got clearance from the FEC, Federal Election Commission, clearance. They're suing, saying we violated a thing, but they gave us clearance, but the charge was written. I mean, it was like a weird charge. You'd have a little of this, a little of that, do a little of this, throw a little, mix it up.

Given all of that, we're watching this trial, everyone's watching it on TV. You're living it. You're in the middle of it. And regardless of all of that, still, when that verdict is being read, what's going through your head?

Well, it was weird because we go in and the judge, it looked like it was a hung jury for a while, and it's the most you could hope for because in the area, it's almost... I mean, I've seen it. I've seen people that no matter how the three of you were all similar in terms of would like to see strong borders and low taxes and strong military and lots of good things, all common sense. I call it the party of common sense and we're people of common sense. Who wants to have an open border where millions of people are coming into our country, millions and millions, and not just from South America, they're coming in from Africa, from the Middle East, from Europe, from all over the world, they're coming in, and they're coming in from jails and they're coming in from mental institutions, insane asylums, the worst. Some of the sickest people, mentally ill people are being dropped into our country. (16:32) We're going to be paying for this for a long time. Now, I'm going to do the big deportation, the biggest ever. Eisenhower did the biggest, this will be bigger, but it's a very tough thing. What they've done to our country is unthinkable that they could do this, and so many other things. I mean, like you go into New York, the kids can't have little league games anymore. It sounds so trivial.

Why?

Because the migrants are living in the fields. They have all tents. Unless you want to play around the tents, it's a little bit tough. It's a little bit tough to play. But no, I mean, but when you think of common sense, who really thinks that men should be playing in women's sports? It's something I mention all the time, gets one of the biggest applause, but where does the mind come from?

Right.

A man playing, look at the weightlifting records. I mean, these weightlifting guys that never lifted anything before, they're breaking the records by numbers that are unthinkable against women that are the top women that are strongest, that they're getting blown away. Who would think the swimming records, the track records? It's crazy. It's just crazy. Actually, when I first heard about it, what was it like 6, 7, 8 years ago, when I first heard about it, I actually thought they were kidding. I thought this was just a funny joke. But they're actually serious about it. They're actually committed to it. (17:57) And who would want that? Who would want open borders? Who would want this stuff? Who would not want to have taxes below and expenses be reasonable and good schools and all of the things? I mean, who would want to have our army tanks? We make the greatest army tanks in the world. I saved that factory in Ohio. I saved it, Lima. I saved it in Ohio. They were going to close it. I saved it as actually the president-elect. I heard about a friend of mine called up. He said, "They're going to close down our army tank factory and we're not going to be able to make army tanks." I said, "That doesn't sound good." When I visited, it was unbelievable. The people there were unbelievable. They want to make them now an electric.

Right.

But they don't go far and they have to pull a wagon because the wagon, the battery is so big that the army tanks will have a wagon like a child. He's pulling a wagon. That's a heavy wagon too, very heavy. The whole thing is crazy. These people are crazy.

Mr. President, you've been through a lot in your presidency what they've done to you, you've got the verdict that just came through. A lot of Democrats have expressed concern that if you're elected, you're going to want revenge. And some of your supporters have said, "Well, mutually..." We were just talking about the weaponization of the justice system against political opponents. Some of your supporters have said, "Well, the only way to stop this is mutually assured destruction. If you do a test, we're going to do it to you." You've said, "No, my revenge is going to be success for America." You've just had this verdict. Do you still feel the same? What's your thoughts on that?

It's a really tough question in one way, because these are bad people. These people are sick and they do things that are so destructive. I mean, look what they did from the day I got there, and I don't know, a lot of people said, "We have no choice but to elect Trump Republicans because he's the only one that can withstand this." Don't forget, if it weren't me, they'd be going after somebody else, and I know a lot of the competition. They wouldn't do so well. They wouldn't be doing so well right now. They'd be saying, "Mommy,

Take me home. I want to go home. This is brutal, but these are sick people. And for instance, the 51 intelligence agents, who thinks of these and they think about it just like they say I'm guilty of... And all this information was from so many years before the election. It was before the election, so it wasn't like, "Oh, gee, I won." The election just started coming out during the trial. They said, "Oh, I have an idea. Remember John Levitt's the liar? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah." They do that during the trial. "Yeah, yeah. That it affected the election." This stuff never even came... I never even heard about affecting the election. They're talking about the election of 2016, they're going back. The interesting, somebody brought it up today was very interesting on your network. Somebody brought it up and they said, "The funny thing is that they're deniers because they're now saying that Trump changed the election."

But that's a great point because you're talking about the Intel agencies. Obviously, remember what Chuck Schumer said? He said, "If you tick off the intel agencies, they'll find a way to get you six ways." If you're elected, are you going to reform the intel community? What exactly are you going to do to make sure they don't target Americans like this?

Well, first of all, if you remember when I took over, we had a guy named Comey. He was there. I didn't put him there. I didn't want him there. I thought he was terrible actually. And he tried to get me and I reversed it. Some people said he cost Hillary the election and he didn't want to, but he was a bad guy. Not a capable guy. Evil, an evil guy. They were doing things that... I mean, I won't mention here because it's so conspiratorial. I don't want to be conspiratorial. It's too nice a show, but bad guy. I fired him. Then I fired Stroke and Paige and this one and that. Well, I got rid of that whole group of people and we were doing great. We were real. And in other places too. Pete knows better than anybody. The Veterans Administration, at the end of my term, we had a 92% approval rating. It was at 40 when we took it over. Pete used to call up just as somebody that we knew each other a little bit through this stuff and he'd complain about things. He'd also complain about soldiers being treated unfairly. A soldier is trained to be a soldier and some of these guys are tough, and if we didn't have them, we wouldn't have a country, frankly. And then they get into a fight and it's nasty and they win and then they want to lock them up for 30 years. And we took care of a lot of people, a lot, and it was just unfair. They trained them to be killers and then they do their job against some very bad people. I'm not saying good people. I'm saying they beat some very bad people. If you didn't have guys like the ones that we know, they wouldn't last very long and then they want to lock them up for 30 years. (22:49) They train them to do their job, they do their job and then they say, "Let's lock them up." Look, it's a very interesting question, and I say it and it sounds beautiful, right? My revenge will be success, and I mean that, but it's awfully hard when you see what they've done. These people are so evil, and at the same time, the country can come together. I'm saying this, but the country can come together. (23:13) During my term, prior to COVID, we had the most successful country we've ever had. Everybody's jobs, Hispanic, black, Asian, women, men without a diploma, men with MIT, Wharton and Harvard diplomas. All of them put together. Everybody was making more money, doing better than they've ever done before. And radical left people, I would call them radical left, were coming up to me and say, "Could we meet?" It was coming together and then we had COVID. (23:42) Our gift from China came. Out of Wuhan, like I said, remember I told you that a long time ago. Never changed. It was the Wuhan lab. They made a mistake, and by the way, it was incompetence. He walked out to have lunch with his girlfriend and the scene was set. It was a disaster. Okay, what happened. But we did a great job. Never got credit for that. Always got credit for a good economy, for taking out [inaudible 00:24:06], taking out Al Baghdadi. I defeated ISIS. ISIS was going to take five years at least, and they don't think... Matty said, "Sir, we'll take at least five years." I got it done in like three months. I defeated ISIS. Our military is so great, the real generals, the guys that know how to fight. One of the things that I hated to see, and I think one of the lowest points in the history of our country was Afghanistan. (24:29) The way that happened. And I dealt with Abdul, the leader of the Taliban, and I had conversations with him on the phone and frankly the media went crazy. Why is she speaking to... It's like I always say, Jesse James, why do you rob the banks? That's where the money is. That's where the killing was. That's where the snipers were with Abdul and I had some nice conversations. We didn't lose one person in 18 months, and then they took over and they were killing us, like Abdul was a very happy man when I was out. And then they had that disaster, the leaving of Afghanistan, the way they left. We were going to leave, but we were going to keep Bagram, which is one of the biggest air bases and the world, costs us billions and billions of dollars to build many years ago, but we were going to leave because of China. Because it's one hour away from where China makes it... Forget about Afghanistan. It's exactly right next to China. It's exactly one hour away from where they make their nuclear weapons. Isn't that a great thing? Now we're going to keep it, going to leave 4,000 people and keep it and keep it strong. They gave it up. They gave up everything, and they moved the military out first. You move the military out last. I always say I give a child of five years old. I say, okay. No, those are the facts. Would you move the military out first or would you move? First, we would've taken our people out. Then we would've taken some people that helped us. Shouldn't be too many. I mean, how many people can you take? Nevertheless, there were people that helped us take them out. But we have Americans left behind. We have 13 dead soldiers. Incredible. The parents largely, they came here shortly after that and we're going to have them back too. (26:11) We sat, they said, "Well, we won't see President Trump. He'll come maybe for a couple of minutes." I stayed with them for four hours. We listened to music up in the deck. It was beautiful. It was just nice. They're great people. They're devastated. That would've never happened. We would've left with dignity and strength and then you take out your equipment. They left $85 billion worth of equipment. I rebuilt the entire military. $85 billion of it was left in Afghanistan, and they're one of the biggest of the Taliban, they're one of the biggest sellers of military equipment now. Well, in the whole world, I think they're number two because they're selling... Because they don't need 730,000 rifles. They have 730,000. I mean, I don't know what... We go to fight a war. What did they do? What? 37 rifles for every soldier we have, it's crazy, but we had 730 some odd thousand rifles, and then we had 72,000 vehicles. (27:03) Many of them armor plated, you know how expensive with four inch armor, four inch like this on the bottom. They sell all that stuff. They're one of the largest because they don't need all of it. They can keep instead of... Think of what 72,000 vehicles is. If you take the biggest used parking lot, used car lot in Texas, think Texas, they have big... They probably have what? 500 cars here. We have 70,000. 70,000 and many are armor plated. They know how to make the armor where it goes like this because the bombs are so powerful. [inaudible 00:27:44] taken out, it is so powerful. But what that was doing was killing everybody on the side of it because it was going like that. So it's a tough thing, but some of these things cost millions of dollars and we left it all behind.

I want to follow up on what Rachel asked you though, because I hear you struggling with it. I hear you say it's a tough question, a bit unsure. You famously said regarding Hillary Clinton, "Lock her up." You declined to do that as president, but now-

And purposely because after I won, it's different when you win. I say it tonight. I'm going to UFC with Dana White and I see fighters. They come in with hatred like you wouldn't believe it. It's amazing. It's a little metaphor in life, right? The hatred. They hate each. Then after the fight, somebody wins, somebody loses. Sometimes they get knocked out, sometimes it's... But they hug and they kiss each other. It's like crazy. I beat her. It's easier when you win. And they all said, "Lock her." And I could have done it, but I felt it would've been a terrible thing. And then this happened to me, and so I may feel differently about it. I can't tell you. I'm not sure I can answer the question. Hillary Clinton, I didn't say lock her up, but the people say, "Lock her up. Lock her up." (28:56) Then we won. And I said pretty openly. I'd say, "All right, come on, just relax. Let's go. We got to make our country great." And it would've been, think of it, you lock up the wife of a President of the United States-

But they want to lock you up over $130,000 of an accounting thing. And she-

And a perfectly stated accounting thing, success will bring the country together because I had it together. Before the China virus came in, I had it together. We really had it together. And it would have stayed. I think it would have stayed. Everybody was doing better. The country was doing better than it had ever done, and we're going back to those same policies and then some. One of the bigger differences, I know before I won. I was in Washington, the press says about 17 times, I never stayed over. So I wasn't a Washington person and I relied on people for recommendations and I got a lot of great ones. Look, we had great... The economics, Bob [inaudible 00:29:58]. There so many people. We had great people, but we also had some that I wouldn't have put... I don't have to use their names, but that I wouldn't have put. (30:04) Now I know them all. I know the tough ones and the weak ones and the smart ones and the dumb ones, and we know the strong ones. And so I think it's going to be very good and we're ready to go. But the country is really going bad. When you look at all these people, millions of people coming into this country, I really think other than nuclear weapons, which I think are the single biggest threat, not global warming. When they say that the seas will rise over the next 400 years one eighth of an inch, which means basically you have a little more beachfront property, okay? Think of it, the seas are going to rise, who knows? But this is the big threat. I watched Biden the other night. It's the greatest existential... He loves that word because it's a big word, and he thinks he knows. (30:49) He doesn't even know what the hell the word means. He goes, "It's the greatest existential threat to our country, global warming." In the meantime, you get these maniacs with nuclear weapons that can do damage, which I won't even talk to you about, but I know the damage. It's the greatest... There has never been anything like it. The power of weaponry today, it will be obliteration, and that's your real threat. But in terms of our country, a real threat are the people that are coming in, that are being allowed to come in.

And we're going to move on to some other topics too, but just moving forward, they've set the arraignment date for four days before the RNC.

Yeah, well, that's part of the game.

It is. Some have suggested you could appeal straight to the Supreme Court because of the special nature of this case. When it comes to the legal maze that you're still facing, and the judge could decide to say, "Hey, house arrest or even jail."

One of my lawyers the other day on television saying, "Oh no, you don't want to do that to the..." I said, "You don't beg for anything, just the way it is. Think of it." They have all my books. For five years, they sued me getting my tax returns. At the end of five years, they got them. The Supreme Court actually gave it to them. That was the end of it. That was it. They never found anything. They hired the best accounting firms. I had a pure gold firm. They call it a gold rated firm. I don't know. It's supposed to be... Who knows. But with all that stuff, for years, you heard about my tax-

And no one looked into the Clinton Foundation.

And they never went all the way with the Clinton Foundation. They never went all the way with the Clinton Foundation, which is sort of interesting, isn't it? So that could happen. I don't know that the public would stand it. I'm not sure the public would stand for it with a-

You're saying if they tried house arrest or-

I think it would be tough for the public to take. At a certain point, there's a breaking point. It's very funny. I watched the radical left and I watched the right, and everyone's always talking about the right, this side, the right, the right, the right's not the problem. When you look at Portland, when you look at what happened in Minneapolis, if I didn't call out the National Guard, which I wasn't even supposed to, because the governors are supposed to call them, I'm not. You wouldn't even have Minneapolis right there. Minneapolis would be wiped off. Remember the CNN anchor? I think it was Velshi. He's standing there. This is a friendly protest. This is very friendly. And then somebody hit him on the knee.

Mostly peaceful. Is that what he-

Yeah, mostly peaceful. This is friendly. This is a mostly... And you look behind him, the entire city's burned. It was like the Second World War. The whole city's burning, the fire behind him. And he's talking about this, this is friendly. This is a friendly protest. That's exactly right. No, it's crazy. What's going on is crazy. Don't forget, I got millions of more votes the second time than I got the first time. Very rare. Obama got millions less and he won. I got millions. I got 63 million the first time. I got millions more close to 12 million more that we know about. That's there. That's those... They said if you get 63, this is McLaughlin for [inaudible 00:34:03]. The big pollsters, good pollsters. They said, "If you could get the same number, you win." I got millions more. Very rarely does a president get more. They win or they lose, but they don't get very rarely get more. (34:13) Obama got a lot less. He got a lot less the second time. And he went, it's so bad for our country, and I wouldn't have done this. And then I had good Republicans running and we took... It was the fastest nomination in history. I got it very fast. In theory, it just ends like this weekend. You'd find out a normal thing. You'd find out this weekend who would win. And I got it. I won it months ago against good competition.

You wrapped it up pretty quick. So this interview's going really fast, and I know we have a bunch of other questions. So can we go and we'll keep our answers short so we can get to it. Okay. So I'm going to start with this one. Americans have lost a lot of trust in institutions, and I think there's been a lot of discussion, especially online and especially with young people. How do we rebuild that trust in institutions, the CIA, the FBI, all those institutions?

You're right.

Some people think that one way to build trust is to declassify things that everyone's talking about. I know you talked earlier about I don't want to be a conspiracy theorist. So if you were president, would you declassify? You can answer yes or no to these.

Yeah.

Would you declassify the 9/11 files?

Yeah.

Would you declassify JFK files?

Yeah, I did a lot of it.

Would you declassify the Epstein files?

Yeah. Yeah, I would.

All right.

I guess I would. I think that less so because you don't want to affect people's lives if it's phony stuff in there, because it's a lot of phony stuff with that whole world. But I think I would, or at least-

You think that would restore trust, help restore trust?

I don't know about Epstein so much as I do the others, certainly about the way he died. It'd be interesting to find out what happened there, because that was a weird situation and the cameras didn't happen to be working, et cetera, et cetera. But I'd go a long way toward that one. The other stuff, I would. I would definitely do the January 6th because... Oh, all of them. Because what happened? How about the unselect committee? They had meetings, they had all Democrats and two failed Republicans, right? Cheney and crying Adam Kinsinger. See, Biden couldn't do this interview. Do you think he'd remember crying? Adam Kinsinger? Do you think he'd remember these different names, these different folks? And I didn't know you were going to be talking about this, but can you imagine the whole thing is crazy. What we're doing, what we're going on. I got to know that leaders of all the countries, and they're at the top of their game. (36:39) They're very sharp, they're vicious. That's why they're doing so well, Honduras, all of them. I know every one of them. And they're very streetwise people. You know that better than anybody. They're streetwise and they're smart and they love their country, or they want to do a good job for their country or themselves, doesn't matter because whatever it is, and they're moving all of their bad people into our country. And Venezuela just reported that their crime is down 72% in a year. You know why? Because they moved all their criminals into the United States. And the next time we do an interview, we'll do it in Venezuela because it'll be much safer than being in our country.

Well, you've brought up deportations in this interview. How can you implement deportations and do you think the public will have the appetite, the stomach, for watching deportations on their television screen?

Well, the second part of that question is so great and so tough because the radical left is going to start saying, oh, look. So you'll get rid of 10 really bad ones and one beautiful mother who they think is guilty of something, and maybe she is, maybe, and it'll become a story or a family that's a good family and came in wrong and they're going to show it, then it's going to always be tough. It's not going to be easy, and we have to use a lot of good judgment. But the way you get rid of them is a local police. The local police know these people by their first name, their middle name, and their last name. The local police are great. They're just not allowed to do their job. They're afraid of losing their pension. They're afraid of losing their wife or a husband. (38:16) They're going to lose their house. They're losing everything. And one of the things I'm doing is giving local police immunity from prosecution, to get a prosecutor. When they do their job, they get like your soldiers, when they do their job, when they watch department stores being raided by 500 people, where guys are walking out with television sets and they're told to stand back. They're told to stand back, do not do anything. And they go into these stores, these big stores that have opened two years ago, and they spent $25 million to build a store. And the stores are empty down to the shelves. They even take the shelves out. They take everything. And the cops are sitting there. They don't want to be standing there. They want to do their job. You know who's great? The border patrol. The border patrol, I know him so well. They endorsed me. (39:05) They always endorsed me. They said, "When Trump comes back, it'll all be better." And Biden, by the way, he doesn't need any legislation. He could say the word close the border. That's what I did. I said, "Close the border." And it was so bad that it took a little while. I fixed the border originally. That's how I got elected in a way. But now the borders, and I fixed it, and I couldn't even use it in 2020. In 2016, it was a big factor of my win. I fixed it very quickly. And then in 2020, it was so good. I said, "Let me talk about the border. My people over here, all these geniuses said, please, sir, don't talk about the border. It's fixed." I said, "Let's talk about it." But nobody wants to hear about it. But now the border is a hundred times worse than it was in 2016.

Yes.

And you mentioned those... Will asked about deportations, and you mentioned local authorities having more power. What do you do in sanctuary? Because so much of that is

They can't even talk to ICE, let alone work with ICE. If you're going to deport 5, 7, 10 million illegals, it's going to require a lot of them.

Do you know, the people and even the politicians don't want sanctuary cities? They really don't. I've spoken to many people in California and they're fed up. They're fed up. They can't take it anymore. They don't want it. Even liberal Democrats, they don't want it anymore. You have to end sanctuary cities. I mean, they're guarding criminals. They're guarding people that are killing people, and you can't get to them. (40:32) And guys like Gavin New-scum, he's a disaster. He's running it so badly. It's so badly run. And I watched him on Sean Hannity Show, with that debate, and he'll talk like everything's wonderful, "It's great. Go California." It's not. It's doing terribly. It's doing terribly. But somebody has to call him out. They have to call them out. But the job of sanctuary cities, it's just so horrible for our country.

I have another question on the border.

Yeah.

So, in just this fiscal year, 2024, there's been 74,000 unaccompanied children that have come across the border.

Yeah.

In 2023, get this number, 137,275, you know, you've seen the images of these children, 5, 7 years old, 9 years old, 12 years old, and the Joe Biden administration has lost 80,000 of them. No one can track. No one knows where they're at.

At least. Yeah, much more.

At least. There's probably more, but at least. Will the Trump administration commit to finding these children? To finding them and returning them to their families, to their countries? Because many of them have been lost into sex trafficking.

Many of them are dead. You know that.

It's heartbreaking.

No, it's heartbreaking. It's amazing.

Will you commit to that? Will you commit to finding those children-

Yeah, I would do that. Sure. I haven't been asked that question, but the answer is yes. It's a simple answer. Many of them are dead.

I know.

They have done such a bad job. They have done such a bad job. And they go under the guise that they're doing this wonderful job of letting people come in. You know what's also really bad? The caravans. I think I came up with that name a long time ... But where you form 25, 30, 40,000 people coming up. The level of abuse and just anger and craziness toward women.

Yes.

I mean, the caravans, the mothers put their daughters in those caravans knowing in many cases, the daughter's not coming back. Knowing for almost certainty that the daughter's going to be raped.

Yes.

Do you know? They give them large bottles of birth control pills to mothers, because they know they're going to be raped on the way up all the time.

I know. It's unconscionable.

No, the whole thing is incredible. And Biden thinks he's doing a favor by allowing ... And the only reason they have the caravans is because I ended it all. People weren't getting in. We had the lowest number ever, the final week ... The lowest number that we've ever had, recorded number, of illegal immigration. I had it down. (43:01) [inaudible 00:43:04] caravans anymore. You had them when I came in. You didn't have them anymore. It was really good. All he had to do was go to the beach and let my people do the job. Just let them stay. And remain in Mexico. I had a policy, do you think that was easy to get? Will, getting remain in Mexico from the president, who's a great guy. He's actually a great guy, but he likes Mexico. He doesn't like us. Okay? Tijuana was a mess. Tijuana had to be the fastest growing city. They had hundreds of thousands of ... They couldn't come into our country until we approved them, and we didn't approve too many of them. Very seldom did we approve, anyway. But they gave up all that stuff that I had. Catch and release. I called it catch and release in Mexico. We catch and release in this country. We'd catch a killer, know that he's a killer and release him in our country. I mean, who would do this? Who would allow this? (43:56) So, we ran a great thing. If he went to the beach because somebody convinced him that he looks good in a bathing suit, and at 81 or 82, typically you don't look too great. And he didn't have the power to lift those chairs. You know those chairs weigh about six ounces? They're meant for children and old people to carry, and he can't carry it. Anyway.

Let's talk about vice president. Pete and I have gone off the wall. We've talked about historically, presidents pick vice presidents based upon what states they can deliver.

Sure.

We've talked about the fact that you're looking for ... It seems to be that you might be looking for a fighter. Let's just ask you directly, what are you looking for in a vice president?

So, you always have to say, and I mean it, is if something should happen to the president, you have to get somebody can be a good president. Okay? And I think you have to say that. Then the second thing, I want somebody that can selfishly help me to get elected. (44:46) But typically, if you look over the years, look back 100 years, it's almost never that a vice president helps the ... I mean, you're out there all by yourself. You really are. There's a day or two of hoopla, you picked a vice president, and then it goes back. But it's almost never helped. Actually, the one person that helped, I guess, you could say is Lyndon Johnson, because he was a real political animal and he sort of helped a little bit politically with daily, et cetera, et cetera, I guess. But that's a theory anyway. But typically a vice president doesn't help. So, I would say, somebody that you can get along with, somebody that can help you get elected, and first is, somebody that can be a very good president.

Did you learn any lessons from the last person you picked, that will help you either pick or not pick somebody in the next time?

Yeah. I feel badly for Mike because he was a very nice person. I got along with him for, I'd say, three years and 11 months.

Debate's coming up on June 27th.

Yeah.

How do you prepare for that? I mean, you've stated it, Joe Biden's in a different place. What's your strategy coming into it?

So, debates are interesting because I had never debated before, and then I debated a lot in the first ... In 2016, I had 14 debates or something. I mean, it's been good for me. It's been worked. I think I won every debate, but I never had ... It was very interesting. In 2016, I said, "Who are these people I'm debating?" Half of them I never heard of because they're governors from someplace or they're senators. I said, "Start with Ted Cruz." And they said, "Well, he's the national debate champion. He's the, this, he's the that." And I said, "That's not good news. That's not good." I mean, I could have done with a little bit less, maybe I should have started with somebody else. (46:39) But they're talented politicians. I mean, for the most part, they're politicians. Very interesting, in running for president, 92% were politicians and 8% were generals, not admirals, right? Generals. And that's it. So, all of a sudden, I'm going in as a business guy and different kind of a guy. But we had great four years. We were very successful. I mean, the largest tax cuts in history. We had the largest regulation cuts in history. We had the best economy in history. We rebuilt our military. We had no wars. I defeated ISIS.

But since you've been out of office, things have deteriorated, and we've talked a little bit about that.

At a level that's not even believable.

And I think most people agree with you on that. One of the areas that I want to talk about, and it's related to the border, but it's much bigger than that. And that's the problem of China taking over the Western Hemisphere. So, we've had an 8,000% increase coming over the border of Chinese military men. I'd like to know your thoughts on what you think they're doing here. They're buying up farmland. But then in Latin America, they're making deals with governments. We're not doing the deals. They're buying up infrastructure. They're buying up resources. They're taking over the Western Hemisphere.

They're taking over the Panama Canal.

So, what would-

How about the Panama Canal?

It's crazy.

That we built and lost 36,000 people to the mosquitoes. 36, 000 people died.

Yeah. So, because there's a lot of people worried about the entire hemisphere now. I mean, we used to worry about things over far away. This is in our hemisphere. What will you do to stop all the things that are happening, from the farmland to all the ways that they're winning in the Western ... In our backyard?

Okay. So, if you remember with China, I turned it around. First of all, I exposed China because everyone was giving everything-

I know.

... "Oh, it's a developing nation." I said, "This is not a ... We're a developing nation. They're a very rich nation. They're doing very well." But I turned things. I also got along very well with President Xi, but I did something that nobody did. I charged him hundreds of billions of dollars of tariffs. We would've lost our steel industry. We would've lost every ... I mean, they had to pay hundreds, close to $500 billion in tariffs. And that was all turning around. (48:54) And we have tremendous power with respect to China, but we don't have people that know anything about using it. I had a great relationship, but had the election been different, we wouldn't have had fentanyl coming in. I was with Xi, and we just had a very good relationship. He was at Mar-a-Lago for three days. It was amazing. We had a good ... Now, I don't want to act naive. These characters out there and they'll say, "Oh, look, he loves China, or likes it, or at least wants to run it very strongly." Right? (49:29) It was very interesting. I said, "No, he's a smart guy." Is he a smart guy? Of course, he's a smart guy. He's a brilliant guy. The press said, "He called Xi brilliant." Look, he runs 1.4 billion people with an iron hand. No, he's not brilliant, okay? They want me to say he's not a brilliant man. He's a very tough guy. He's a fierce person. He's a fierce person. When he sees Biden, he can't believe it. Okay? Can't believe it. He says, "What the hell?" I think he thinks that they're playing a joke on them. (49:55) But what's happening is we have tremendous power over China. Right now, we have the largest deficit we've ever had with China, over a trillion dollars. That means they're taking in more than a ... Think of how bad that is. Too much. You can't sustain that. But we have tremendous power over China. China built their military because of us. They built all this. They took so much money out of our country. We have great power over China. We can get along with China. I will get along with China. But they respected your president. They really did. He respected me. And they don't respect this guy at all. Nobody does. Nobody does. (50:33) I mean, you take a look at what's going on in Ukraine. You take a look at what's going on with Israel. You take a look at all this stuff. It's just the whole world is out of control. So, Viktor Orban, prime minister of Hungary, is a very tough guy. He's known as a strong man. They always say, "Oh, you like strong men." I like strong men, weak men. I don't care. He's just a smart guy and tough. He didn't take illegal immigrants. He said, "I want Hungarians in my country. I don't need to have my shopping centers blown up." He's make little statements like that. (51:08) But the European Union wasn't exactly thrilled with him, and they asked him recently, they said, "What has to be done to straighten out the world? The whole world is blowing up." He said, "One simple thing, elect Donald Trump as president. When he was president, China behaved. Russia behaved. Everybody behaved." Don't forget, I stopped ... You probably never even, even you guys, Nord Stream 2 was a pipeline being built. Nobody ever heard of it except me. When I got in, I stopped it. Russia couldn't have their pipeline serving Germany. (51:37) I said to Germany, "So, we're taking care of you with NATO, and then you're giving them ... The people that we're defending you against, you're paying billions of dollars a month for oil and gas." I said, "This doesn't sound right. The whole thing is crazy." And I terminated the pipeline. It was dead. And this guy came in and let them build it, but the Russian pipeline was dead. And yet, I got along very well with Putin. But you got to be careful with Putin because Putin, I'm watching him and he's doing things now that aren't good, that aren't good, and he's dealing with somebody that has no clue how to play the game. This guy has no clue. It's a very serious problem, very serious problem.

Yeah. It's a dangerous world.

Let's talk about that in reference to Ukraine then. You've said often, "We wouldn't be in this situation if I were president." But we are now in this situation. If you were president again, how do you deal with Ukraine? How do you deal with Putin?

I think I deal very well with him. We're in a much weaker position because he's winning. I mean, look, we can be nice. I asked Orban, I said, "Who's winning?" If you watch the fake news, you think ... Although, even they aren't saying it now, because the spring offensive never happens. The spring offensive was the opposite. Okay? But I said, "Who's winning?" He said, "They are." He said, "They're a warring nation. They've fought Napoleon. They fought Hitler. Ukraine is a very small country by comparison with far fewer people. They're running out of soldiers." (53:14) And I would get together ... I get along very well with Zelenskyy, because don't forget, he was very honorable with impeachment hoax number one. They're all hoaxes. Everything they do is a hoax. Have impeachment hoax number one, impeachment hoax number two, I won both of them very easily. But unlike Richard Nixon, who didn't get impeached, he left before the impeachment. His greatest regret, by the way, is that he didn't stay and fight. You know that? His greatest regret. You know, he never fought? He wasn't impeached. He was told he was going to be impeached and he never stayed. But the Republicans liked me more than they liked him. (53:49) Zelenskyy was great because Zelenskyy, they called him and they said, "When you had the big magic phone conference..." Think of the phone conversations in Washington. And here I am, I got a call from one of my secretaries, "Could you call him and congratulate him on his victory?" Meaning, he'd just got elected president. And I didn't do it. I didn't do it. I didn't do it. After 10 times, I said, "Oh, I'll call him." Thanks, I got impeached. You know who that was? Rick Perry, another genius, greatest debater ever, right? Rick Perry and his debating skills.

Yeah.

He calls me up and he says, "Could you call him?" Now, he meant it well, because he liked the energy. I think it was the energy and stuff. So, I called him up. And when they called him and they asked him, "Were you threatened by Trump?" He could have done a grandstand and said, "Yes, I felt it was very threatening." Now, fortunately, the call was taped. If the call wasn't taped, I might not be talking you right now, unless we're talking about a real estate project somewhere. Somehow you don't cover them very big on your show. (54:56) But the call was taped and it was a perfect call. In fact, when the Democrats heard it was taped, they had already started the impeachment. They died. When Nancy Pelosi heard that call, she said, "he didn't do anything wrong." But that call, fortunately, was taped, meaning they had stenographers, two military stenographers who were incredible, and they had every word of it down, and it was a lie. The whole thing was a lie. But when they called Zelenskyy, he could have said, "Yes, I was threatened." And he didn't say that. He said, "No, that was a very nice call." He said, "Nothing wrong." That was very nice. So, I have a warm spot.

Have we given him too much money?

Yes, we gave him too much. Well, you just delay-

Yeah. People are mad about it.

You said you could end it on day one, how would you do that?

I said I could end it. Before I get to the White House, I expect to end it. I think I can end it very quickly. I get along very well with Putin, and I get along with Zelenskyy, and I would get them in a room and I would get it ended.

Good.

I'd get it ended. And I have an exact plan as to how, but I can't tell you that. I can't tell you about, "Let me tell you exactly. Let me lay out my cards." No. I will get it ended.

Rachel mentioned the amount of money which turns the economy. We're $34 trillion in debt. We've printed money we don't have. That's led to massive inflation. How do you change that and turn that around to average Americans out there who are struggling every single day, worse and worse under Joe Biden's economy?

Yeah. So, we were doing great. We were energy independent. We were soon going to be energy dominant. I didn't want the Russian pipeline to be built because of the fact, very simple, I wanted to supply them with the energy. The whole thing was all ... We're going to make a fortune. We have more liquid gold than any country in the world, including Saudi Arabia. And then, I do ANWR in Alaska, which is the biggest find. It's as big as Saudi Arabia. Some people say it's bigger. And Biden closes it up in his first week. The Department of Interior, the woman, the person in charge closed it in her first day in office. Ronald Reagan tried to get it. He couldn't get it. Everybody tried to get it, Bush. I got it. And they close it up, but I'm got to re-institute it very quickly. It'll happen very fast. (57:06) But think of it. So, we were rocking and rolling. We were energy independent. We were soon going to be double the size. We were in third place, and even beyond that, when I took over, we were leading. You have to see a graph, Russia, Saudi Arabia above them, Russia second, we're third. And then, we go like this ... I mean, we were going to be energy dominant. We were doing things ... The way you have to solve it is through growth-

But also, cutting. Right, Mr. President?

Yes. Growth and cutting. The problem I had is we were starting to really rock and roll. We had the greatest economy ever and then we got hit with COVID. And if I didn't throw money at COVID, we would've had a depression like in 1929. And if I don't win, you're going to have a depression like in 1929. I'll just say, Scott, one of the greatest analysts on Wall Street, considered maybe the best. He said, "The only reason the stock market high is because they think Trump is going to win."

Listen, I think that one of your strongest points is that you're a businessman and people love that you ran this country like a business. And I believe that if you got in office, you will get the oil pipes going again, we'll get energy going, and I believe that we will grow.

Very correctly.

But it's really hard when you're a politician to cut. Your friend, Milei, in Argentina. He cut whole agencies and now they went from 25% growth per month in inflation down to 8% per month. So, it works. Are you willing to-

You know, he's MAGA. You know that?

I know he is. He's your friend. That's why I brought it up.

No, he's my biggest fan.

He's a great guy.

Make Argentina great again. It works out perfectly, right? No, that's what he calls it. He says he has hats, make Argentina great again.

But he's cut agencies. Are you willing to make those kinds of dramatic cuts? Because I really think, we have young kids, all of us, I think their futures are on the line. I mean, as he said, $34 trillion in debt. I think that means we're paying almost a trillion dollars in interest-

I'll give you an example.

... is it every month?

You mentioned-

Every year. Every year. Every year.

You mentioned the kids. So, we're going to cut the Department of Education, let it be run locally. We have this mess-

You mean, end the Department of Education, federal Department of Education?

End it. End it. Other than to have a little tiny coordination. It'd be nice to make sure that everybody's-

Yeah. Small office.

... teaching English.

Yeah.

Let them learn English. Okay?

I love this.

But no, no, we're cutting the Department of Education.

I love it.

I was ready to do it before. And then again, the COVID really ... If we didn't throw money at that, you would've had a depression. We would've been in a depression. And when I got out, the stock market was higher than when ... Just before COVID came in. We're going to be doing-

So, that would be the first department you're going to cut?

Oh, that's going to happen immediately.

I love it.

Department of Education.

We're going to do ... Like, Department of Interior. There's so many things you can do. One of the things that's so bad for us is the environmental agencies. They make it impossible to do anything. And so, in Louisiana, they had these massive refineries,

... LNG plants, but massive, essentially refineries. 14, 15 years they've been trying to get permits. I got it done in one day. One day, I got the permit. Don't tell anybody, please. I didn't know who the hell was doing it. And by the way, they're like $20 billion. They're massive. These are like the Empire State Building laid down times two on its side, all pipes. I mean, it's unbelievable. On the coast, in Louisiana, and I got those things. The first one I got done in 24 hours. They worked on it for 14 years and it was terrible what they were doing. The environmental agencies, they stop you from doing business in this country, and we did a great job.

It's a war on Americans.

We asked viewers of Fox and Friends Weekend to submit some questions to ask you. We'd love to ask you a few of these questions on their behalf. I'll start with Lisa in Florida. She says, "Which Democrat, dead or alive, would you sit down for dinner with to discuss ways to unify our country?"

So he's not a Democrat anymore, but I used to get along really well with Joe Manchin. I got along with him and we'd meet a lot. He said, "You're doing a great job. You're a great president." And when this impeachment hoax started happening, he said, "I'll never vote against you." And then he voted against me. I never spoke to him again, but that was one that I sat down. I'd sit down with anybody frankly. I want to unify the country.

Laura from Nebraska said, "I'm the mother of two Army officers. What are you going to do to rebuild our military?" And I would add to that, rip out the woke stuff that's happening. All the US and the service members see it's embedded in our Pentagon right now.

You know the military better than anybody. I'd put him in charge. I really would. I often think of it.

He'd do a great job.

I talked to him about it a little bit. We talked about-

We wouldn't let go of him easily.

We ended up doing good.

Don't take him.

The show has to do worse. If the show does worse, if I see the ratings go down, I'm going to steal him. I'll steal all of you, frankly. But no, he would be unbelievable at defense. He would be unbelievable at defense or at the VA. They did a good job though. They ended up doing a good job.

They're trying to undo a lot of that stuff.

They were undoing it.

Yes, they are.

We did two things. Number one, I got the right to fire people. We fired 9,000 sadists and horrible people. These people are sick. The other thing I got where if you couldn't get good service, you go out, and Pete was driving me crazy about this. We know each other a little bit, but we know each other only in a positive way. He would call up and say, "Soldiers are waiting for three and four months to see a doctor." They couldn't say it. And I got it actually approved through Congress. And now what they're doing is they're ending that. Think of going to the hospital or the doctor with your kids. Your husband, who's great, by the way. He's great. He'd fit into this panel very well.

He's right there.

Where is he? Oh, look at him. Oh, I saw a guy with a pink shirt. I didn't look up. And I knew he would never wear a pink shirt. Wow, good. I'm glad I said the right thing. He is, he's great. He's a great champion. He climbs his trees for-

I want to ask you what Rena in Liberty, Maine asks. By the way, your sleep schedule, your diet, these are things of legend. So she asks, "President Trump, what is the very first thing you do every morning?"

I don't sleep a lot. I don't say that as a badge of courage. A lot of people don't sleep and they maybe do. I rarely eat breakfast. It's funny. I love food, but I'm too anxious. I really enjoy life. It's crazy. I shouldn't enjoy life. I get indicted. I get impeached. Somebody said, "How do you live?" You know the most often question I get? Two questions. Number one, I get, "Will they do it again?" You know what that means? Very ominous. I said, "They're going to try because they can't help themselves. They're bad, but we hope we're going to have them blocked." Okay. The other question is, "How do you do it? How do you stand up? And you get impeached. You get indicted, you get this, you get convicted of bullshit." And they say, "How do you do it?" (01:04:18) You see the cars out here. You see the biggest people all over, the biggest people on Wall Street. They say, "How do you do it? How do you do it?" They get a letter from the SEC that's a friendly civil letter and they can't sleep for two weeks. They say, "How do you do it?" And that's one I've never been able to answer. I don't know. The reason I think I can do that is because I know how great this country can be, and it's so big. It's such an important thing that I'm doing. I enjoy doing it. I have obstacles. These obstacles. It would be so nice not to have a phony Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. Look at the Russia, Russia, Russia scam. It was just a scam. For two years, it went on. And you want to do business with Russia, make a lot of money, it's good. (01:05:05) And now the worst thing happened. Russia has been forced into the arms of China. This is something that if you're 10 years old studying history, you learn, never let Russia and China get together. Well, between Obama and Biden, they forced Russia. I had an opposite problem. I had the hoax going on. It was harder for me. I'd say to Putin, he would actually say to me, he said, "We could make wonderful deals for our countries, but it's very tough." I said, "It's very tough for me because if I made a deal, they'd say, oh, the Russia deal, the Russia hoax, he loves Putin and all that stuff." So we understood it, but we got along very well. We had a very good relationship.

And the Ukraine war has obviously brought Russia and China together, closer, right?

It's an axis. It's a new axis. It's also brought Iran into the picture and it's brought a little bit North Korea back into the picture. I got along great with him, Kim Jong Un. And when I went to meet him, remember the famous couple of meetings, I got along great with him. I know him quite well and he's a very smart guy. They hate when I say that. But we had it going so good, and now all these people that are against us, it's become like a partnership and a lot of bad things are happening. The Taiwan situation. You can give them a couple of more minutes, fellas. That's all right. Okay. Somebody's saying to end it. We'll give them a couple of more minutes. Okay?

Thank you.

For sure, in honor of [inaudible 01:06:37]. When you look at what's happening now, the whole world is lining up against us and our allies are getting very weak for us. They're no longer for us, but watch what's happening with China and Taiwan. That's a big deal. It's a big deal.

May I follow up?

Please.

Talk to us about you just love life and you care about this country. The people who ask you, "Why do you do this? How can you do this?." Not to mention the rally after rally, the energy. But maybe the question isn't how do you do this over and over, but how does your family do this? All the obstacles. These are things you care about, your ambitions for the country. What about everybody around you?

So I think in many ways it's tougher on them than is on me. They're good people, all of them. Everyone. Everyone. I have a wonderful wife who has to listen to this stuff all the time. They do that for this reason. They do that, all these salacious names that they put in of these people, and I'm not even allowed to defend myself because of a gag order. Think of it. But they put this stuff in to create havoc. These are bad people. I know everything they doing. I know every move they make. I get it, but a lot of people don't. But I think in many ways, it's tougher on my family than is in me. You know my sons. They're great and they work hard, and Don's become pretty right. And they went after this young guy, Don. All he wanted to do was help the country. And he's been in federal grand juries and things at the beginning for hours and hours about Russia. Think of it. (01:08:18) I'll never forget, Adam Schiff, who's a real sleazebag, probably will become a senator. It's hard to believe, but a real sleazebag. He comes out of a meeting, an intelligence meeting, and he says... Now, think of how bad you are. You make up with Hillary and the others. He knew it was a hoax. Russia, Russia, Russia. So he knew it was a hoax. Comes out and he looks very solemn, watermelon head with the thinnest neck I've ever seen. He's not going to be a football player. His neck is holding up this massive watermelon. But he comes in. This is one of the more unattractive people. I know you're not supposed to say that, so that's okay. I'll be out of politics. (01:08:54) But he comes out, no stupid guy. And he says, with such dignity, "Donald Trump Junior will go to jail because of what he's done with Russia." There is no Russia, Russia, Russia deal. And he's saying that my son, who's a young guy, is going to go to jail. And I call my son and I'm watching this. It's a big headline. Schiff predicts... Remember when he said he has all this info? He had nothing because the kid didn't know anything about Russia. He knew less about Russia than your husband knows, unless they had any trees in Russia that you'd climb. So Donald Trump Junior will go to jail because of what he's done with Russia, and he knows it's a hoax. He's talking about a young man going to jail about something that he knows is a hoax. How bad do you have to be? (01:09:47) And I call him up. I say, "Don, are you okay?" "Yeah, I don't know what they're saying." He didn't even know. He didn't have any idea what was going on. It's a shame. And he became tougher. Two things happen. You either become tougher or you go into a corner and you put your thumb in your mouth and you say, "Mommy, take me home." He chose not to do that.

Well, I'm glad that that's the case. And by the way, having come from a political family and my husband having run for office, what's happened to your family in particular, it just breaks my heart.

How's Melania doing with that?

She's fine, but I think it's very hard for her. She's fine, but she has to read all this crap, stuff that shouldn't even be put in the trial. The judge should have never allowed it to be in the trial and she has to read all this stuff.

What about Barron? People have started to focus on Barron recently.

He's amazing actually in a certain way. He's tall, good-looking guy. He's a very good student, and he's applied to colleges and gets into everywhere he goes. He's very sought-after from the standpoint he's a very smart guy. He's a very tall guy and he's a great kid. He's cool. He's pretty cool, I'll tell you. It's very interesting though. Colleges six months ago, you look at a college and you want a certain college, and then you see all of these colleges are rioting. And maybe you want to go to a different kind of a college, because there's plenty of colleges that we also like that are different and they don't riot.

This is Sharon from Alabama, and I think her question actually ties into what we were just talking about. How do you do this? And I know that you've said before that you've been sustained by the prayers of lots of Americans. I've seen pictures of people praying over you.

It's incredible actually.

Her question is, she says, "You've been faced with so much adversity and persecution for years. What's your relationship with God and how do you pray?" That's Sharon from Alabama.

Okay, so I think it's good. I do very well with the evangelicals. I love the evangelicals. And I have more people saying they pray for me. I can't even believe it. And they are so committed and they're so believing. They say, "Sir, you're going to be okay. I pray for you every night." I can't say everybody, but almost everybody that sees me, they say it. It's such a beautiful thing. You know what's a beautiful thing too? When you look at all of this bad stuff going on, they have nothing to look up to. They have no God. They have no anything. They kill people. They beat people. They push people into subways. There's just nothing there. Religion is such a great thing. There's something to be good about. You want to be good. It's so important. (01:12:37) And I don't know if it's explained right. I don't know if I'm explaining it right during now, but when you have something like that, you want to be good. You want to go to heaven. You want to go to heaven. If you don't have heaven, you almost say, "What's the reason? Why do I have to be good? Let's not be good. What difference does it make?"

Or they try to create heaven here. Exit question real quick. We'll end where we started. Attorney General. We talked about how you fix the DOJ, how you bring justice back to this country. When we talk to people, people's faith in the system is shattered. Absolutely shattered. We've seen it in your fundraising.

It should be.

So who do you choose? Do you have a name that's top on your list?

I do have a couple and one in particular, but I made a lot of good choices. I got that one wrong. I was very loyal to one because he was the first senator to endorse me. As soon as conflict came up, he ran for the hills. And actually the second one, he ran for the hills. When he heard that he was going to be impeached, they were going to impeach him, and he was like a different person. I had to get rid of him. I would say that that was the one thing. One of the truly important positions is Attorney General, and I was very disappointed at both of those attorney generals. (01:13:53) Jeff Sessions was... I don't blame myself too much. He was some position in Alabama and he wanted to be so bad, and he was the first senator to endorse me. And again, I was a civilian. I didn't have a lot of people. I didn't know that many senators. And he went to a rally in Mobile. The fact is that we had 72,000 people, so it wasn't that big a shot. But he came to me and he said, "I'd love to be Attorney General," and I didn't see it. And then he came three, four times and just out of loyalty, I did it. And he ran for the hills because it's nasty. This a nasty business. This is a nasty world.

How do you find those steel-spined people in the future?

Barr was threatened. In all fairness to him, he was Attorney General. He was a respected guy and they said they were going to impeach him. I understand that. I said, "I got impeached twice and my numbers went up," which is unusual. I said, "It's not so bad to be impeached. What are they going to impeach you?" He had no idea what they were going to impeach, but he was going to be impeached. They didn't know what. They didn't know why. It's like they took me to trial. There's no crime. They were trying to devise the crime during the trial. That's how bad it was. But with Barr, and he let me down. He let me down. He let down our country. He endorsed me the other day, as you saw. But he let down our country. It takes a brave person to do it. People don't want to be impeached. They don't want to be indicted by these scoundrels who are much more evil than people... I'm telling you, China and Russia, we have a problem from within that's really bad. So, he let us down. (01:15:40) The key to really good government where we had Lighthizer and some of these people that were really good, it's the person that's at the top. If you get the right person, it's like magic. It's like in real estate, you put a good super in a building, the building runs well. You put a bad one in, it's the same thing at a slightly larger scale. But we had great people. I rebuilt the military. We did things that were amazing. One of the things that the people that watch your show should know. We defeated ISIS quickly. I was told it would take five years. I did it in a matter of weeks. Fast. And they did it fantastically. And I got to know the real fighting generals. There's not woke in the military. There's woke at the top. They want there to be woke, but these guys aren't meant for woke. I really think they're like you. They're like this guy. He's doing a great job, by the way. I don't know him.

I agree.

I don't know him like you, but the whole combination, it works.

[inaudible 01:16:33].

Are you going to fire those generals, the woke generals at the top? Because Pete's been talking about it.

Yes, I would get rid of them, yeah. But see, now I know them. I didn't know them before. But I came in, what do I know? I was a New York real estate person. But no, I'd fire them. I would fire them. You can't have woke military. You said it so great. You need people that want to win. They want to win wars. That's what their purpose is, to win wars, not to be woke. But we do have great military. You look at what we did. I was the only one in 78 years or something, I didn't start any wars. I finished wars. I got out of Syria. I took our soldiers home. I would've moved a lot of them out of Germany, and I was going to move them out of Germany. Not all of them, but I would've moved... We have 45,000. (01:17:17) You know what we do by doing that? We're giving Germany this massive shot in the arm and then they don't treat us well on trade, but we have a great military and there's nothing woke about it other than those top guys. I used to watch Millie sit there in Congress and talk about, "He's trying to understand this and that mind." I won't get into it, but certain minds. I say, "Is this guy crazy?" But it's one of those things. I've gotten to know a lot of the generals because of the things we did. And we had some unbelievable wins. As you know, we had some wins with terrorists. The two biggest terrorists in the world ever I took out, so we have some great things planned. It's very important, the people that run the agencies, if you get the good ones, and I think I have great ones slated, but if you get the good ones, it's like magic. And we had mostly good ones. You think more about the bad ones. We had some bad ones too.

Well, Mr. President, you had an eventful week. We appreciate-

I would say that's true.

We appreciate you doing your first interview with us here at Fox and Friends Weekend after New York. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

I think your show is great. Your chemistry is amazing on television, and congratulations. I don't know what they're paying you, but I think it should be more.

Great.

We'll take that one down to the bank, Mr. President.

Thank you, Pete. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

There you go. An hour and 18 minutes with former President Donald Trump in the first exclusive interview he's given after his conviction in New York City. If you think it's so deserved, I hope you go give us five stars or leave a comment. We're going to bring you into the program. Coming up this week, we're going to break down that interview. The highlights, the criticisms, the criticisms of me in this interview. We're going to break down the reaction to that conversation with Donald Trump, so make sure you subscribe so you'll know when that's up at Apple, Spotify, or on YouTube. And until then, I'll see you again next time.