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President Donald J. Trump: America at 250 7/3/26
00:39:25
President Donald J. Trump sits down with Joe Kernen for an exclusive, extended interview ahead of America’s 250th anniversary. In a wide-ranging conversation, the President discusses the stock market’s performance, the war in Iran, the Supreme Court’s latest decisions, AI innovation, and the government’s stake in Intel. Plus, President Trump addresses his own financial disclosures and considers his legacy in the context of the Presidents who came before him. Happy Fourth of July! In this episode: Joe Kernen, @JoeSquawk President Donald J. Trump, @POTUS
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- [00:00]
Commercial Narrator
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- [00:27]
AT&T Business Customer
Before we had AT&T business Wireless coverage, our delivery GPS wasn't the most reliable. Once our driver had to do a 14 point turn to get back on route. A 14 point turn. An influencer even live streamed the whole thing. Not good for business. Now with AT&T business Wireless, routes are updating on the fly and deliveries are on time. And the influencer did get us 53 new followers though.
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Donald J. Trump
AT&T business Wireless connecting changes everything.
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Commercial Narrator
Foreign.
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Joe Kernan
Listeners, It's Joe Kernan at the White house in Washington D.C. for America's 250th birthday, I'm bringing you an interview with our 45th and 47th president, Donald J. Trump. Mr. President, it's great to see you.
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Donald J. Trump
Thank you.
- [01:18]
Joe Kernan
Thank you for having me in this incredible place.
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Donald J. Trump
And happy nice place.
- [01:22]
Joe Kernan
Happy Independence Day. And happy semi quincentennial. Yeah, that's true if I got that right.
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Donald J. Trump
Thank you.
- [01:29]
Joe Kernan
We 250 years and I just want to start flying at about 40,000ft and just. Which you've done in pretty nice plane lately, by the way. I saw that. What's so amazing about this country, in your words for the last 250 years? You always say never been seen before. There's never been a country like this that's ever been seen in the history.
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Donald J. Trump
Well, a lot of people don't understand that right now we are in a golden age. You understand it very well. You cover it very well. We have more factories being built today than ever before. We have more people working today than at any time ever in the history of our country. And people making more money than they've ever made. I'm not talking about rich people. I'm talking about people that have like normal or normalized jobs, more money than they've ever made before. 401ks are up at levels that they've never seen before, up 80 and 90%. And the stock market's at an all time high. I think it's 81 days out of a short, you know, a year and a half, 81 days. We have 81 records. So nobody's ever seen Anything like that.
- [02:37]
Joe Kernan
Or if, if it backs up, something's hitting a record. Well, if it backs up here, the Nasdaq or the Dow. Dow, another all time high.
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Donald J. Trump
But you said if it backs up. Hopefully it won't, but. Well, it does. I will not be talking about it. I'll be talking about it on this.
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Joe Kernan
But an unbelievable quarter. Unbelievable. First half of the year, your first term, we saw, I think if, depending on what you measure it from either 80% from election day, I think 70% from, from inauguration.
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Donald J. Trump
So it was great. First term was this.
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Joe Kernan
It's very. It might even be at a faster pace.
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Donald J. Trump
This is better. So the first term we had the most successful four years, including the COVID You know, when you include that, when I handed it off, it was literally. I mean, you look at the numbers, we had the highest market in history. First term was. Was great. Financially, this is, I think, blowing it away. I think this is going to blow it away.
- [03:28]
Joe Kernan
So we had the jobs number today, which is weird because it's Thursday, but the markets aren't open more. But 57,000 jobs were below expectations and I think there were some revisions. But the job market has been stronger than people anticipated. However, we had $90 oil at 67, 68 today and 57,000. Would you say that gives Warsh, the new Fed chairman who you chose, more flexibility to cut? Because for a while we thought the next move might be a hike. Now the stars are aligning. Would you say for him to cut?
- [04:04]
Donald J. Trump
Well, he's got a board that maybe is a little bit hostile and you know, unfortunately, and maybe a boy that wants to do the wrong thing. So I don't know. He's a, he's a great guy and a great pro and I know where he'd like to be, but he has to do what he has to do. I really think that I would love to be able to get back, you know, in the old days probably, maybe before you started thinking about these things. But if you go back 20 or 25 years when you announced great numbers, the stock market went up. When you announced bad numbers, the stock market would go down. Today it's the opposite. When you announce good numbers, the stock market goes down. Sometimes really way down, depending on how good the better they are that work because they have this phobia to have this horrible derangement syndrome about inflation. And growth can be good for inflation, not just bad for inflation. And it's a shame anytime numbers are announced that are not so good. I wish I could flip it the old way. That when you announce great numbers, because otherwise it's almost like they want to kill strength, they want to kill success. You announce good numbers. I want to, like. You have a couple of countries. India is one doing very well, but it's at 7, 8% others. Take a look at Japan's numbers. I mean, they're doing very well. She's very good. She's doing a good job. A friend of mine. But they're allowed to go up. We're not allowed to go up. If we go up, they want to kill it. There's no reason we should stop at 4%. We should be at 12% and 13% GDP. And I hate what happens where in the old days we would be. That's how we built the country. Now you, you announce positive things and they want to bring it down by raising interest rates. And it shouldn't be that way. It should go back to the way it was.
- [05:59]
Joe Kernan
You mentioned that Wash might not. The chairman has other people on the Fed, obviously, and so has Lisa Cook on the Fed. The Supreme Court ruled on Monday. I'm not really sure exactly whether it was on the merits or whether it was procedure, but I think you said procedure. Yeah. You're going to take the appropriate action when. When the time. What could you do to get rid of.
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Donald J. Trump
Get her off.
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Joe Kernan
How would you do it at this point?
- [06:25]
Donald J. Trump
Winning the case. They send it back. Not based on the merits. They send it back on process and procedure. So we'll start the process and we'll do perfect process and perfect procedure.
- [06:36]
Joe Kernan
Speaking of the Supreme Court, you're allowed to fire, except for the Fed, you're allowed to fire people at other federal agencies, which for you, in your term would make a big difference for you. But my question, that was by far
- [06:48]
Donald J. Trump
the biggest slaughter, as they call it, of the scotus. It was by far the biggest of all the decisions and all of the cases and all of you know what they just announced. So this has been going on since 1932, where they took the right away from FDR. They took it away, which was, you know, you think of fdr, that doesn't happen, but it did. He fought very hard to get it back. In fact, he wanted to pack the court. He was willing to pack the court. They were his justices. And this has been going on since 1932. And I want it back. And there are those that say this is one of the biggest decisions handed down in decades. You know, that bigger, bigger than birthright citizenship, bigger than anything.
- [07:32]
Joe Kernan
What if a Democratic, the next time a Democrat is elected president and you've. The executive branch has all this expanded power that you've gotten, well, then they've got it. Don't you worry they'll undo some of your policies?
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Donald J. Trump
At that point, I can only speak for myself. It's necessary.
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Joe Kernan
Worry about what's now.
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Donald J. Trump
Yeah, I mean, look, it's necessary. It's actually an honor to have won that because every president since FDR has been trying to get that back, and I got it back. That's a big deal. You know, it's a checkpoint along the
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Joe Kernan
same lines, if, if the Democrats take the House and, you know, I want you to succeed as president. I want, I want a businessman.
- [08:12]
Donald J. Trump
Yeah.
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Joe Kernan
To run the country. And all along you entered as a billionaire businessman, which was unprecedented. I think George Washington owned a lot of land, but no one's ever think JFK had a trust fund, but no one's ever been as wealthy as you. And you obviously know how to run a business. And that, I think, informs the way you run the country, obviously. Now, many people argue business experience is needed in government. And we've seen the stock market in the first term and the second term. I think it's been rewarded to have a businessman in there. So I think we shouldn't be surprised that your businesses are doing well. But how would you counter critics that say you're using the presidency to enrich yourself and your family?
- [08:56]
Donald J. Trump
Well, in a lot of ways, if you think about it, the stock has gone up so much. The stock market Today, it's up 500 points. It's up to almost 53,000. You know, I watched your show and you had somebody on, one of your one brilliant analysts, and they said if I had won the election, they said if President Trump could get the stock market to anywhere near 50,000, that would be an unbelievable achievement. And that was over four years. In other words, at the end of his term, four years, if he could get anywhere near 50,000, that would be. Well, it's at 53,000. It's just a couple of points short of 53,000 right now. And that's essentially after a little bit more than a year.
- [09:39]
Joe Kernan
But do you, do you worry that if they take, if the Democrats were to win the House, that there's going to be endless investigations of you and your administration?
- [09:46]
Donald J. Trump
Well, you know, I don't do anything having to do with my business. My kids run it. I put a lot of money. I had a lot of money, and I have a lot of money. And I've always made. I've made Money, you know, I'm a business person. I'm a really good business person. I've made money. I've made a tremendous amount of money, more than I would have ever thought I would have made. And I let people invest it. I don't even speak to. I don't even know who they are. But it's given to. Big firms like that are on your show all the time. My son Eric handles it. I don't talk to him about things such as this. I think I'd be allowed to. I'm not sure even what the status is, but I don't. And he gives it into these like semi blind trusts or blind trusts where people invest. Now, there was a story today about Jensen Wang, who's fantastic Nvidia, and that I have some stock. I think it's very small. I think it's one of many companies that one of the big Wall street firms invests. And so they said, oh, Trump has some stock in there. But I don't care about that. You know what? You know why I don't care? Because I have a much bigger purpose. You know, this, this is the Oval Office. It's a much bigger purpose than whether or not I make money. As an example, the president's the highest paid person in government and, you know, by some standards, gets a lot of money. I don't. I'm the only president, they say, that's ever given up my. I gave up my salary, but I don't get a salary. I gave it up. And it's a lot of, you know, by some standards, it's a lot of money.
- [11:23]
Joe Kernan
But making money in the stock market, that makes sense. So as far as crypto goes, and I'm just wondering, you, you didn't divest your business, you have your sons running it. I think vice presidents and presidents aren't subject really to conflict of interest laws. But there's this, this notion that you need to be aware of conflict of interest. There was a large sum of money made in crypto. Did you know that your family business was going to engage in crypto? Did you have anything?
- [11:52]
Donald J. Trump
Well, I was here before, I was there before I was in office. But the way I view crypto is a little differently. We have to be at the top, otherwise China is going to take it over. Like, for instance, AI. We're leading substantially in AI over China and everybody else. I mean, we're leading. When I was with President Xi three weeks ago, he greeted me and these first words literally went, wow, you've really done a great Job. You've really. Because this country was dead. We had a dead country. Now we have the hardest country in the world. And the way I look at AI or the way I look at crypto is if we're not going to do it, China is going to get it, most likely. China, somebody else, Japan is somebody else. And I want to. It's a big industry, Chipto, if you call it an industry. But it's a big deal. And crypto is a big deal. You look at it the way it's grown over the years. You have believers, you don't have believers, you know, whatever it is, but it's a big deal. And anything we do, I want to be number one. And we're number one in crypto and we're also number one in a.
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Joe Kernan
In the disclosure this week, the amount of money that, that you and the family made in crypto, it was an outsized number. I was just asking, did you or you know about the crypto ventures? So, so that was just something I
- [13:10]
Donald J. Trump
could know about it. I didn't. I mean there's nothing illegal, there's nothing wrong with it. I could know.
- [13:16]
Joe Kernan
There's a. I think I remember Title 18, Section 208 from Congress. You, the vice president and you do not have. You would have to recruit recus.
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Donald J. Trump
I didn't even know that you would
- [13:28]
Joe Kernan
have to recuse yourself on every decision that could running the country that could have anything to do with you. So it just isn't feasible to do.
- [13:35]
Donald J. Trump
Well, I feel badly in a way for my kids because every time my kids do, if they invest in a stock or if they go and do a bill, anything they do, because the presidency is so powerful, so big, everything. If they buy a cupcake company, well, the energy to make the cupcakes is, you know, sort of like, how's my energy policy? So therefore you have a conflict. Almost anything they do, if they want to buy a truck, if they want to buy, you know, they buy an energy efficient truck, they have inside information. So it's pretty tough in that sense. I tell my kids, stay away from as much as you can stay away from. But they also have a life. You know, we were doing business long before I ever thought of. You knew me a long time before I thought of even running. You knew me before I even thought about running for press.
- [14:28]
Joe Kernan
I did.
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Donald J. Trump
I knew you before and we did
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Joe Kernan
a lot of press.
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Donald J. Trump
Yeah, that's right. But I did, you know, I've made a lot of money over the years and I think one of the Reasons that I got elected was they have a business person. And if you look at what's happening, we're, we're beating everybody, we're beating China, we're beating every single country with the envy of the world. And I, whether it's good or bad, we have it. Let's talk. And, and we are leading by so much. We're, you know, I'm letting all of these big plants, everyone said, well, we don't have the energy to compete. I came up, and this was something I'm proud of. I did it myself. I said, I came up with this idea. I let each plant build their own electricity. They become a utility. But these massive plants that are being built, they can't go off an old grid. So we wouldn't have anybody, we literally wouldn't have anything. We need double the energy, double the electricity that we have right now to do that. Just that one AI industry. So I let the plants, as they build these billions and billions of dollars of plants, I let them build their own electric generating plants and they build them on top, they build them on the side, they build them separately, and we have nothing but electricity. If you really look, we have more than anybody. If I didn't come up with that concept, we wouldn't have, we would, we would not be in first place. We would even be, we'd be in last place. We wouldn't have any. We don't have enough from the old grid. What about pigs? So I'm sort of proud of that.
- [16:01]
Joe Kernan
Reportedly, Sam Altman is discuss and giving the government a 5% stake in open AI. Is that, is that possible? And is that true? And would other AI companies do similar
- [16:12]
Donald J. Trump
things or would something with Intel.
- [16:15]
Joe Kernan
Right.
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Donald J. Trump
That a lot of people don't know about or talk about. But it was, I, you know, they had problems with things and they got hurt badly because no president ever charged tariffs. And Taiwan literally took 100% of the business. Almost mostly Taiwan, but South Korea a little bit, but mostly Taiwan. And I said, boy, if I was president, that would have never happened. Taiwan would never be in the position they're in now. Of course, you know, they're in a little bit of a tenuous position. And I have them all moving back. They're all moving back into this country. We have, we're going to have 40 to 50 to 60% of the chips. I think by the time we're pretty close to the time I leave office, they're building chip factories in Arizona in particular, the biggest company in the world is building. They're leaving Taiwan, meaning to build this. They're building their biggest plant. And I think we're going to have a big percentage of chips right now. You know, we had virtually nothing. We didn't make chips anymore. And intel came in, they had a problem. I said, I can solve your problem, but I want 10% of the company. They said, what? I said, I want 10% of the company. And he agreed to me. And the stock has gone through. So I think we made 60 or 70 billion dollars in eight months. Do I give credit for that? No. Somebody said, that's not very American. I said, no, I think it is very American, actually. And I've done that with other deals
- [17:39]
Joe Kernan
where they had a loan anyway from the chips act. And now it's better to have equity than a loan. You would think, well, it worked out
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Donald J. Trump
well from our standpoint.
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Joe Kernan
That's what I mean.
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Donald J. Trump
We really had no investment. We had on zero investment. We made about, I guess, $70 billion in of eight or nine months. But that's a great thing. What's happened is intel has gone through the roof. You know, it's one of the hottest companies and they've done a great job.
- [18:02]
Joe Kernan
Is, is. Is Chinese AI Is it catching up and do you need. Are some new restrictions? You're thinking about that that would make sense on technology?
- [18:11]
Donald J. Trump
Well, you need some guardrails, but you want to do as little as possible. You want to be good. We have. When we think there's a bad player out there, there's a little danger. We stop the player quickly and effectively. We had a recent case where we did that. But you have to be. Look, you have to be in the game. AI is bigger than the Internet. I've never seen anything. You know, the Internet was a big deal. I think this is much bigger than the Internet. And I'm basing it on numbers. I'm basing. I've never seen anything. Look, I went through the Internet thing and I watched and I saw it grow very effectively. But this could be bigger if we're not competing and if we're going to compete, because I really think whoever's number one is going to really win the race. And right now we're substantially number one.
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Joe Kernan
I'm going to try and do as much as we can.
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Donald J. Trump
Go ahead.
- [19:03]
Joe Kernan
I hope that's okay.
- [19:05]
Donald J. Trump
If he needs a little more time, just relax. I'm not Kamala. You know, they give him four minutes and then start screaming at him.
- [19:14]
Joe Kernan
That housing bill.
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Donald J. Trump
Don't be nervous, okay?
- [19:18]
Joe Kernan
Oval Office with.
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Donald J. Trump
No, I'm not He's been my friend for a long time and he's a good man, too.
- [19:24]
Joe Kernan
In, in a few days it's going to become law one way or the other. The housing bill. Right. You're going to sign it. Will it become long? Where do you stand on that? Is it. I know you called it. I don't think you were necessarily anti housing bill. You called it a yawn because you. You think what's really important is save a mistake.
- [19:41]
Donald J. Trump
Yep. So I think the Save America act is the most important thing that we have, that we have before us and maybe for many years back and many years forward. It's voter identification with a photo. So you look at somebody that looks like that guy. Voter id. It's proof of citizenship. And it's no mail in ballots except for the military. We're very generous on this if you're sick, if you're just not feeling well, you can get exceptions. If there's a disability, there's some problem, or if you go on vacation. But you can't send in millions and millions and millions of ballots where you swamp the place. And it's so corrupt. We're the only country in the world that does it. So it's those three things. I also had no men in women's sports, but we won that yesterday in the Supreme Court. And I also had no transgender mutilization of children and frankly will win that too. So I took them out. You let. So I have the three things.
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AT&T Business Customer
Let it go.
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Joe Kernan
The housing. You let that.
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Donald J. Trump
Well, you and Peter. Would you. So nobody knows more about housing than I do. I made billions and billions of dollars with housing and I know exactly what they've done. They made maybe zoning easier, but maybe they made it tougher without knowing it. It's very complex stuff. But the housing bill is fine. There's a lot of Democrat points in there that I don't even think are good, but it's fine. But I've made the case I'd rather not sign anything until we sign the Save America Act.
- [21:24]
Joe Kernan
You think through reconciliation or filibuster?
- [21:28]
Donald J. Trump
Because if you do save America, you're not going to have cheating practically.
- [21:31]
Joe Kernan
How do we get there? On Save America, what would you like? Majority leader soon to.
- [21:36]
Donald J. Trump
Well, I would like them to get it passed. What I'd really like is for them to filibuster. Kill the filibuster. Terminate the filibuster. When they terminate the filibuster, then they'll immediately approve the Save America and a hundred other things. You could sit down all day long and just vote. And you'd have it. And the sad part is we probably have five or six senators that won't vote for it, Republican senators and all of the Democrats. So their policy is no good to Democrats. I call them the Democrats because their policies are so bad. But. But the one thing they, unfortunately, they stick together. They don't have. Well, we'll see what this.
- [22:19]
Joe Kernan
The Democratic Party's got their own issues right now.
- [22:21]
Donald J. Trump
We'll talk about that a little bit. Kind of issue when they vote on something like the board. Look at the Supreme Court justices. The three Supreme Court justices, every vote, pow, pow, pow. It's for or against. It's 100%. I don't think any dissension. Where's our people? Yeah, no, it's almost, you know, I've said it. Republicans want to show everybody how they're not controlled, how they're so honorable. Whereas the Democrat justices and judges, by the way, and judges, they get up. Barack Hussein Obama appointed me and I'm voting for him. Republicans don't do that. And I'm amazed. I'm not saying it has to be a loyalty test, but it's much different. The three justices vote as a bloc. I think I can remember one time, but very, very seldom do they not vote as a block. Whereas our people, and we have six, but they move around a little bit and they surprise. For instance, birthright citizenship. I should have won that. That wasn't meant for billionaire billionaires from China. Bringing a child over and becoming an American citizen. And far worse than that. Much worse than that. The last worst, it was a terrible vote. I'll tell you, the worst vote was tariffs. I'm doing the same tariffs, but I have now it's much tougher. Jill, I stopped eight wars because of tariffs. India, Pakistan, I mean, I did so many. I stopped eight wars. Everybody acknowledges it. And five of the eight were stopped because of tariffs. I said, if you keep fighting, I'm going to put a 200% tariff on your country. Said it the same thing to the other. I did it with India and with Pakistan. 11 planes were shot down. They were going to war. And they're nuclear nations, strong nuclear nations. And the prime minister of Pakistan said President Trump saved at least 30 million lives by stopping this war.
- [24:25]
Joe Kernan
You know what has been a really good indicator of what's happening in the war in Iran or whatever the conflict is oil. And regardless of what we hear from whomever has this stage in Iran that you pointed out, we don't know who's talking at any given time there's different factions killed one group and then another.
- [24:45]
Donald J. Trump
We killed the second level.
- [24:46]
Joe Kernan
But 67, $68 oil, we're down to
- [24:49]
Donald J. Trump
lower than we were before.
- [24:50]
Joe Kernan
It shows you that probably even though we have these skirmishes on both sides and I don't know whether that continues, I don't know whether you can tell me whether that continues. Have you been close to doing more than just a reciprocal move on them?
- [25:06]
Donald J. Trump
Well, I think I've done much more than reciprocal. Because
- [25:11]
Joe Kernan
you want diplomacy at this point.
- [25:12]
Donald J. Trump
Look, I built the military my first term. I'm using it in my second term when I went in, otherwise we wouldn't have. And that's after Biden gave so much away in Afghanistan. He just said leave it. We left brand new military vehicles, we left tanks, we left, we left airplanes. These people are crazy. They don't know what they're doing. And there was no reason to do it. Getting out of Afghanistan was fine, but they should have kept Bagram, the air force base, they could have kept it very easily. We would have gotten out with dignity and strength, that we shouldn't have been there in the first place or we could have won. I would have won it. I would have won it or gotten out, but I would have won it. But they just teetered around, you know, it's interesting. So we're in the war and it's really the denuclearization of Iran. This is not a war per se. This is the denuking of Iran. You can't let them have a nuclear weapon. And I'm doing it for three and a half, four months. Right? Look at Venezuela, that was a one day war and we've gotten our money back many, many times over for the cost of the war. But in a certain way I'm doing just as well with Iran. It's a much bigger, more complex situation. Our relationship by the way with Venezuela is great. They're doing better than they've ever done with oil. The big companies are moving in and we're getting the good chunk of it too, as we should. But with Iran, if they jerk you
- [26:41]
Joe Kernan
around, what if they jerk us around again with either the straight or with, with the, you know, they know the
- [26:46]
Donald J. Trump
midterms were coming because they've had their own Way for 47 years. Like if you're a spoiled child and you've had your way for many years with your parents and all of a sudden they come down hard on you, it takes you a little while to get used to it. They've had their way for 47 years. They pushed everywhere. They were known as the bully of the Middle East. They pushed the countries around and they pushed the United States around because we had presidents that weren't willing to do. Look, Barack Obama paid them to try and keep them in line. Gave him a 1.7 billion in cash. You remember that because you reported that they put it on a beautiful 757Boeing. They took all the seats out and they stuffed it with green cash from Virginia, Maryland and D.C. the banks had no money left. They literally took every. And they delivered it to Iran. And they took out satchels and sacks of, of money. In addition to that, they paid tens of billions of dollars. And you know, they got, they got a lot of nuclear research and a lot of weapons and a lot of missiles and an enemy. They actually went on the other side. And how a Jewish person can vote for a Democrat is beyond me.
- [28:00]
Joe Kernan
Well, let's.
- [28:00]
Donald J. Trump
Because I've been. I've been the best president in the history of Israel and they acknowledge. And by the way, in Israel, I think I was at 99% or something. But, But Joe, you can't let Iran, whether it's Israel, the Middle east or not, you can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And when you say maybe I'm a little bit nice. No other president's even thought of doing what I did. So in my first little while there, I ripped in their military, but they have no navy, they have no air force. They have no radar. Their leaders are all dead. And they elect, not elect. They raise new leaders. They're all dead also. We're in the third set of leaders and we actually get along with them. I think they're much more rational, by the way. I think that's regime change. But I'm not looking for regime change. I'm looking for something very simple. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. Or if you want to see market disruption. So think of it. The oil today is at $68. The market's up to almost 53,000. The S& P, they said the S and P would never hit 7,000. Never. I did that in 10 months. They said I would never hit it during my term. They said I'd never hit 50,000 during retail. We spoke and nobody else. Neither would. And, and they said nobody else would either. I said if I could get to 45 end.
- [29:31]
Joe Kernan
I said that to you when you asked me if this is a pragmatic end, you're not going to be in a forever war.
- [29:36]
Donald J. Trump
That's True.
- [29:37]
Joe Kernan
And there are other concerns, but, Joe,
- [29:40]
Donald J. Trump
we're in Vietnam for 19 years. We were in Afghanistan for, like 10 years. We were in the Korean War forever. We were in. I don't even mention World War I and World War II. They're biggies. But you know what? Stuff like this could have led to it. But we were many, many years in every war. I've been there for four months, and what have I done? I've defeated them militarily. They're totally defeated militarily. They have some missiles left. We could wipe them out, too. And I hit them three times last week, very hard, because they sent a drone into a ship. I hit them. Then they did something else, and I hit them. I hit them three nights in a row. The week before, I hit him two nights in a row, very hard. And we're negotiating, and we'll see whether or not. I think they've agreed to just about everything we need.
- [30:29]
Joe Kernan
Do you? I'm going to switch gears completely. And we have assets left over there if necessary. You're willing to do what's necessary.
- [30:36]
Donald J. Trump
We have all the assets. No, they're just waiting.
- [30:39]
Joe Kernan
You're not anticipating another full.
- [30:41]
Donald J. Trump
Joe, I did a blockade that was essentially not a blockade. It was a wall of steel. We have the great navy, the greatest navy in the world. These guys are unbelievable. Not one ship got through to Iran. They have 300% inflation. They're making no money. So we're going to take some of the money and we're going to buy them. They need food. They need corn and wheat and soybeans. And we're going to have exclusively our American farmers provide that. Assuming we get to the position where we should get to. I think we're going to get there. They have. Their strength is gone. Their bravado is gone. Although they keep a pretty good friend. The one thing they do have is fakeness. The New York Times said the other day that Iran is in better position now than it was four months ago. I said, wait a minute. Their military is gone. Their inflation is up to 300% from 5%. Their leaders are gone. Their second row of leaders are gone. Some of their third row of leaders are gone. Their generals are mostly wiped out, but they said that they are in better shape today than they were four months ago before we attacked. No, we were very strong. And, you know, look, I always said, I don't want to be a president with a depression on his resume. I don't want to be Herbert Hoover of almost all presidents. And some have been bad Some have been good. Very few have been great. But I never want to be Herbert Hoover, because Herbert Hoover was the president that probably took us into the great. The Great Depression, the greatest depression, led the whole world there. He raised interest rates and he raised taxes simultaneously. I guess he was trying to do something. But that didn't work out too well. By the way, you know what? It took us 30 years to get out of it. FDR didn't get us out of it. There's a picture right there. Fdr, Nice picture. Took us years to get out of it. I don't ever want to be in a depression. I don't want to be a president that oversees the great worldwide depression. That was Herbert Hoover, and it was a terrible thing, and he made a mistake. Now, if I want to be the tough guy and close up the straight for the next years, where 21% or whatever it might be. 20%, 21% of the oil never comes out. And you can't get oil anymore. You know what? A lot of people don't know. One of the reasons it only went up. It went up to like $115, if you remember. And I've seen guests on your show where they go, oil will be $350 a barrel, and there'll be a depression. Because at 350, this is depression. It's automatic. It goes with it. I said, well, we got to do something. We did something. Nobody knew. Every night we were taking ships out through the south, which is the furthest point from where they have their little weapons. And they were going along the coast with no lights for a month and a half. A lot of ships came out. We had one night where we took 22 ships out. That's a lot of oil. Those are big ships. Some of them are really big ships. And in a way, they had courage going out. But our Navy took them out. We escorted them out, and nobody knew the lights were off. Everything was off, everything was silent. We blew up Iran's radar. They had no radar. They still don't. We blew it up again the other night. They had a nice new radar center. They were all set to go. And we blew it up. Last week. They have to start all over again for a third time. Joe. That kept, I think, other things. Did we ever get above 115?
- [34:42]
Joe Kernan
Never went up.
- [34:43]
Donald J. Trump
Think of it.
- [34:44]
Joe Kernan
Originally it was at 115. Came down quickly.
- [34:46]
Donald J. Trump
No, but they thought it was going to go to 4, 800. If you have 300, then I become Herbert Hoover. I don't want to be Herbert Hoover did.
- [34:53]
Joe Kernan
Have you spoken to Elon since he became a trillionaire?
- [34:57]
Donald J. Trump
I haven't. I. No. I wrote him a note. I said, congratulations. Very good. I have a very good relationship with Elon. Elon and I had a little dispute because he backed me 100%. He liked me, still likes me. But I did a little thing called the electric mandate. We're not going to have an electric mandate where everybody has to have an electric car, where your beautiful son standing over there is mandated to have an electric car if he wants gas generated or gasoline generated or a hybrid. And I made so many speeches and Elon was there for many of them. And I'd always say we will not have the electric pending. But when I actually did it, Elon was not thrilled about that. And I can understand it. But he's doing good.
- [35:41]
Joe Kernan
Yeah, he's moved on. Do you think if you talk to him about donating SpaceX to something you might want to talk about and. Or donating SpaceX stock to Trump accounts?
- [35:50]
Donald J. Trump
Well, I think that he will do that. Micron, which is a great company, did it. Michael Dell is fantastic guy. He did 6 million 250.
- [36:02]
Joe Kernan
Ringing the bell next week or something.
- [36:03]
Donald J. Trump
And I'm ringing the bell right here. I think they're going to have a bell on his New York Stock Exchange and nasdaq. I said, what do you mean? They don't do both?
- [36:10]
Joe Kernan
You're invited to the NASDAQ if you want to.
- [36:12]
Donald J. Trump
Well, they, they. Well, that's interesting. That's very interesting. No, they're doing it together. It's the first time I can do that.
- [36:17]
Joe Kernan
I have a.
- [36:18]
Donald J. Trump
No. But you know what they're doing there, I was surprised they're doing it together. The New York Stock Exchange, I think Jeff is coming in and dad of NASDAQ is coming in and we're doing it together. See, it can happen that.
- [36:30]
Joe Kernan
That's we're doing it.
- [36:31]
Donald J. Trump
See this spot right here? The bell is going to be right there.
- [36:34]
Joe Kernan
That brings me just back to 250 and how you think you can set us up for the next 50 years. And one of the things I think is, you know, Secretary Desen talked about the Trump Doctrine. There were five things and I think we got to have national capacity here for anything we need, we need, we need to be able to get it here. Reciprocity. We can't be, you know, it can't be flowing one way to.
- [37:00]
Donald J. Trump
We can't restore people.
- [37:02]
Joe Kernan
We got to write the rules for, for the new technology, which is what that's AI dollar's got to stay strong. We need financial leadership. But maybe most importantly, it's all got to flow up and down to. Every American needs to participate in the prosperity here. Trump accounts. I think it's a big leap towards. I mean, it's a novel way. We haven't even considered it in the past. Might be the most power instead of just transfer payments.
- [37:29]
Donald J. Trump
It's a beautiful thing. It's a child has no money, and when that baby becomes a man or a woman, they can have hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe more, but they can have hundreds of thousands of dollars because we're seeding it. And guys like Michael Dell and Susan, his wife, they were so, so strong for it. But think of it. He's putting up 6 billion, 250 million. That's tremendous. I don't care how rich you are. That's a lot of money. And he wants to do it again. And others are so. Again, I just spoke, literally, just spoke yesterday to Micron. Hot company, great guy. What a great guy. And he said, we're putting up 250 million into the Trump accounts. So many companies are doing it. And I mean, kids that won't have any money when they turn 18 or 21 have a chance of being sort of rich. It's an amazing thing, and it's been very successful.
- [38:35]
Joe Kernan
Do you have a favorite president, or do you think there's a period that. That was so formative that if we lost our way in any respects, I
- [38:44]
Donald J. Trump
think at this point, we've had some very bad presidents. The president has got tremendous power in this country. Even before the decision that I got, Slaughter. They call it the Slaughter decision, which is an interesting name, but that's a very powerful decision. But it gave a lot more power to the president. But it has been a strong presidency. Not just me. It's been a strong presidency. It's considered a strong office. You know, other presidents are not considered a strong office. Even if you're president, you can't do as much. But now with this additional. I mean, it's. It's very special. We are respected again as a country, maybe like never before. A year and a half ago, we were left at. They're not laughing anymore. They respect us. The king of Saudi Arabia told me, and I said this numerous times. He said it. But many people said, president, a year and a half ago, America was dead. They thought it was dead. And right now you have the hottest country anywhere in the world. And we do.
- [39:46]
Joe Kernan
Well, let's hope for another 250. Like that.
- [39:50]
Donald J. Trump
Thank you.
- [39:51]
Joe Kernan
I should start.
- [39:51]
Donald J. Trump
Thank you Mr. Rachel very much for all your time. Thank you. Great job.
- [39:54]
Joe Kernan
Happy semi quincentennial happy something right.
- [39:58]
Donald J. Trump
Thank you.
- [39:59]
Joe Kernan
You're welcome. Thank you.
- [40:06]
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Joe Kernan
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