President Donald Trump On Meeting With Putin, Crime In Washington D.C., Jeffrey Epstein & Democrat Pushback On Texas Redistricting
Fox News17 hours ago
President Donald Trump spoke to Brian Kilmeade about his upcoming meeting with Vladimir Putin, crime in DC, Jeffrey Epstein, latest ramifications over the Russia hoax, and how democrats are pushing back on Texas over redistricting.
full, unedited interview here
Rough transcript below
Brian Kilmeade [00:00:00] Mr. President, thanks so much for joining us. Truly appreciate it. 24 hours before your Alaska summit, what's your mindset?
President Trump [00:00:08] Well, I'm going to go there and I'm representing a lot of people and especially people that are being killed unnecessarily, like 5,000 to 7,000 soldiers a week. They're not Americans, but they're lives, they're souls. And if I can stop something, I've stopped six wars this year. This was going to be one of my easy ones, but it never works out that lauraway. This turns out to be probably the most difficult. I stopped one that was raging for 35 years, one that we were raging in the Congo. With Rwanda, you know that, for 31 years. And this one was just raging for three and a half years. And I'm not happy about it. It's ridiculous. And we're going to get it stopped. We're going get it stop. I inherited this from Joe Biden, but we're gonna get it to stop.
Brian Kilmeade [00:00:54] So, Vladimir Putin just spoke and I have the readout, if I could share it with you, is he's just said, the American administration, which as everyone knows is making, in my opinion, quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop the hostilities, stop the crisis and reach agreements that are in the interest of all parties involved in this conflict in order to create long-term conditions of peace between our countries and in Europe and in the world as a whole. If we reach agreements in the area of control over strategic offensive weapons at the next stage, and then it's cut off. So he seems to be in the right mindset going in. How will you know if he's in the mindset for a ceasefire and a long-term end to the conflict?
President Trump [00:01:38] Well, I think you'll know that in the first couple of minutes, but I think you already know that because he's coming to Alaska, he's come into the USA. And I think, you know, that I think that's a nice statement. I just heard it. You gave me a little breaking news. I appreciate it, but, uh, I take key wants to get it done. I really feel he, he wanted the whole thing. I think if it weren't me, it was somebody else. He would be not talking to anybody. He wasn't talking when I was previous to being. Elected. Unfortunately, the 2020 election, where we did so well, it was very unfortunate the result. But what happened is, when I came in, I realized, I said, this is a man that really wants the whole thing. And I think he does want the whole things. And he has wanted the whole. But because of a certain relationship that he has with me running in this country, he's, he really, I believe now he's. Convince that he's going to make a deal. He's gonna make a meal. I think he's gonna and we're gonna find out I'm gonna know very quickly. We're gonna go into the meeting. We'll gonna see him. We gonna I Won't do what Bush did look him in the eye. I'm not gonna do that I'll look him right in the I but I feel a little bit differently than Bush Didn't work out too well for Bush. Remember this Brian under Bush. They lost a lot of land under Obama They lost and a lot a land Crimea under uh… Biting the would have lost the whole thing if he had the president would have left in ukraine since the war started in raging would have never it would have ever started about the president not even chance and it didn't before you know that nobody ever even talked about it uh… But uh… Under trump you know if you got nothing they had nothing so if you have a little except javelin getting their tanks and lots of other things uh… And And remember this, I was the one that stopped Nord Stream 2. You know, they always like to say, oh, Trump, when Putin, oh Trump is working for Putin, you know, these crooked people, which they just found out now is all, they should be prosecuted. They're so, you know disgraceful. But they made up stories. As Putin knows, I'm the toughest one that he's ever had to deal with. He's never had to do with anybody like me. And here's the other thing, Brian, they got nothing out of Trump. They got no land. They didn't do a Bush, they didn't' do an Obama, and they didn't do a Biden.
Brian Kilmeade [00:04:03] So the way I understand it, Mr. President, it's hard to find out exactly what's going on in Russia. By the way, they're made up. Even the people of Russia don't know what's goin' on. It looks like 45% of their economy is military-oriented. Their factories are so depleted. They're having North Koreans work the factories and do their fighting. Do you believe that by shrinking down from 50 to 10 days and just a handful of days, was that threat is the reason why Steve Witkoff heard from them that they wanted to meet? Do you think that's the reason we're having this meeting in Alaska, because you were about to put on sanctions?
President Trump [00:04:40] I think everything has an impact. When I told India, which essentially took them out of buying oil from Russia, that we're going to charge you, because you're dealing with Russia on oil purchases, India was the second largest. And getting pretty close to China, China is the largest. And as you know, there was something in the works for that. And then they called and they wanted to meet. We're going to see what the meeting means, but. Certainly when you lose your second largest customer and you're probably going to lose your first largest customer, I think that probably has a role. I think he respects our country now. He didn't respect it under Biden. He respected nobody respected us under Biden, but he respects are country now. And we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We had a country, the market's raging. Look at the reports coming out. Everybody's moving back to the United States. Car companies, AI companies Everybody's moving back. They're all starting their factories now. The odds are we've never had anything like this. It is truly the golden age of America, but he respects our country now. He did not respect our country with Biden. Who did?
Brian Kilmeade [00:05:46] I know you're a big athlete. You not only watch sports, you play sports. You always have to try to pre-think what's going to happen. You have to picture how it's going happen so you know how you act. So the one thing that some people have said is the incentive that could get his attention is economic incentives. Are you walking in that room with economic incentives for Russia in order to stop the fighting.
President Trump [00:06:09] Well, I'd rather not say, because I don't want to play my hand in public, but whatever my hand is, economic incentives and disincentives, maybe are more important in a way, but incentives economically. You know, Russia's got a tremendous potential. They have the largest piece of land by far. Right. Massive. It's got great wealth on it.
Brian Kilmeade [00:06:31] But all they do is oil. All they do oil and gas. They can't even, they can't farm.
President Trump [00:06:37] But that's okay. Oil and gas is a very profitable business. That's better than I make shirts, t-shirts, oil and gas, if you say that's all they do. If you're going to have one business that's good, that's the business to have, and they have it. Got it. So they have a lot of advantages going over most countries because of the fact they have oil and gasses at massive numbers like we do. And, yeah, economic, economic. Sanctions are very powerful and economic incentives are very powerful, both.
Brian Kilmeade [00:07:09] Mark Thiessen, who I know you respect from the Washington Post, writes this. Vladimir Putin's goal is to buy more time. To avoid that trap, all President Trump has to do is hold firm to his stated position that both sides need to agree on a ceasefire now. He will push for a partial or sectional ceasefire. That would be worse than no ceasefire because it would give Russia a military advantage. Your thoughts on his conclusions.
President Trump [00:07:36] Well, he's a very talented person, and I think he's a real journalist. You want to give him the highest accolades. I have a lot of respect for him, Mark. I read him. I'll talk to him every once in a while, and he has some good thoughts. And so I don't know that we're going to get an immediate ceasefire, but I think it's going to come. See, I'm more interested in immediate peace deal, getting peace fast. And depending on what happens with my meeting, I'm going to be calling up President Zelensky and let's get him over to wherever we're going to meet. I don't know where we're gonna have the second meeting, but we have an idea of three different locations and we'll be including the possibility because it would be by far the easiest of staying in Alaska. You know, we have big flights of, and he has the same thing, we'll have a lot of planes going when the head of Russia, the head, the United States, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Brian Kilmeade [00:08:27] So, Mr. President, did you tell Zelensky to be ready? Did you tell him to be to come should you start making legitimate progress?
President Trump [00:08:34] I don't want to talk about a second meeting even to him. I don't want to even indicate there might be a second meeting. Maybe there will. Maybe there would. So I don't want to talk about it. It's not, it's not important enough, but it would be certainly convenient if we had a very good meeting because I'm going to let them negotiate their deal. I'm not going to negotiate the deal. I'm gonna let them negotiate their deal. So we're going to be calling President Zelensky if it's a good meeting and it's a bad meeting. I'm not calling anybody. I'm going home. I'll call you, I'll do Fox and Friends some morning, and we'll have a lot of fun. But if it's a good meeting, I'm going to call President Zelensky and the European leaders, who, as you know, have a very good relationship, where they agreed to pay 5 percent, and nobody thought they'd even pay 2 percent. They were paying 2, but they weren't paying it, a lot them. So, and they're paying 5, they're very unified, because I've never seen anything like it. Nobody can believe what we did. I saved NATO. I saved it the first time and made it very rich the second time. So, you know, it's quite an achievement, I think.
Brian Kilmeade [00:09:35] I know you were on with him for about an hour yesterday, but just on what you were saying, the way I understand it, Caroline Levitt had joined Fox& Friends today, and she said the format is, if I got it right, is you're going to meet, and there's going to be a press conference after. Will you be shoulder to shoulder with Vladimir Putin again, last time with Helsinki? We haven't I thought we had a
President Trump [00:09:53] great press conference last time. It was the fake news tried to make it bad, in particular MSDNC. They tried to Make it Bad. These are very dishonest people, but it was a great news conference. You know, it was rated phenomenal, and then about two, three, four hours later they came up with this stupid scheme about me and Russia, and what did we say at the meeting, and you know, where do we get the tapes, you know the old story. But no, I thought we had a great meeting. And don't forget, we're under a lot of pressure, because we had the Russia hoax going on. So I told him, I said, you know, it's going to be very hard, and he told me to, he understood. I said it's gonna be very for us to make an economic deal, economic development deal of any kind, because I have the Russia Hoax going. And anything I do with Russia, I say, oh, I'm owned by Putin, which is not even close.
Brian Kilmeade [00:10:43] So, Mr. President, you are going to have a press conference today after the meeting.
President Trump [00:10:48] I'm going to have a press conference. I don't know if it's going to be a joint. We haven't even discussed it. I think it might be nice to have a joint and then separate. So something like that will happen. Or if the meeting doesn't end well, I'll just have a press conference and head out. I'll head back to Washington.
Brian Kilmeade [00:11:04] So yeah, if it's not positive, you might head back. Is there any situation? No, no positive.
President Trump [00:11:09] And if I will head back
Brian Kilmeade [00:11:11] I know that I mean you'll just head right back. You won't have the press conference. I know you're coming back, but um
President Trump [00:11:16] No, I would say I'll have a press conference in either of them. Okay. If it's negative, I'll a press conference to say that the war is going to go on and these people are horribly going to continue to shoot each other and kill each other, and I think it's a disgrace, and I'll head back to Washington. Or I'll have a Press Conference that's positive. You know, in doing six wars, I mean six wars think of it, and I obliterated, and now the term obliterate can be used because the Atomic Energy Commission, everybody said total obliteration. These pilots. Did a phenomenal job. CNN and their fake reporter tried to, who's just a scammer, CNN tried to say that, well, maybe the hit wasn't quite as good, maybe it wasn't obliteration, maybe anything to hurt people, anything to demean. And in this case, they were demeaning the incredible people that flew in an airplane for 36 hours back and forth and did one of the most perfect attacks in the history of our country. No, it was a total obliterations.
Brian Kilmeade [00:12:15] No, no, I hear you. So I just think it's very interesting and I don't wanna dwell too much on it, but the whole Russia situation with Hillary Clinton comes up with it to try to make it seem like you colluded with Russia in order to win an election. You're saying that hurt U.S.-Russian relations because Putin, with all of his terrible track record, that's my view, not yours, perhaps, but that's in my words, with his terrible record and with his horrible invasion that he did and what he does to his neighbors, he actually didn't infiltrate the election besides hacking John Podesta's emails, and you're saying it hurt U.S. Relations throughout your four years.
President Trump [00:12:52] They don't even know about John Podesta's emails. They had a couple of hackers who spent, in some cases, $50, $49.95, $101, and $103. That's what they have. And these were hackers. These were people probably in Russia that took ads. They took ads for like, this had nothing to do with, frankly, Russia had nothing do with me. No, they created a story. I remember when I saw it on one of the networks, they were saying, after Hillary lost, this was going to be just a quick one-day, two-day excuse for why she lost, and the fake news picked it up and went with it. They do the same thing with the Epstein crap. They do same exact thing. It's the exact same thing. Anything they can do to demean. So what happens is they picked it up. And I remember it, one of the people, I won't even mention who now, because it could be that he's got problems and I'm not going to get involved in that. But got up and said, well, Russia was the reason we lost. And that was the first time I said, Russia, I'm listening to this. I said this is like a day after the election, shortly after the elections. I said what's that all about? But I didn't think much about it. You know, I figured it was an excuse, which it was. But what happened is the fake news picked it up and made it a two-year ordeal. And then it turned out, with a Mueller report, think of this. 18 different people we had 18 different people on that Mueller everyone was an anti-trumper every single one of them was a negative jumper and you know what they ruled got you that I did absolutely nothing wrong right so in one way I was very impressed by that actually if you want to know the truth I had somebody of the 18 I had somebody in there who was an angel because it's almost impossible for that They could have ruled whatever they wanted to do. They could've made up a story like they do so often. And, you know, guys like Weissman and some of these real scum, the real scums, they were involved in that. He wrote a book about how and he was on the committee. I think he was one of the guys on the commission.
Brian Kilmeade [00:14:54] They said he was the brain behind Robert Mueller, who had lost his fastball, sadly. I think he's doing some physical problems. Just real quick on that, Melania, the first lady, Melania Trump is suing Hunter Biden for a billion dollars because he said that Jeffrey Epstein introduced you to each other, and she's suing hunter for a million dollars. Is that the right thing to do?
President Trump [00:15:16] Well i could go forward you know i've been pretty well in these losses lately and i should go forward jeffrey epstein had nothing to do with milania and uh… Introducing but they do that to demean they make up stories i mean i can tell you exactly how it was it was another person actually i did be through another person but it wasn't jeffry epstein yeah i told it that go ahead do it i'd rather use my lawyers He's very upset about it.
Brian Kilmeade [00:15:41] So, let's talk about, there's so much going on, and my last question to this real quick, is there any scenario where Donald Trump will look at this meeting in Alaska and say, this was not worth it, I failed? Twenty-five percent. And you would say that if he just says, Hey, I'm going to just I'm gonna stay with you.
President Trump [00:16:01] Going to stay with me all the time and energy and went over there and we didn't come out with in a short period of time not from this meeting this meeting sets up the second meeting the second meaning is going to be very very important because that's going to a meeting where they make a deal and I don't want to use the word divvy things up but you know to a certain extent it's not a bad term okay but there will be a give-and-take as to boundaries, lands, et cetera, et cetera. The second meeting is going to be Very, very important. This meeting sets up, it's like a chess game. This meeting set up the second meeting. But there is a 25% chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting, in which case I will run the country and we have made America great again already in six months.
Brian Kilmeade [00:16:49] And you'll hit them with consequences, right? You'll hit with more sanctions. The Senate sanctions go front and center. If he disrespects, yeah.
President Trump [00:16:57] Oh sure, if it's not solved, look, again, we didn't lose any soldiers, we didn't loose anybody, but this was a war, if I didn't get in here, this could have been World War III, I'm telling you, Biden had no idea, he had no clue what was happening, this was getting so bad, and at a minimum, I've calmed it way down, I think you'd agree with that, way, way down. But they're still losing thousands of soldiers a week, and We have to get that taken care of.
Brian Kilmeade [00:17:27] So in Washington, D.C., you did something substantial, and that is put the National Guard in, federalized troops, got rid of the sanctuary city status, and for 30 days, you're trying to bring some semblance of extreme order to Washington, DC. I want you to hear what the mayor said about what you're doing. This is Mayor Muriel Bowser, and here's what she said cut to.
Speaker 3 [00:17:52] We all need to do what we can in our space, in our lane, to protect our city and to protect our autonomy and get to the other side of this guy. Make sure we elect a democratic house so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push.
Brian Kilmeade [00:18:14] She's not welcoming the additional law enforcement.
President Trump [00:18:18] Well, she actually is, but she doesn't want to say it, OK? Because crime in Washington, DC is totally out of control, worse than ever. And as you know, they fired or something happened to the person that does the stats because they wanted him, him in this case, I think, to do stats which were much better in terms of crime. And they were changing crimes to this kind of a crime, that kind of crime doesn't get counted anymore and all that stuff. So you don't believe those stats? Actually, it's worse now than ever before. You know that anybody that lives here does it. I have never had so many calls thanking me I tell you right and I look at those streets and those streets are safe and they're going to be very safe in a week or so look what I did at the border I had millions of people coming in the year before think of it millions and millions of People and within it without legislation you know Biden said we have to get legislation change you didn't need anything That was just an excuse for incompetence. The last three months, Brian, we had zero people. It was a zero, zero, and zero. Even I find that hard to believe, but it's like somebody did it, and I hear the people that do it are the same people that were doing the BLS and all the other different things that they do with the fake reports. But you know what? They gave it a zero. I'll take it. But essentially, it's very close to zero, or zero, for 90 days now. Nobody believes it's even the Republicans camp. I'm getting calls from senators and congressmen and women and they're saying that's amazing But that is frankly, I believe it's more difficult than what we have here But we have inherently some very very dangerous people living in Washington DC and we got to get them out
Brian Kilmeade [00:20:04] And there was your doge worker your 19 year old Elon Musk protege they got beat within an inch of his life Was that the turning point for you? Is that when you said I can't wait anymore?
President Trump [00:20:15] No, no, and I was going to do this before that, but this made me do it faster. Got it. When that happened to this young man who was a wonderful young guy, when that happened, and they hit him with like 10 guys all at one time, he got hit so fast he didn't know what happened. He showed great bravery. He got his girlfriend in the car and locked the door, locked the do. They were under, because he saw them coming. He said, what the hell? Look at that. It was a pack. And they were coming. I don't mean a political pack. It may have been a political pack too. Who knows? You know, you never know. Teenagers. Nowadays you never know. But it was a pack. And they called it a pack and they were violent. They were violent kids. And frankly, he couldn't believe he woke up alive.
Brian Kilmeade [00:20:59] Mr. President, do you think that putting these troops in there, and this Democratic mayor not necessarily embracing at least publicly, and what you did in Los Angeles, despite that the governor didn't want it and the mayor didn't it, you sent in backups, Marines and National Guard. Do you think this might force Democratic cities to crack down on crime so you don't have to.
President Trump [00:21:23] Yeah, the good politicians, the smart ones, the sane people will, and the other ones will go out of their way to try and show them that I'm wrong on crime. Look, this is another, you know, they call them 80-20s. I think it's 100 to nothing, but they're going to have to handle it the way they want. I'm there to help. But if I see a city going bad, I said it last time, last time I went right by Every perfect little eating can rule and I'd let the governor's run their stuff and then run it into the ground. I had that wacko in Minnesota. You saw what happened in Minneapolis and if I didn't send in the troops, you wouldn't have Minnesota. We wouldn't have Minneapolis standing today. You saw how bad it was, but I sent in the troop very late because he wouldn't do it. He wasn't, he was, the whole city was burning down. That was the wacko that ran for, ran for vice president. Governor Walz. Yeah, he's a real beauty. But again, I said, if I ever do this again, this is what I was thinking about it. I said I'm gonna act before the fact, I'm not gonna act after the fact. And you know, you see what they did to Portland, you see, it's not gonna happen this time. Not gonna happen. Now Gavin Newsom wouldn't have a Los Angeles stand. You know, we have the Olympics coming. That was a part of my thinking there too. We have the Olympic coming. He just lost 25,000 houses to fires that shouldn't have happened. It was only because he didn't allow water to come into. That part of los angeles or frankly at the california because he cut up the water they said that after the pacific ocean but i overrode him after the fires i over rode him and they have water coming down they should be allowing more we're going to go into that next but i have a news that maybe would have allowed the water you would have had a fire but but i said if i don't send people in you're not gonna have a city for the olympics we have the olypics coming. And the World Cup.
Brian Kilmeade [00:23:32] And and and you know I know that for a fact because I know people out there only 1% of the permits has been given It's an embarrassment and they're getting away with it, which is sickening. I want to talk about, California
President Trump [00:23:40] They want to take away some of the sites that are owned by people and build low income housing.
Brian Kilmeade [00:23:48] You can't do it.
President Trump [00:23:48] The whole beauty of that area. I was there right after the fire very closely to immediately after the fires Soon as I felt there was a you know, it was yeah the right time but immediate and I met the people Many of them they were all standing in front of their sites. They were literally ashes the steel was wrapped up in balls It was so it was like a blowtorch because of the wind and I went there and I saw every person on Two or three streets. I went to Every family was in front their house with a yellow cord You can't go on it. And they said, we want to start immediately, sir. I said, why don't you start? They won't let us. I gave them the federal permits almost immediately. That's the hardest permit to get, by the way. And they still don't have their permits, right?
Brian Kilmeade [00:24:31] And you told Mayor Bass, let them do it, and she said she would. She wants them to be safe. He goes, they know how to be save. To me, it was one of your finest moments because she didn't do it. You were great.
President Trump [00:24:42] Said she said we'll get them over a two-year period you remember that yeah I said two years you mean two days
Brian Kilmeade [00:24:48] Mr. President, I lost all my stuff there in a fire in Malibu in the 90s, and they still hadn't rebuilt it seven years later. But I want to talk about Gavin Newsom.
President Trump [00:24:58] You have an incompetent governor, he's an incompetant governor, and the mayor is grossly incompetent. And that worries me because we have the Olympics going there.
Brian Kilmeade [00:25:06] Well, you know, Gavin Newsom's taking you on. He thinks that's his best path to being the next president of the United States, in my view, and he posted on X. He gave you a warning instead of Governor Abbott. Saying that if you allow Governor Abbott to go through, it's his gerrymander, he's gonna do that in California. He posted this, I guess trying to take the Trump approach. Donald Trump, Taco Trump, as many call him, missed the deadline. California will now draw new, more beautiful maps. They'll be historic and they will end the Trump presidency. The Dems will take back the House in the midterms. What's your take on Gavin's warning that you missed?
President Trump [00:25:42] Well, Gavin is an incompetent governor. The state has gone to hell. You see what's happened to Los Angeles. And if I didn't send the troops in, you probably wouldn't have much of a Los Angeles standing right now. Those troops did a hell of a job. And you know who loved it? The sheriff and the police. Now, after about a week or so, then the sheriff said, well, maybe we can have the sheriff. Take a look at the sheriff's statement the first day or two. They asked him, do you need the troops? He said, absolutely. We can't do this by ourselves. Now he changed his tone about two weeks later because he had already taken care of the…
Brian Kilmeade [00:26:17] But what about the gerrymandering? Do you worry that Democrats are gonna counter your gerrymander when you go into Indiana?
President Trump [00:26:21] That anyway. They've done that far before we did. Take a look at Illinois with that slob of a governor they have up there, total incompetent. Take look at that. Take a look in Illinois what happened. You have places that look like snakes. They're going back and forth, you know, hit a little Democrat area here.
Brian Kilmeade [00:26:39] So are you going to encourage Florida to do it? Are you going encourage Florida to redistricting?
President Trump [00:26:45] Ron I watched Ron I thought it was fantastic he's gonna find a couple of areas you can do it why not they're doing it but they not only are they doing it they've done it they may be petered out I don't know but they've done it and you just take a look at some of those states it's ridiculous and you have you know normally you'd like to see a nice rectangle or a nice square right they have things that go throughout the whole there they look like rattlesnakes
Brian Kilmeade [00:27:09] I know, it's incredible, but I want to talk, if we can, just a little bit about China. Big story out today that China is about to overtake America in the electric car and really outstrip Tesla. They probably took a lot of the technology. Your thoughts about losing the electric-car business to China, does that worry you?
President Trump [00:27:30] I don't like losing any business to China. We're leading in AI. We're leaving in so much. They know it. We're way ahead of them in terms of chips. We have Jensen and all these guys that are phenomenal. We're away ahead of that. Now the Blackwell is coming out. It's so advanced that they won't catch it for years. Now we're leading them. The electric car is different. See, I don'- you know, do I care? Yeah, I- I don't like it, but I-I am a believer that somebody should buy- All cars you should you if you want to buy a gasoline powered car You know, we have more we have oil and gas than any other country and I say if you wanna buy Something where we have under the ground, you know the batteries China has that but we have oily gas and a lot of people want look It seems to be so far like a seven or ten percent market. China's gone all out Yeah, if if they catch us, you don't you know, they're not coming into here, you have tariffs so they can't come
Brian Kilmeade [00:28:25] They can't come in with that brand new car. I want to go back to immigration if I can, Mr. President.
President Trump [00:28:30] I don't want them destroying our automobile business. Somebody else would let them in, and in about six months, we wouldn't have an automobile business in this country.
Brian Kilmeade [00:28:37] I know it's going to cost like $21,000, and Europe's trying to keep them out too. Mr. President, as you know, you've sealed the border in a way that I don't think anyone thought was possible. But because of that, you have an interesting situation. You have people here for generations that, of course, you're not going to get citizenship, but they've been working on farms. A lot of farmers voted for you. They work in hospitality. A lot hospitality workers voted for, you they work in meatpacking areas. Do you have a plan? And I know some Republicans are gonna get upset by this, but do you have a plan to give them long-term work visas, not citizenship, to not hurt the people, not hurt our economy?
President Trump [00:29:17] So as you know i won the election with the farmers by like eighty eight percent i won't be election with big people that one strong borders by probably a hundred percent i would imagine right i mean how could you vote for so i don't want to open borders that never called the border patrol that never went to the site you know the borders are never even went to be border i must've got i did i don't know what it is but let's assume it's like uh… A hundred and thirty percent so i want the border i want everything and uh… To be honest i of all those people. They have a little bit different thing in life. The farmers want to have people that can work very hard in the fields, and the other people don't want to anybody from outside of our country. And I am working on a plan that I think is going to make everybody very happy. We have to take care of our farmers. We love our farmers, but we also have to care of people that want total security and safety in our country, and we're going to take of both.
Brian Kilmeade [00:30:09] Do you think within three months, you'll have an answer to the hospitality workers, meat packers, and farmers? Because I think they make up. So within three month.
President Trump [00:30:20] I think people are going to be happy.
Brian Kilmeade [00:30:21] All right, man.
President Trump [00:30:22] I want to make look. They're all great. They love our country that group of people the Democrats don't love our county I think they hate our country. They are crazy. They've gone crazy. You know, we have a something coming up in Congress in the not so distant future if And you know the Democrats are totally against stopping crime. They were against stopping current. Think of it How do you win an election when you're against stopping time, but they they would rather say Trump's a dictator And that's a new thing, that I'm a dictator because I'm stopping crime. You will watch Washington, D.C. Will become the safest capital anywhere in the world within a short period of time, and we'll keep it safe too. But we have to get rid of the murderers, thugs, and you know, many of them, not all of them. Some are self-grown and homegrown, but you know what, many homegrowners, but you take a look at the people and many of the happen to come from Venezuela. The Congo, and lots of places all over the world they come from. But we also have people that were born here and they turn out to be real thugs. We're taking care of them. We're take care of all of them.' The capital of the United States of America, Washington, D.C., will be the safest place in this country in a very short period of time.
Brian Kilmeade [00:31:39] And I think the cleanest and I think that don't diminish that because when things are clean
President Trump [00:31:45] And the Kennedy Center, it's such a mess. That will be so beautiful in a short period of time. You'll watch, that's what I do in life.
Brian Kilmeade [00:31:55] I just got to ask you about Jimmy Lai. He's a self-made billionaire, Hong Kong friend of the West, and when Hong Kong was taken by the Chinese government, he's been jailed, closing arguments today. His son joined me, and I did not know you knew Sebastian, Sebastian Lai, here's what He said, cut three.
Speaker 4 [00:32:15] Does President Trump know him? We've been incredibly grateful that the president mentioned that 100% he will free my father. He mentioned it in a radio show with Hugh Hewitt. And it's given our family a lot of hope because at this point it is about freeing him, but it's about saving his life. I don't know how much longer he has.
Brian Kilmeade [00:32:33] So your thoughts, because you're going to be meeting President Xi, and he could do that just by one finger.
President Trump [00:32:40] I didn't say 100% I'd save him. I said, 100%, I'm going to be bringing it up. And I've already brought it up, and I'm going to do everything I can to save him, I'm gonna do everything. You know, he's a respected guy, he is a good guy. I mean, you could also understand President Xi would not be exactly thrilled by doing it. It was a very nasty period of time in the history of China. I mean it was a really nasty period of time with all of that being said. Uh… His name is uh… Already entered the circle of things that we're talking about and we'll see what we can do i really like the federal art i love that he's fighting so hard for his father and his father's you know not a young guys you know how much longer do you live and i hear you doing okay health wise not great and we're going to do everything we can
Brian Kilmeade [00:33:25] Yeah, lastly, Mr. President, I never thought that you would start dominating America culture, or those of you who are dollar and cents and foreign policy guy. But among the people that think you are, New York Times reporters bringing it up, how much better that this term is functioning than the last one, and obviously Joe Biden's. And also Chuck Todd came out and said, you're dominating like no president since F.D.R. And that includes education, because in education, Brown, Columbia, George Washington University, UCLA, all of these universities are straightening up and paying a price. Why did the culture, changing the culture matter to you or does it now that you're back?
President Trump [00:34:09] It matters a lot. The culture of a country matters so much. That's the same thing about Ukraine. If you look at what's happened to those cities, they've been decimated. Those magnificent spires have all been, almost all of them have been knocked to the ground there in smithereens. And, you know, it's so sad. No, culture matters so much. One thing on education that we're doing, that you didn't mention, and it's true, these woke, crazy colleges are paying a very big price. And you haven't heard anything yet when you hear some of these settlements that we are doing. But they're paying a big price But what we're really doing with education, which I think is almost as important, maybe more important, is we're sending it back to the states. And the states are accepting it really gracefully and beautifully. And they want it. They desperately want it, we have 40 states where education would be as good as any place it were. We have 10 where it won't be so good because it's like, you know, like a guy like Gavin Newsom, he's not going to run good education, but because he doesn't know Now he's just got a mouth. But a place like Los Angeles is going to be tough. But all over, you go to Iowa, you go to Indiana, you got all these places, Nebraska, every one of these places, they're going to have Florida is going to be phenomenal. We're sending education back to their to the states and we're getting it out of Washington, D.C. And the bureaucrats with, you know, you have people that are involved with like Florida from Washington. They've never even been there and they're running education in Florida. We sending it back so that Ron can run it so that all the governors can run it. And they're going to do a great job. Now, 10 states are not going to, but they're the same, like a guy like Pritzker won't do a good job with education. He probably doesn't even want it back. But Pritzke won't a good, Newsom won't do a a good. You know, the same places that run badly will do a bad job. But 90% of the country is going to a phenomenal job. We're sending education back to the states where the parents are involved, they love their children, where the teachers are involved, they love the children. And it's not going to be run by the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., that are destroying. I mean, we have the worst education almost in the world for a top 40 country. You know, we're like 38, 39, and 40 out of 40 in education. So obviously, we are doing something wrong. That won't happen for long. When education goes back to these well-run states, it will run as well as the various but like Denmark, Austria, you know, you have. You have some countries that have like great education. Interestingly, China does very well with education so you can't blame it on science, but they do very well education.
Brian Kilmeade [00:36:44] And lastly, on behalf of Massapequa, you and Linda McMahon helping keep the chief's name. So that means a lot.
President Trump [00:36:50] Ryan, I love, I have a lot of friends in Massapequa, including you, but I love Massapequal. I've heard that name for years, okay, and they have a championship team. They always have a great team. I know young people that played on that team, and you know, great people, and we got to get the name back to the Chiefs. And you know what? They're demeaning the Indians by taking it, it's actually the opposite of what they think. They're demeaning that's a place And that town is sort of based around that whole football thing that they have going there. So we're working hard. You know, it's a state problem, not a federal problem. So we have to interject, and we've done that, into the state. But the state is fighting us very hard, but I think we'll be successful with it.
Brian Kilmeade [00:37:34] You're always successful. Mr. President, thanks so much. I am. I am, I am always. Best of luck in Alaska. And I look forward to seeing you walking on the military base and greeting Vladimir Putin.
President Trump [00:37:43] And we'll do the best we can, and I think we'll have a good result in the end.
Brian Kilmeade [00:37:47] All right, go get them. Thanks so much, Mr. President. Thank you very much.
President Trump [00:37:48] Thank you very much, Brian. Appreciate it. Very good. Thank you.
full, unedited interview here
Rough transcript below
Brian Kilmeade [00:00:00] Mr. President, thanks so much for joining us. Truly appreciate it. 24 hours before your Alaska summit, what's your mindset?
President Trump [00:00:08] Well, I'm going to go there and I'm representing a lot of people and especially people that are being killed unnecessarily, like 5,000 to 7,000 soldiers a week. They're not Americans, but they're lives, they're souls. And if I can stop something, I've stopped six wars this year. This was going to be one of my easy ones, but it never works out that lauraway. This turns out to be probably the most difficult. I stopped one that was raging for 35 years, one that we were raging in the Congo. With Rwanda, you know that, for 31 years. And this one was just raging for three and a half years. And I'm not happy about it. It's ridiculous. And we're going to get it stopped. We're going get it stop. I inherited this from Joe Biden, but we're gonna get it to stop.
Brian Kilmeade [00:00:54] So, Vladimir Putin just spoke and I have the readout, if I could share it with you, is he's just said, the American administration, which as everyone knows is making, in my opinion, quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop the hostilities, stop the crisis and reach agreements that are in the interest of all parties involved in this conflict in order to create long-term conditions of peace between our countries and in Europe and in the world as a whole. If we reach agreements in the area of control over strategic offensive weapons at the next stage, and then it's cut off. So he seems to be in the right mindset going in. How will you know if he's in the mindset for a ceasefire and a long-term end to the conflict?
President Trump [00:01:38] Well, I think you'll know that in the first couple of minutes, but I think you already know that because he's coming to Alaska, he's come into the USA. And I think, you know, that I think that's a nice statement. I just heard it. You gave me a little breaking news. I appreciate it, but, uh, I take key wants to get it done. I really feel he, he wanted the whole thing. I think if it weren't me, it was somebody else. He would be not talking to anybody. He wasn't talking when I was previous to being. Elected. Unfortunately, the 2020 election, where we did so well, it was very unfortunate the result. But what happened is, when I came in, I realized, I said, this is a man that really wants the whole thing. And I think he does want the whole things. And he has wanted the whole. But because of a certain relationship that he has with me running in this country, he's, he really, I believe now he's. Convince that he's going to make a deal. He's gonna make a meal. I think he's gonna and we're gonna find out I'm gonna know very quickly. We're gonna go into the meeting. We'll gonna see him. We gonna I Won't do what Bush did look him in the eye. I'm not gonna do that I'll look him right in the I but I feel a little bit differently than Bush Didn't work out too well for Bush. Remember this Brian under Bush. They lost a lot of land under Obama They lost and a lot a land Crimea under uh… Biting the would have lost the whole thing if he had the president would have left in ukraine since the war started in raging would have never it would have ever started about the president not even chance and it didn't before you know that nobody ever even talked about it uh… But uh… Under trump you know if you got nothing they had nothing so if you have a little except javelin getting their tanks and lots of other things uh… And And remember this, I was the one that stopped Nord Stream 2. You know, they always like to say, oh, Trump, when Putin, oh Trump is working for Putin, you know, these crooked people, which they just found out now is all, they should be prosecuted. They're so, you know disgraceful. But they made up stories. As Putin knows, I'm the toughest one that he's ever had to deal with. He's never had to do with anybody like me. And here's the other thing, Brian, they got nothing out of Trump. They got no land. They didn't do a Bush, they didn't' do an Obama, and they didn't do a Biden.
Brian Kilmeade [00:04:03] So the way I understand it, Mr. President, it's hard to find out exactly what's going on in Russia. By the way, they're made up. Even the people of Russia don't know what's goin' on. It looks like 45% of their economy is military-oriented. Their factories are so depleted. They're having North Koreans work the factories and do their fighting. Do you believe that by shrinking down from 50 to 10 days and just a handful of days, was that threat is the reason why Steve Witkoff heard from them that they wanted to meet? Do you think that's the reason we're having this meeting in Alaska, because you were about to put on sanctions?
President Trump [00:04:40] I think everything has an impact. When I told India, which essentially took them out of buying oil from Russia, that we're going to charge you, because you're dealing with Russia on oil purchases, India was the second largest. And getting pretty close to China, China is the largest. And as you know, there was something in the works for that. And then they called and they wanted to meet. We're going to see what the meeting means, but. Certainly when you lose your second largest customer and you're probably going to lose your first largest customer, I think that probably has a role. I think he respects our country now. He didn't respect it under Biden. He respected nobody respected us under Biden, but he respects are country now. And we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We had a country, the market's raging. Look at the reports coming out. Everybody's moving back to the United States. Car companies, AI companies Everybody's moving back. They're all starting their factories now. The odds are we've never had anything like this. It is truly the golden age of America, but he respects our country now. He did not respect our country with Biden. Who did?
Brian Kilmeade [00:05:46] I know you're a big athlete. You not only watch sports, you play sports. You always have to try to pre-think what's going to happen. You have to picture how it's going happen so you know how you act. So the one thing that some people have said is the incentive that could get his attention is economic incentives. Are you walking in that room with economic incentives for Russia in order to stop the fighting.
President Trump [00:06:09] Well, I'd rather not say, because I don't want to play my hand in public, but whatever my hand is, economic incentives and disincentives, maybe are more important in a way, but incentives economically. You know, Russia's got a tremendous potential. They have the largest piece of land by far. Right. Massive. It's got great wealth on it.
Brian Kilmeade [00:06:31] But all they do is oil. All they do oil and gas. They can't even, they can't farm.
President Trump [00:06:37] But that's okay. Oil and gas is a very profitable business. That's better than I make shirts, t-shirts, oil and gas, if you say that's all they do. If you're going to have one business that's good, that's the business to have, and they have it. Got it. So they have a lot of advantages going over most countries because of the fact they have oil and gasses at massive numbers like we do. And, yeah, economic, economic. Sanctions are very powerful and economic incentives are very powerful, both.
Brian Kilmeade [00:07:09] Mark Thiessen, who I know you respect from the Washington Post, writes this. Vladimir Putin's goal is to buy more time. To avoid that trap, all President Trump has to do is hold firm to his stated position that both sides need to agree on a ceasefire now. He will push for a partial or sectional ceasefire. That would be worse than no ceasefire because it would give Russia a military advantage. Your thoughts on his conclusions.
President Trump [00:07:36] Well, he's a very talented person, and I think he's a real journalist. You want to give him the highest accolades. I have a lot of respect for him, Mark. I read him. I'll talk to him every once in a while, and he has some good thoughts. And so I don't know that we're going to get an immediate ceasefire, but I think it's going to come. See, I'm more interested in immediate peace deal, getting peace fast. And depending on what happens with my meeting, I'm going to be calling up President Zelensky and let's get him over to wherever we're going to meet. I don't know where we're gonna have the second meeting, but we have an idea of three different locations and we'll be including the possibility because it would be by far the easiest of staying in Alaska. You know, we have big flights of, and he has the same thing, we'll have a lot of planes going when the head of Russia, the head, the United States, you know, et cetera, et cetera.
Brian Kilmeade [00:08:27] So, Mr. President, did you tell Zelensky to be ready? Did you tell him to be to come should you start making legitimate progress?
President Trump [00:08:34] I don't want to talk about a second meeting even to him. I don't want to even indicate there might be a second meeting. Maybe there will. Maybe there would. So I don't want to talk about it. It's not, it's not important enough, but it would be certainly convenient if we had a very good meeting because I'm going to let them negotiate their deal. I'm not going to negotiate the deal. I'm gonna let them negotiate their deal. So we're going to be calling President Zelensky if it's a good meeting and it's a bad meeting. I'm not calling anybody. I'm going home. I'll call you, I'll do Fox and Friends some morning, and we'll have a lot of fun. But if it's a good meeting, I'm going to call President Zelensky and the European leaders, who, as you know, have a very good relationship, where they agreed to pay 5 percent, and nobody thought they'd even pay 2 percent. They were paying 2, but they weren't paying it, a lot them. So, and they're paying 5, they're very unified, because I've never seen anything like it. Nobody can believe what we did. I saved NATO. I saved it the first time and made it very rich the second time. So, you know, it's quite an achievement, I think.
Brian Kilmeade [00:09:35] I know you were on with him for about an hour yesterday, but just on what you were saying, the way I understand it, Caroline Levitt had joined Fox& Friends today, and she said the format is, if I got it right, is you're going to meet, and there's going to be a press conference after. Will you be shoulder to shoulder with Vladimir Putin again, last time with Helsinki? We haven't I thought we had a
President Trump [00:09:53] great press conference last time. It was the fake news tried to make it bad, in particular MSDNC. They tried to Make it Bad. These are very dishonest people, but it was a great news conference. You know, it was rated phenomenal, and then about two, three, four hours later they came up with this stupid scheme about me and Russia, and what did we say at the meeting, and you know, where do we get the tapes, you know the old story. But no, I thought we had a great meeting. And don't forget, we're under a lot of pressure, because we had the Russia hoax going on. So I told him, I said, you know, it's going to be very hard, and he told me to, he understood. I said it's gonna be very for us to make an economic deal, economic development deal of any kind, because I have the Russia Hoax going. And anything I do with Russia, I say, oh, I'm owned by Putin, which is not even close.
Brian Kilmeade [00:10:43] So, Mr. President, you are going to have a press conference today after the meeting.
President Trump [00:10:48] I'm going to have a press conference. I don't know if it's going to be a joint. We haven't even discussed it. I think it might be nice to have a joint and then separate. So something like that will happen. Or if the meeting doesn't end well, I'll just have a press conference and head out. I'll head back to Washington.
Brian Kilmeade [00:11:04] So yeah, if it's not positive, you might head back. Is there any situation? No, no positive.
President Trump [00:11:09] And if I will head back
Brian Kilmeade [00:11:11] I know that I mean you'll just head right back. You won't have the press conference. I know you're coming back, but um
President Trump [00:11:16] No, I would say I'll have a press conference in either of them. Okay. If it's negative, I'll a press conference to say that the war is going to go on and these people are horribly going to continue to shoot each other and kill each other, and I think it's a disgrace, and I'll head back to Washington. Or I'll have a Press Conference that's positive. You know, in doing six wars, I mean six wars think of it, and I obliterated, and now the term obliterate can be used because the Atomic Energy Commission, everybody said total obliteration. These pilots. Did a phenomenal job. CNN and their fake reporter tried to, who's just a scammer, CNN tried to say that, well, maybe the hit wasn't quite as good, maybe it wasn't obliteration, maybe anything to hurt people, anything to demean. And in this case, they were demeaning the incredible people that flew in an airplane for 36 hours back and forth and did one of the most perfect attacks in the history of our country. No, it was a total obliterations.
Brian Kilmeade [00:12:15] No, no, I hear you. So I just think it's very interesting and I don't wanna dwell too much on it, but the whole Russia situation with Hillary Clinton comes up with it to try to make it seem like you colluded with Russia in order to win an election. You're saying that hurt U.S.-Russian relations because Putin, with all of his terrible track record, that's my view, not yours, perhaps, but that's in my words, with his terrible record and with his horrible invasion that he did and what he does to his neighbors, he actually didn't infiltrate the election besides hacking John Podesta's emails, and you're saying it hurt U.S. Relations throughout your four years.
President Trump [00:12:52] They don't even know about John Podesta's emails. They had a couple of hackers who spent, in some cases, $50, $49.95, $101, and $103. That's what they have. And these were hackers. These were people probably in Russia that took ads. They took ads for like, this had nothing to do with, frankly, Russia had nothing do with me. No, they created a story. I remember when I saw it on one of the networks, they were saying, after Hillary lost, this was going to be just a quick one-day, two-day excuse for why she lost, and the fake news picked it up and went with it. They do the same thing with the Epstein crap. They do same exact thing. It's the exact same thing. Anything they can do to demean. So what happens is they picked it up. And I remember it, one of the people, I won't even mention who now, because it could be that he's got problems and I'm not going to get involved in that. But got up and said, well, Russia was the reason we lost. And that was the first time I said, Russia, I'm listening to this. I said this is like a day after the election, shortly after the elections. I said what's that all about? But I didn't think much about it. You know, I figured it was an excuse, which it was. But what happened is the fake news picked it up and made it a two-year ordeal. And then it turned out, with a Mueller report, think of this. 18 different people we had 18 different people on that Mueller everyone was an anti-trumper every single one of them was a negative jumper and you know what they ruled got you that I did absolutely nothing wrong right so in one way I was very impressed by that actually if you want to know the truth I had somebody of the 18 I had somebody in there who was an angel because it's almost impossible for that They could have ruled whatever they wanted to do. They could've made up a story like they do so often. And, you know, guys like Weissman and some of these real scum, the real scums, they were involved in that. He wrote a book about how and he was on the committee. I think he was one of the guys on the commission.
Brian Kilmeade [00:14:54] They said he was the brain behind Robert Mueller, who had lost his fastball, sadly. I think he's doing some physical problems. Just real quick on that, Melania, the first lady, Melania Trump is suing Hunter Biden for a billion dollars because he said that Jeffrey Epstein introduced you to each other, and she's suing hunter for a million dollars. Is that the right thing to do?
President Trump [00:15:16] Well i could go forward you know i've been pretty well in these losses lately and i should go forward jeffrey epstein had nothing to do with milania and uh… Introducing but they do that to demean they make up stories i mean i can tell you exactly how it was it was another person actually i did be through another person but it wasn't jeffry epstein yeah i told it that go ahead do it i'd rather use my lawyers He's very upset about it.
Brian Kilmeade [00:15:41] So, let's talk about, there's so much going on, and my last question to this real quick, is there any scenario where Donald Trump will look at this meeting in Alaska and say, this was not worth it, I failed? Twenty-five percent. And you would say that if he just says, Hey, I'm going to just I'm gonna stay with you.
President Trump [00:16:01] Going to stay with me all the time and energy and went over there and we didn't come out with in a short period of time not from this meeting this meeting sets up the second meeting the second meaning is going to be very very important because that's going to a meeting where they make a deal and I don't want to use the word divvy things up but you know to a certain extent it's not a bad term okay but there will be a give-and-take as to boundaries, lands, et cetera, et cetera. The second meeting is going to be Very, very important. This meeting sets up, it's like a chess game. This meeting set up the second meeting. But there is a 25% chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting, in which case I will run the country and we have made America great again already in six months.
Brian Kilmeade [00:16:49] And you'll hit them with consequences, right? You'll hit with more sanctions. The Senate sanctions go front and center. If he disrespects, yeah.
President Trump [00:16:57] Oh sure, if it's not solved, look, again, we didn't lose any soldiers, we didn't loose anybody, but this was a war, if I didn't get in here, this could have been World War III, I'm telling you, Biden had no idea, he had no clue what was happening, this was getting so bad, and at a minimum, I've calmed it way down, I think you'd agree with that, way, way down. But they're still losing thousands of soldiers a week, and We have to get that taken care of.
Brian Kilmeade [00:17:27] So in Washington, D.C., you did something substantial, and that is put the National Guard in, federalized troops, got rid of the sanctuary city status, and for 30 days, you're trying to bring some semblance of extreme order to Washington, DC. I want you to hear what the mayor said about what you're doing. This is Mayor Muriel Bowser, and here's what she said cut to.
Speaker 3 [00:17:52] We all need to do what we can in our space, in our lane, to protect our city and to protect our autonomy and get to the other side of this guy. Make sure we elect a democratic house so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push.
Brian Kilmeade [00:18:14] She's not welcoming the additional law enforcement.
President Trump [00:18:18] Well, she actually is, but she doesn't want to say it, OK? Because crime in Washington, DC is totally out of control, worse than ever. And as you know, they fired or something happened to the person that does the stats because they wanted him, him in this case, I think, to do stats which were much better in terms of crime. And they were changing crimes to this kind of a crime, that kind of crime doesn't get counted anymore and all that stuff. So you don't believe those stats? Actually, it's worse now than ever before. You know that anybody that lives here does it. I have never had so many calls thanking me I tell you right and I look at those streets and those streets are safe and they're going to be very safe in a week or so look what I did at the border I had millions of people coming in the year before think of it millions and millions of People and within it without legislation you know Biden said we have to get legislation change you didn't need anything That was just an excuse for incompetence. The last three months, Brian, we had zero people. It was a zero, zero, and zero. Even I find that hard to believe, but it's like somebody did it, and I hear the people that do it are the same people that were doing the BLS and all the other different things that they do with the fake reports. But you know what? They gave it a zero. I'll take it. But essentially, it's very close to zero, or zero, for 90 days now. Nobody believes it's even the Republicans camp. I'm getting calls from senators and congressmen and women and they're saying that's amazing But that is frankly, I believe it's more difficult than what we have here But we have inherently some very very dangerous people living in Washington DC and we got to get them out
Brian Kilmeade [00:20:04] And there was your doge worker your 19 year old Elon Musk protege they got beat within an inch of his life Was that the turning point for you? Is that when you said I can't wait anymore?
President Trump [00:20:15] No, no, and I was going to do this before that, but this made me do it faster. Got it. When that happened to this young man who was a wonderful young guy, when that happened, and they hit him with like 10 guys all at one time, he got hit so fast he didn't know what happened. He showed great bravery. He got his girlfriend in the car and locked the door, locked the do. They were under, because he saw them coming. He said, what the hell? Look at that. It was a pack. And they were coming. I don't mean a political pack. It may have been a political pack too. Who knows? You know, you never know. Teenagers. Nowadays you never know. But it was a pack. And they called it a pack and they were violent. They were violent kids. And frankly, he couldn't believe he woke up alive.
Brian Kilmeade [00:20:59] Mr. President, do you think that putting these troops in there, and this Democratic mayor not necessarily embracing at least publicly, and what you did in Los Angeles, despite that the governor didn't want it and the mayor didn't it, you sent in backups, Marines and National Guard. Do you think this might force Democratic cities to crack down on crime so you don't have to.
President Trump [00:21:23] Yeah, the good politicians, the smart ones, the sane people will, and the other ones will go out of their way to try and show them that I'm wrong on crime. Look, this is another, you know, they call them 80-20s. I think it's 100 to nothing, but they're going to have to handle it the way they want. I'm there to help. But if I see a city going bad, I said it last time, last time I went right by Every perfect little eating can rule and I'd let the governor's run their stuff and then run it into the ground. I had that wacko in Minnesota. You saw what happened in Minneapolis and if I didn't send in the troops, you wouldn't have Minnesota. We wouldn't have Minneapolis standing today. You saw how bad it was, but I sent in the troop very late because he wouldn't do it. He wasn't, he was, the whole city was burning down. That was the wacko that ran for, ran for vice president. Governor Walz. Yeah, he's a real beauty. But again, I said, if I ever do this again, this is what I was thinking about it. I said I'm gonna act before the fact, I'm not gonna act after the fact. And you know, you see what they did to Portland, you see, it's not gonna happen this time. Not gonna happen. Now Gavin Newsom wouldn't have a Los Angeles stand. You know, we have the Olympics coming. That was a part of my thinking there too. We have the Olympic coming. He just lost 25,000 houses to fires that shouldn't have happened. It was only because he didn't allow water to come into. That part of los angeles or frankly at the california because he cut up the water they said that after the pacific ocean but i overrode him after the fires i over rode him and they have water coming down they should be allowing more we're going to go into that next but i have a news that maybe would have allowed the water you would have had a fire but but i said if i don't send people in you're not gonna have a city for the olympics we have the olypics coming. And the World Cup.
Brian Kilmeade [00:23:32] And and and you know I know that for a fact because I know people out there only 1% of the permits has been given It's an embarrassment and they're getting away with it, which is sickening. I want to talk about, California
President Trump [00:23:40] They want to take away some of the sites that are owned by people and build low income housing.
Brian Kilmeade [00:23:48] You can't do it.
President Trump [00:23:48] The whole beauty of that area. I was there right after the fire very closely to immediately after the fires Soon as I felt there was a you know, it was yeah the right time but immediate and I met the people Many of them they were all standing in front of their sites. They were literally ashes the steel was wrapped up in balls It was so it was like a blowtorch because of the wind and I went there and I saw every person on Two or three streets. I went to Every family was in front their house with a yellow cord You can't go on it. And they said, we want to start immediately, sir. I said, why don't you start? They won't let us. I gave them the federal permits almost immediately. That's the hardest permit to get, by the way. And they still don't have their permits, right?
Brian Kilmeade [00:24:31] And you told Mayor Bass, let them do it, and she said she would. She wants them to be safe. He goes, they know how to be save. To me, it was one of your finest moments because she didn't do it. You were great.
President Trump [00:24:42] Said she said we'll get them over a two-year period you remember that yeah I said two years you mean two days
Brian Kilmeade [00:24:48] Mr. President, I lost all my stuff there in a fire in Malibu in the 90s, and they still hadn't rebuilt it seven years later. But I want to talk about Gavin Newsom.
President Trump [00:24:58] You have an incompetent governor, he's an incompetant governor, and the mayor is grossly incompetent. And that worries me because we have the Olympics going there.
Brian Kilmeade [00:25:06] Well, you know, Gavin Newsom's taking you on. He thinks that's his best path to being the next president of the United States, in my view, and he posted on X. He gave you a warning instead of Governor Abbott. Saying that if you allow Governor Abbott to go through, it's his gerrymander, he's gonna do that in California. He posted this, I guess trying to take the Trump approach. Donald Trump, Taco Trump, as many call him, missed the deadline. California will now draw new, more beautiful maps. They'll be historic and they will end the Trump presidency. The Dems will take back the House in the midterms. What's your take on Gavin's warning that you missed?
President Trump [00:25:42] Well, Gavin is an incompetent governor. The state has gone to hell. You see what's happened to Los Angeles. And if I didn't send the troops in, you probably wouldn't have much of a Los Angeles standing right now. Those troops did a hell of a job. And you know who loved it? The sheriff and the police. Now, after about a week or so, then the sheriff said, well, maybe we can have the sheriff. Take a look at the sheriff's statement the first day or two. They asked him, do you need the troops? He said, absolutely. We can't do this by ourselves. Now he changed his tone about two weeks later because he had already taken care of the…
Brian Kilmeade [00:26:17] But what about the gerrymandering? Do you worry that Democrats are gonna counter your gerrymander when you go into Indiana?
President Trump [00:26:21] That anyway. They've done that far before we did. Take a look at Illinois with that slob of a governor they have up there, total incompetent. Take look at that. Take a look in Illinois what happened. You have places that look like snakes. They're going back and forth, you know, hit a little Democrat area here.
Brian Kilmeade [00:26:39] So are you going to encourage Florida to do it? Are you going encourage Florida to redistricting?
President Trump [00:26:45] Ron I watched Ron I thought it was fantastic he's gonna find a couple of areas you can do it why not they're doing it but they not only are they doing it they've done it they may be petered out I don't know but they've done it and you just take a look at some of those states it's ridiculous and you have you know normally you'd like to see a nice rectangle or a nice square right they have things that go throughout the whole there they look like rattlesnakes
Brian Kilmeade [00:27:09] I know, it's incredible, but I want to talk, if we can, just a little bit about China. Big story out today that China is about to overtake America in the electric car and really outstrip Tesla. They probably took a lot of the technology. Your thoughts about losing the electric-car business to China, does that worry you?
President Trump [00:27:30] I don't like losing any business to China. We're leading in AI. We're leaving in so much. They know it. We're way ahead of them in terms of chips. We have Jensen and all these guys that are phenomenal. We're away ahead of that. Now the Blackwell is coming out. It's so advanced that they won't catch it for years. Now we're leading them. The electric car is different. See, I don'- you know, do I care? Yeah, I- I don't like it, but I-I am a believer that somebody should buy- All cars you should you if you want to buy a gasoline powered car You know, we have more we have oil and gas than any other country and I say if you wanna buy Something where we have under the ground, you know the batteries China has that but we have oily gas and a lot of people want look It seems to be so far like a seven or ten percent market. China's gone all out Yeah, if if they catch us, you don't you know, they're not coming into here, you have tariffs so they can't come
Brian Kilmeade [00:28:25] They can't come in with that brand new car. I want to go back to immigration if I can, Mr. President.
President Trump [00:28:30] I don't want them destroying our automobile business. Somebody else would let them in, and in about six months, we wouldn't have an automobile business in this country.
Brian Kilmeade [00:28:37] I know it's going to cost like $21,000, and Europe's trying to keep them out too. Mr. President, as you know, you've sealed the border in a way that I don't think anyone thought was possible. But because of that, you have an interesting situation. You have people here for generations that, of course, you're not going to get citizenship, but they've been working on farms. A lot of farmers voted for you. They work in hospitality. A lot hospitality workers voted for, you they work in meatpacking areas. Do you have a plan? And I know some Republicans are gonna get upset by this, but do you have a plan to give them long-term work visas, not citizenship, to not hurt the people, not hurt our economy?
President Trump [00:29:17] So as you know i won the election with the farmers by like eighty eight percent i won't be election with big people that one strong borders by probably a hundred percent i would imagine right i mean how could you vote for so i don't want to open borders that never called the border patrol that never went to the site you know the borders are never even went to be border i must've got i did i don't know what it is but let's assume it's like uh… A hundred and thirty percent so i want the border i want everything and uh… To be honest i of all those people. They have a little bit different thing in life. The farmers want to have people that can work very hard in the fields, and the other people don't want to anybody from outside of our country. And I am working on a plan that I think is going to make everybody very happy. We have to take care of our farmers. We love our farmers, but we also have to care of people that want total security and safety in our country, and we're going to take of both.
Brian Kilmeade [00:30:09] Do you think within three months, you'll have an answer to the hospitality workers, meat packers, and farmers? Because I think they make up. So within three month.
President Trump [00:30:20] I think people are going to be happy.
Brian Kilmeade [00:30:21] All right, man.
President Trump [00:30:22] I want to make look. They're all great. They love our country that group of people the Democrats don't love our county I think they hate our country. They are crazy. They've gone crazy. You know, we have a something coming up in Congress in the not so distant future if And you know the Democrats are totally against stopping crime. They were against stopping current. Think of it How do you win an election when you're against stopping time, but they they would rather say Trump's a dictator And that's a new thing, that I'm a dictator because I'm stopping crime. You will watch Washington, D.C. Will become the safest capital anywhere in the world within a short period of time, and we'll keep it safe too. But we have to get rid of the murderers, thugs, and you know, many of them, not all of them. Some are self-grown and homegrown, but you know what, many homegrowners, but you take a look at the people and many of the happen to come from Venezuela. The Congo, and lots of places all over the world they come from. But we also have people that were born here and they turn out to be real thugs. We're taking care of them. We're take care of all of them.' The capital of the United States of America, Washington, D.C., will be the safest place in this country in a very short period of time.
Brian Kilmeade [00:31:39] And I think the cleanest and I think that don't diminish that because when things are clean
President Trump [00:31:45] And the Kennedy Center, it's such a mess. That will be so beautiful in a short period of time. You'll watch, that's what I do in life.
Brian Kilmeade [00:31:55] I just got to ask you about Jimmy Lai. He's a self-made billionaire, Hong Kong friend of the West, and when Hong Kong was taken by the Chinese government, he's been jailed, closing arguments today. His son joined me, and I did not know you knew Sebastian, Sebastian Lai, here's what He said, cut three.
Speaker 4 [00:32:15] Does President Trump know him? We've been incredibly grateful that the president mentioned that 100% he will free my father. He mentioned it in a radio show with Hugh Hewitt. And it's given our family a lot of hope because at this point it is about freeing him, but it's about saving his life. I don't know how much longer he has.
Brian Kilmeade [00:32:33] So your thoughts, because you're going to be meeting President Xi, and he could do that just by one finger.
President Trump [00:32:40] I didn't say 100% I'd save him. I said, 100%, I'm going to be bringing it up. And I've already brought it up, and I'm going to do everything I can to save him, I'm gonna do everything. You know, he's a respected guy, he is a good guy. I mean, you could also understand President Xi would not be exactly thrilled by doing it. It was a very nasty period of time in the history of China. I mean it was a really nasty period of time with all of that being said. Uh… His name is uh… Already entered the circle of things that we're talking about and we'll see what we can do i really like the federal art i love that he's fighting so hard for his father and his father's you know not a young guys you know how much longer do you live and i hear you doing okay health wise not great and we're going to do everything we can
Brian Kilmeade [00:33:25] Yeah, lastly, Mr. President, I never thought that you would start dominating America culture, or those of you who are dollar and cents and foreign policy guy. But among the people that think you are, New York Times reporters bringing it up, how much better that this term is functioning than the last one, and obviously Joe Biden's. And also Chuck Todd came out and said, you're dominating like no president since F.D.R. And that includes education, because in education, Brown, Columbia, George Washington University, UCLA, all of these universities are straightening up and paying a price. Why did the culture, changing the culture matter to you or does it now that you're back?
President Trump [00:34:09] It matters a lot. The culture of a country matters so much. That's the same thing about Ukraine. If you look at what's happened to those cities, they've been decimated. Those magnificent spires have all been, almost all of them have been knocked to the ground there in smithereens. And, you know, it's so sad. No, culture matters so much. One thing on education that we're doing, that you didn't mention, and it's true, these woke, crazy colleges are paying a very big price. And you haven't heard anything yet when you hear some of these settlements that we are doing. But they're paying a big price But what we're really doing with education, which I think is almost as important, maybe more important, is we're sending it back to the states. And the states are accepting it really gracefully and beautifully. And they want it. They desperately want it, we have 40 states where education would be as good as any place it were. We have 10 where it won't be so good because it's like, you know, like a guy like Gavin Newsom, he's not going to run good education, but because he doesn't know Now he's just got a mouth. But a place like Los Angeles is going to be tough. But all over, you go to Iowa, you go to Indiana, you got all these places, Nebraska, every one of these places, they're going to have Florida is going to be phenomenal. We're sending education back to their to the states and we're getting it out of Washington, D.C. And the bureaucrats with, you know, you have people that are involved with like Florida from Washington. They've never even been there and they're running education in Florida. We sending it back so that Ron can run it so that all the governors can run it. And they're going to do a great job. Now, 10 states are not going to, but they're the same, like a guy like Pritzker won't do a good job with education. He probably doesn't even want it back. But Pritzke won't a good, Newsom won't do a a good. You know, the same places that run badly will do a bad job. But 90% of the country is going to a phenomenal job. We're sending education back to the states where the parents are involved, they love their children, where the teachers are involved, they love the children. And it's not going to be run by the bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., that are destroying. I mean, we have the worst education almost in the world for a top 40 country. You know, we're like 38, 39, and 40 out of 40 in education. So obviously, we are doing something wrong. That won't happen for long. When education goes back to these well-run states, it will run as well as the various but like Denmark, Austria, you know, you have. You have some countries that have like great education. Interestingly, China does very well with education so you can't blame it on science, but they do very well education.
Brian Kilmeade [00:36:44] And lastly, on behalf of Massapequa, you and Linda McMahon helping keep the chief's name. So that means a lot.
President Trump [00:36:50] Ryan, I love, I have a lot of friends in Massapequa, including you, but I love Massapequal. I've heard that name for years, okay, and they have a championship team. They always have a great team. I know young people that played on that team, and you know, great people, and we got to get the name back to the Chiefs. And you know what? They're demeaning the Indians by taking it, it's actually the opposite of what they think. They're demeaning that's a place And that town is sort of based around that whole football thing that they have going there. So we're working hard. You know, it's a state problem, not a federal problem. So we have to interject, and we've done that, into the state. But the state is fighting us very hard, but I think we'll be successful with it.
Brian Kilmeade [00:37:34] You're always successful. Mr. President, thanks so much. I am. I am, I am always. Best of luck in Alaska. And I look forward to seeing you walking on the military base and greeting Vladimir Putin.
President Trump [00:37:43] And we'll do the best we can, and I think we'll have a good result in the end.
Brian Kilmeade [00:37:47] All right, go get them. Thanks so much, Mr. President. Thank you very much.
President Trump [00:37:48] Thank you very much, Brian. Appreciate it. Very good. Thank you.
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