President Donald Trump's extended 60 Minutes interview

24:56I go to South Korea. I go to any place I go. And you know what I call that? Respect for our country. They didn't treat Biden that way. When Biden went there, first of all, he hardly went anywhere. A guy couldn't leave his bedroom. But they didn't treat Biden that way. They had no respect for Biden, falling up the stairs, going to an airplane three times. I mean, this is a man who should have never been president. This was a rigged election. And we have to get back. We have to get to the bottom of that also, because we don't want that to ever happen again. You see what's going on. We don't ever want that to happen again.

25:30Look what happened to our country by having Biden as the president. Our country went to hell. And if we had another couple of years, if Kamala had won the election, our country right now would be finished. It was a dead country. And now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We have the strongest stock market. We have everybody wants to come in a year ago We were a dead country right now We have the hottest country anywhere in the world think of that and I did that in nine months and it's only gonna get better Let's talk about Israel you got the remaining Israeli hostages out of Gaza did you arranged a ceasefire?

26:06However fragile that may be those are fragile. It's a very sad You know, I mean you hear about Hamas but Hamas could be taken out immediately if they don't behave. They know that. If they don't behave, they're going to be taken out immediately. How do you get Hamas to disarm? If I want them to disarm, I'll get them to disarm very quickly. They'll be eliminated. They know that. Don't forget, you said I got the remaining hostages. I got all the hostages out. But I always said the last 10 or 20 are going to be tough. But we were tough also, and they let them all out. And now, by the way, they're getting a lot of the bodies are coming out.

26:43Do you know a lot of the parents, it's very interesting, were the people that lost their child, you know, mostly sons, but sons and daughters, they knew they were dead in some cases. Do you know that they were as anxious or even more anxious of getting their child out, even though they knew it was a body that we were dealing with, than the people that had a living child, living, breathing child that they knew they were alive, if barely, because the way they lived was so horrible. And you saw yesterday four more just came out. We're going to get them out, too. They're buried in many cases. They're buried under rubble, but we pretty much know where they were.

27:22But I didn't get just a 20 out. I got all of the hostages out. You pushed the Israeli prime minister to make this deal, to get a ceasefire, to apologize to Qatar. can you push Bibi Netanyahu to recognize a Palestinian state? Yeah, he's fine. He's fine. Look, he's a wartime prime minister. I worked very well with him. Yeah, I mean, I had to push him a little bit one way or the other. I think I did a great job in pushing him. He's a very talented guy. He's a guy that has never been pushed before, actually. That's the kind of person you needed in Israel at the time. It was very important. I don't think they treat him very well.

28:04He's under trial for some things that I don't think they treat him very well. I think it should, you know, we'll be involved in that to help him out a little bit because I think it's very unfair. I did. I pushed him. I didn't like certain things that he did. And you saw what I did about that. I also stopped. You know, we knocked the hell out of Iran and then it was time to stop. And we stopped. Iran wants to make a deal. They don't say that. They probably shouldn't say no good deal maker would. But Iran very much wants to make a deal. The key to Middle East peace, I made Middle East peace. For 3 ,000 years, they couldn't do it.

28:36I did it. And I did it with some very good partners in Israel. But the key to the Middle East peace was knocking the hell out of their potential nuclear. When we were those beautiful B-2 bombers, we just ordered 20 brand new ones, the newest and the greatest. But with those beautiful B-2 bombers, when they went in there and they blew the hell out of that, you know, potential nuclear weapon site. There were two of them, actually. And every single missile hit every single air shaft. You know, they had to go down an air shaft. Every single one of them hit their target. And I remember fake news, CNN said, well, maybe it wasn't as powerful or as good as we thought.

29:15No, it was much, turned out it was actually better. You know, the Atomic Energy Agency said the hit was even stronger than anyone ever thought possible. And those pilots did a great job. What they were able to do, and those machines, but it wasn't only them. They were surrounded by F-22s and F-16s. They were surrounded by F-35s. Do you know we had 52 tanker planes loading them up with jet fuel because it was a long flight. They flew for 37 hours. Of course, I flew for 42 hours over the last few days, so I know how they feel. But they flew. But they were sitting in one seat. I was able to walk around a little bit.

29:54But yeah, they said 42 hours. I've been in the air for 42 hours over a few days. And that was fine. Because we took in trillions of dollars into our country. And we also, you know what's interesting? Japan took tremendous advantage of us over the years. You know, they sold cars to us. We couldn't sell cars to them. They made a fortune. We didn't make anything. We lost money. But it's the exact opposite now. But you know what? They like us more now than they used to because they respect us now. They didn't used to respect us. And they have great respect for us. All of them. Every country I saw, including China.

30:26China now has great respect for us. They didn't have respect for us when they had Biden and when they had Obama. Obama was a terrible president. Nobody wants to talk about it because they want to be politically correct. I don't care. He was a terrible president. our country was it really started a very bad downward spiral. Then I stopped it. Then we had a rigged election. And then what what Biden did to our country should never, ever be forgotten. We're still on on foreign policy. So I just know policy. I'm not talking about foreign. No, no, I'm talking about everything. Well, I just want to talk about economy.

30:59I'm talking about everything. I want I wanted to ask you about the crown prince of Saudi Arabia is coming to the White House this month he has said they won't join the abraham accords without a two-state solution do you believe that no i think he's going to join i think we will have a solution i don't know if it's going to be two state that's going to be up to israel and other people and me but uh look the main thing is you could have never had any kind of a deal if you had a nuclear iran and you essentially had a nuclear Iran. And I blasted the hell out of them. And no president was one to do it.

31:35Are you convinced they have no nuclear capability right now? Do you want to know? Do you want to know? They have no nuclear capability now. Do you want to know that the pilots, I invited them to the White House because they were very brave. I mean, I wouldn't have wanted to do it. You know, get in a plane and they know you're coming and you're going right into Iran airspace. And, you know, they're very experts and you're flying in with machines. Personally, I can think of other things I'd rather do. These guys are very brave people. I mean, they're real American heroes. And they told me something I didn't know.

32:04They said, sir, for 22 years we've been practicing this route, three times a year, every year, for 22 years, and you were the only president that let us do our job. I said, let me ask you, is this a job you wanted to do? Yes, sir, because it was the right thing. These are really brave people. These are really amazing people and talented people. When you can hit at midnight with no moon, with no vision, every single air shaft where that bomb went deep into that mountain and exploded and beat the hell out of it. I'll tell you what, they deserve to come to the White House. I gave them all the medal.

32:41They deserve to come to the White House and it was a pleasure to meet them. These are great people. We have great people in this country. Mr. President, we've talked about foreign policy and now let's focus on issues here at home, some of that you have already mentioned. We are We are now approaching the longest shutdown in American history. Democrats' fault. Under your presidency, we're talking about more than a million federal workers who are not getting a paycheck, including our air traffic controllers. You see there's traffic snarls out at the airports now. This weekend, food aid for more than 42 million Americans is set to expire.

33:17What are you doing as president to end the shutdown? Well, all we're doing is we keep voting. I mean, the Republicans are voting almost unanimously to end it, and the Democrats keep voting against ending it. You know, they've never had this. This has happened like 18 times before. The Democrats always voted for an extension, always saying, give us an extension. We'll work it out. They've lost their way. They've become crazed lunatics. And all they have to do, Nora, is say, let's vote. And you can open the economy could open up during our interview. Is there something you can do, though? Is there something you can do to bring this to an end?

33:55All I can do is give the facts. Here's what I can't do. I can't give them a trillion and a half dollars so that they can give welfare to people that came into our country illegally. So that prisoners and that people from mental institutions and people that are drug dealers get vast amounts of money for health care. That I can't do. What I can do is I can continue to run a great country. We have the best economy we've ever had. I can continue to do that. What they should do, look, this started a long time ago. I always said, and you know, I've been very consistent, Obamacare is terrible. It's bad health care at far too high a price.

34:36We should fix that. We should fix it. And we can fix it with the Democrats. All they have to do is let the country open and we'll fix it. They have to let the country open and I'll sit down with the Democrats and we'll fix it. But they have to let the country. And you know what they have to do? All they have to do is raise five hands. We don't need all of them. But so you're saying your plan is to tell the Democrats to vote to end the shutdown. Correct. Very simple. And that you will put forward a health care plan? No, we will work on fixing the bad health care that we have right now. We have terrible health care at too expensive for the people, not for the government, for the people.

35:12But Mr. President, with all due respect, you've been talking about fixing the health care insurance since 2015. Because of the Democrats. But since 2015, you've said you'd fix it. I've been talking about it for a long time. We almost did it. We were one vote short. We would have had great health care. We were one vote short. And a couple of senators that we currently have made the mistake, and they made a big mistake. John McCain made a mistake, frankly. We were one vote short. We would have had great health care. And I've been saying ever since, we can fix it. It's too expensive. It's got two things.

35:43It's too expensive, and it's lousy health care. It's too expensive for the people. They're going to get a very big increase this year. Well, they're going to get an increase if you don't extend the subsidies. No, no. But the subsidies is part of it. We're supposed to spend trillions of dollars to take care of something that is defective. What I'm saying is we can make it much less expensive for people and give them much better health care. But where is that plan? And I'd be willing to work with the Democrats on it. The problem is they want to give money to prisoners, to drug dealers, to all these millions of people that were allowed to come in with an open border from Biden.

36:24And nobody can do that. Not one Republican would ever do that. My understanding is if those health care subsidies are not extended, premiums will double for many of the people that are on it. And I was looking into it. Three quarters of these people will see their health care premiums double. live in states where you won in the last election. I mean, even here in Florida has the highest number of residents on Obamacare in the country. And I'm saying we can fix it, Nora. But if the subsidies are not extended, they're not gonna be able to afford health insurance. It was a defective plan put into line by Barack Hussein Obama, who is a lousy president, not nearly as bad as Biden, by the way, who, by the way, is building a museum that's like four times over budget.

37:07It'll never open, built in a neighborhood that, you know, it's just not going to work. The neighborhood doesn't even want them. And it's a disaster. The same guy that did his museum, which is a total catastrophe, came up with a bad health care plan. And for the sake of one vote, we would have had, you know, it's so sad thinking back. I hear you. If we had the vote, that one vote, we would have great health care at a much lower course. And that's what I want. But I don't want to give a trillion and a half dollars to prisoners and drug dealers and and people that that came into our country from mental institutions what they allowed to come into our country and we're getting them out but what they allowed to come into our country nor is horrible so ready we can make it good i don't want to get into back no no but here's all they have to do yeah open up the country open up the country we only need five of their votes we only need five votes and already a couple of democrats a few democrats are already voting they want to open up and we'll fix all of those problems those problems are much easier than what i just did with solving all these wars last question wait a minute we had nine wars on our planet i solved eight of them i have one to go Russia, Ukraine.

38:25I thought that was going to be one of the easier ones, but it's not because Putin is tougher than people. You have helped end these government shutdowns in the past when they came about. And you did it by bringing members of Congress to the White House. I'm not going to do it by being extorted by the Democrats who have lost their way. There's something wrong with these people. Schumer is a basket case. Schumer is a basket case and he has nothing to lose. He's He's become a kamikaze pilot. This guy is a kamikaze. He would rather see the country fail than have Trump and the Republicans do well. But the people don't want that.

39:08So we have a record-setting country right now, and we're not going to be extorted by a man who's grossly incompetent, who is going to be defeated by any one of five different candidates. We don't want to let that happen. It sounds like this is not going to get solved. Say it. Sounds like it's not going to get solved, the shutdown. It's going to get solved, yeah. Oh, it's going to get solved. How? We'll get it solved. Eventually, they're going to have to vote. You're saying the Democrats will capitulate. I think they have to. And if they don't vote, that's their problem. Now, I happen to agree with something else.

39:35I think we should do the nuclear option. This is a totally different nuclear, by the way. It's called ending the filibuster. Did you see John Thune said today they're not going to do that? I know John doesn't. Well, John and a few others. But you know what? The Republicans have to get tougher. If we end the filibuster, we can do exactly what we want. We're not going to lose power. The theory is, oh, then we'll do it. But then when they get into power someday, they'll do it. That's true. But you know what? We're here right now. No, I like John Thune. I think he's terrific. But I disagree with him on this point.

40:06He said today he wasn't going to do it. Well, that's too bad. You know, I mean, I think we're much better off because here's the problem. The Democrats will do it in the first week in office. The Democrats, and I told that to John, and I get along with them great. We've had a great relationship. And I also know there are other Republicans that feel the other way. And I understand that too, but they're wrong. The Democrats will do it. If they get into power, and someday, I guess they will, who knows, it's hard to believe when they have men and women's sports, open borders, open everything, a transgender for everyone.

40:41The Democrats will do it in their first day in office. And the only reason they didn't do it is because of Sinema and because of a man named Joe Manchin from West Virginia, a good man. And they disagreed with it. Now, wait, had they approved it, I think just one of them, had they been able to get those votes, you would have had the nuclear option used. You would have had the filibuster ended and the Democrats would have used it. So I say to the Republicans that want to be, you know, all like, oh, well, we, you know, we're above all that. The Democrats will do it. See, the Republicans have much better policy.

41:19We have smart policy. We have great policy. That's how we win. The Democrats are vicious. They're vicious. They have horrible policy, but they are the most vicious human beings on earth. They are people that weaponize government. They do a lot of bad things. But the good thing is, from our standpoint, from the standpoint of winning, is they have the worst policy of, it's hard to believe, think of it, open borders, men playing in women's sports, transgender for everybody. I mean, I could go point, these are not 80, 20. These are 99 to 1 issues. And they don't change. I just watched this morning.

42:01Mr. President, can I ask you about the economy? Just one thing. I watched a show this morning where a very well-known Democrat congressman was fighting like hell for men playing in women's sports. They don't change. Who was that? I don't want to tell you. You'll be able to check it. Just check your local TV. Okay. On the economy, the signature part of your economic plan is tariffs. The Supreme Court is going to hear arguments this week on whether you You have the authority to impose these sweeping tariffs without congressional approval. The lower courts have ruled against you. That's why it's in the Supreme Court right now.

42:34Very close rulings, yeah. What happens to your economic plan if the Supreme Court invalidates your tariffs? I think our country will be immeasurably hurt. I think our economy will go to hell. Look, because of tariffs, we have the highest stock market we've ever had. because of tariffs, 401ks at the highest level, and this is millions and millions of people that we've ever had, 401ks. I think it's the most important subject discussed by the Supreme Court in 100 years. If they take away the power of tariffs from us, and it has to be quick and nimble, you can't have Congress where hundreds of people have to look.

43:14They can't even agree to continue a country. You can't have Congress. This has to be quick and nimble. Well, you just finished that sentence. You said, if they take away my power to do tariffs, what? It would be a very sad day for the United States of America. We're making a lot of money. We're respected again all over the world. We have great national security. Let me give you an example. With China, they were, you know, very strongly threatening us, frankly, with the rare earth. And then I said, well, if you're going to play that card, I'm going to put a 100 percent tariff on over and above what you're already paying, which was 55 percent, which was very high, a lot of money coming in, tremendous money like we've never seen.

43:54I'm going to put a 100 percent tariff on everything over and above. And you know what happened? We got a phone call 20 minutes later. We'd like to talk. If they take away the right to tariff, if we're forced to use Congress to approve. They can't approve anything. They would be sitting around for years debating whether or not we should use tariffs. You want that power. You want that executive power. You need it to protect our country. This is a national security. Tariffs are national security. If you take away the right to tariff, and remember this, tariffs have been used against us. And can you just answer that question that tariffs have led to inflation?

44:34They have led to an increase in cost of living for most Americans. We have no inflation. We have no inflation. Biden had inflation and he didn't have tariffs. He didn't use tariffs. You know why he didn't use them? Because he's not smart enough to use it. But the companies say they passed on more than 30 percent of these costs to the American consumer, the tariffs. And somebody has to pay for it. Yeah, you have to pay. But we don't have any inflation. Inflation is the real test of paying. Everybody said, oh, if you do tariffs, you're going to have inflation. So Biden had the highest inflation in the history of our country by far.

45:06OK, no tariffs. I have very modest tariffs compared. Let me tell you, these tariffs ultimately are so good that at some point when they're used properly and I use them more properly than anybody's ever even dreamt possible. Think of it. We've become rich. We're taking in trillions of dollars and I have no inflation and I have total national security. When I put the 100 % tariff on China over and above what they were already paying, which was about 55%, so 155, they came to the table immediately and they made a deal with us that was a very fair deal. That's called national security. And then I didn't make them pay the 100%.

45:49That would have been instituted. That would have come to four on November 1st. I know our time with you is limited. Nora, listen to me. If I didn't have the power of tariff, we would be like a subject nation. We'd be subject to everyone else. Everybody uses tariffs on us. If I wasn't allowed to use tariffs on them, we would be a third world nation. I know your time is limited, so I do want to make sure I get through more of these topics. Immigration. You campaigned on immigration. You largely won the election on a promise to close the border. Did a great job, don't you think? And you succeeded on that.

46:24Illegal crossings at the southern border are at a 55-year low. More recently, Americans have been watching videos of ICE, tackling a young mother, tear gas being used in a Chicago residential neighborhood, and the smashing of car windows. Have some of these raids gone too far? No, I think they haven't gone far enough, because we've been held back by the judges, by the liberal judges that were put in by Biden and by Obama. You're okay with those tactics? Yeah, because you have to get the people out. You know, you have to look at the people. Many of them are murderers. Many of them are people that were thrown out of their countries because they were, you know, criminals.

47:03Well, you promised in your campaign that you were going to deport the worst of the worst. Violent criminals, rapists. But a lot of the people that your administration has arrested and deported aren't violent criminals. Landscapers, nannies, construction workers, farm workers. No, look, look. The family of U.S. service members. I need landscapers and I need farmers more than anybody, okay? Is it your intent to deport people who do not have a criminal record? We have to start off with a policy. And the policy has to be you came into the country illegally, you're going to go out. However, you've also seen you're going to go out, we're going to work with you, and you're going to come back into our country legally.

47:42Because we have a lot of good people. We have some great people. But, you know, the problem we have, and people don't like talking about, these are very smart countries. Their leaders are very smart. They're very streetwise. They might not have gone to the finest schools, but they're very streetwise. They don't want good people. They want people that are bad out. So what do they do? They open their jails, they let them out. They get rid of their drug deals, they let them out. But you know who else they get out? The people that are on welfare that aren't working. In other words, they have people that just don't work.

48:14They don't want people that just don't work. So they put them into our country. But if someone has been in this... And we've accepted all of these people because of Biden's open border policy, where people would walk in totally unchecked and unvetted, murderers and everybody else. When will you declare mission accomplished on immigration? Well, it takes a long time because, you know, probably I say 25 million people were let into our country. A lot of people say it was 10 million people, but whether it was 10 or, I believe I'm much closer to the right number. Of the 25, many of them should not be here, but we're cleaning up our cities.

48:50You know, I campaigned on crime, but I've done a much better job on crime than I thought. You know, the crime numbers are way down, even though we have a lot more people in our country that really shouldn't be here. And many of them are stone cold, hard criminals. When I look at D.C. now, you can walk down the middle of the street, you can have your daughter, who's 10 years old, meet you at the park. She's going to be okay. In certain parts of D.C. I live in D.C. Well, you tell me. How big a difference is D.C. now compared to what it was a year ago? Right? I mean, you have to be honest with me.

49:28People in the White House, they walk up to me, Young ladies. I've never seen sir. Thank you very much. I know I don't even have to tell me what they're thanking me for But when I asked why he said she one girl said I'd get into uber and I felt dangerous even an uber they'd attack the car Okay, it wasn't even safe then Sir, I now walk to work every day and I walk I'm so safe. I there's nothing going to happen 100 % safe and you know that too No, I want to ask you about you live here. You know that too I want to ask you about American cities in Washington, D.C. I think I've been working too hard.

50:04I haven't been out and about that much. Oh, that's not a fair answer. You see a difference. I get in my car and go to work and I go home. You don't have to use that one. Don't worry. I don't want to embarrass you. I've been working too hard. It's like, you know what the difference is? Like day and night. I want to ask you more about some American cities. We're on the eve of a number of big state and local elections. One of the most watched is the one for mayor of New York City. Yeah. Zorhan Mondami, 34-year-old democratic socialist. He's the front-line. Communist, not socialist, communist. He's far worse than a socialist.

50:36Some people have compared him to a left-wing version of you, charismatic, breaking the old rules. What do you think about that? Well, I think I'm a much better-looking person than him, right? Okay. Well, former governor Andrew Cuomo, who you know is campaigning for mayor, he recently said that if Mondami becomes mayor of New York City that you will take over New York Cuomo said this He said he will be President Trump and Mayor Trump. He's gonna take over New York and send tanks down Fifth Avenue Oh, that's so crazy. Look when I left New York, we were at the The epitome of it was a great city. It was doing great It was a great city But there was some bad signs because we had a guy named de Blasio who was the worst mayor.

51:23Like I say, Biden was the worst president. De Blasio was the worst mayor in the history of him. But what if Mondami becomes mayor? It's going to be hard for me as the president to give a lot of money to New York because if you have a communist running New York, all you're doing is wasting the money you're sending there. So I don't know that he's one, and I'm not a fan of Cuomo one way or the other, But if it's going to be between a bad Democrat and a communist, I'm going to pick the bad Democrat all the time, to be honest with you. This past Tuesday, while speaking to American troops in Japan, you talked about U.S.

51:56cities that are having trouble with crime. And you said, if we need more than the National Guard, we'll send more than the National Guard. What does that mean, send more than the National Guard? Well, if you had to send in the Army or if you had to send in the Marines, I'd do that in a heartbeat. You know, you have a thing called the Insurrection Act. You know that, right? You know that I could use that immediately, and no judge can even challenge you on that. But I haven't chosen to do it because I haven't felt we need it. So you're going to send the military into American cities? Well, if I wanted to, I could if I wanted to use the Insurrection Act.

52:30The Insurrection Act has been used routinely by presidents, and if I needed it, that would mean I could bring in the Army, the Marines, I could bring in whoever I want. But I haven't chosen to use it. I hope you give me credit for that. I want to ask you about another matter James Comey John Bolton Letitia James were all recently indicted. There's a pattern to these names They're all public figures who have publicly denounced you. Is it political retribution? You know what you know who got indicted? The man you're looking at I got indicted and I was innocent and here I am because I was able to beat all of the nonsense that was thrown at me And yet when you go after a dirty cop like Comey or a guy like Bolton who I hear has, I don't know anything about it, I hear he took records all over the place, who knows?

53:16Letitia James is a terrible, dishonest person in my opinion. No, I was just asking, is it political retribution? Comey's a dirty cop. Look, Comey's known as a dirty cop. I'm not known as a dirty person. They indicted me many times. Indicted me. They were after me. I'm looking at you now, President of the United States. I went through numerous indictments and two impeachments. And you tell me that I went after people? These people are dishonest. Look, Biden didn't have a clue. He illegally used, as you know, a machine, the auto pen, in order to give pardons to people. The only pardon he signed, it looks like, was his son, Hunter.

53:56He signed Hunter's, so Hunter, you're free. Congratulations, Hunter. But everyone else, I think those pardons were just a waste of time. Did you instruct the Department of Justice to go after them? Not in any way, shape, or form. No, you don't have to instruct them because they were so dirty, they were so crooked, they were so corrupt that the honest people we have, Pam Bondi's doing a very good job, Kash Patel's doing a very good job, the honest people that we have go after them automatically. But they instructed them to go after me because the records now have been found. So when you tell me about, I went after Comey, Comey's low on the totem pole.

54:32They went after the president of the United States. Do you know that they raided my house in Palm Beach, Florida, called Mar-a-Lago? They raided my house. I had 78 or 98 FBI agents with arms. I know how you... Come into my house, and you're telling me, Nora, that I went after some lowlife named Comey, who's adjudged to be a crooked guy. He lied all over the place. He lied to Congress and did many other bad things. I was just asking that you should be ashamed. No, no. I was just asking is this is this Retribution no it's the opposite. I think I've been very mild-mannered You're looking at a man who was indicted many times and I had to beat the rep.

55:13Otherwise, I couldn't run for president They tried to get me not to run for president by going after me and by indicting me But even during my term on a perfect phone call I got impeached this call was perfect tim scott from south carolina highly respected a legitimate person totally legit he read the train thank goodness we had a transcript of the call the call i got indicted on a call on ukraine of all places with the president of ukraine it was a perfect phone call tim scott said i just read the transcript the president didn't do anything wrong was perfect and that was the end of the indictment pretty much but i had to go through a whole process you know the democrats knew that i wasn't guilty because they didn't know that the call was i didn't know either the call was essentially taped so we knew exactly what the call when they found out that the call was taped nancy pelosi went crazy they said you made me go into this mess she screamed at all these people that made her do it bad people like schiff etc etc so what happened is she went nuts and just to conclude and they said let's do it anyway they did it anyway and i won very easily as you know but you can't then accuse me of weaponizing government they were horrible human beings they went after the president of the united states they went after my children they went into my wife's uh drawers they went into my wife's closets they held the dresses up She came back.

56:51She said, oh, what happened? What happened? Because she's a very meticulous person. Everything's nice and neat. All of a sudden, everything's like they went into my office. They took things that I was allowed to have filed under the Presidential Records Act that I was allowed to have. I had records. I was allowed to have them. Only the president's allowed. But I was and it was nothing very significant. Anyway, there was like nothing. Wait just one second. They opened these. I'm a very meticulous person, too. I have files. Beautiful. They took the files, threw them all over the phone, all over the floor.

57:25They were all over the floor. And they took pictures of them. This is my office. I said, what? That's not my office. They took files. They threw them all over. And they took pictures and they released them to the public that this is President Trump's office. We caught him with all of this stuff like it was all over the floor of my office These are crooked people these are dissent. So don't ask me about did you go after Letitia's Letitia James in my opinion And I only say in my opinion because I guess the lawyers would prefer that I say that because I have a much stronger opinion She's a total crook.

58:01She's a lowlife Comey's a dirty cop Bolton actually helped me a lot because he was crazy He's the one, him and Cheney, a couple of people got Bush to go out and blow the hell out of the Middle East and then leave. And actually, Bolton helped me because every time somebody saw Bolton standing behind me, foreign countries, they conceded. You know why they conceded? Because they said, Bolton's a nut job. Trump is going to take us to war. But I don't listen to people that are stupid. Go ahead. This is a question about pardons. The Trump family is now perhaps more associated with cryptocurrency than real estate.

58:39You and your sons, Don Jr. and Eric, have formed World Liberty Financial with the Whitcoff family, helping to make your family millions of dollars. It's in that context that I do want to ask you about crypto's richest man, a billionaire known as CZ. He pled guilty in 2023 to violating anti-money laundering laws. The government at the time said that CZ had caused significant harm to US national security, essentially by allowing terrorist groups like Hamas to move millions of dollars around. Why did you pardon him? OK, are you ready? I don't know who he is. I know he got a four-month sentence or something like that.

59:17And I heard it was a Biden witch hunt. In 2025, his crypto exchange, Binance, helped facilitate a$2 billion purchase of World Liberty Financial's stablecoin. And then you pardoned CZ. How do you address the appearance of pay for play? Well, here's the thing. I know nothing about it because I'm too busy doing the other. But he got a pardon? I can only tell you this. My sons are into it. I'm glad they are because it's probably a great industry. Crypto, I think it's good. You know, they're running a business. They're not in government. And they're good. My one son is the number one bestseller now.

59:56My wife just had a number one bestseller. I'm proud of them for doing that. I'm focused on this. I know nothing about the guy other than I hear he was a victim of weaponization by government. When you say the government, you're talking about the Biden government. It's a corrupt government. Biden was the most corrupt president and he was the worst president we've ever had. I only care about one thing. Will crypto be, will we be number one in crypto? Crypto has turned out, and in that sense, I've been right. Crypto has turned out to be a massive industry, if you want to call it that. And I'm very proud to say that we are far and away ahead of China and everybody else.

1:00:34Now, China is getting into it very big right now. If you want to go after people, you're going to kill that industry and it'll be very bad. Tremendous number of jobs. I campaigned positively on crypto. Very openly, I campaigned. Biden campaigned against it. When Biden found out that I was getting like 100 percent of the crypto vote, which was a lot, he switched totally and he went in favor of crypto. They went totally in favor. They had many people under indictment. They let them all go. They let them all go. You know that many people were under indictment. Biden was a corrupt president. Biden went all in on crypto at the very end because he thought he could get some votes.

1:01:16It didn't work. They voted for me. I want to make crypto great for America. That's the only thing. I don't want to have somebody else have crypto and have China be number one in the world in crypto. Because in crypto, it's a kind of an industry where basically you're going to have number one and you're not going to have a number two. And right now we're number one by a long shot. I want to keep it that way. The same way we're number one with AI, we're number one with crypto. And I want to keep it that way. I know my time is limited with you. So I want to be respectful of you, Mr. President. The issue of political violence I want to get to because you were nearly assassinated in Butler, Pennsylvania.

1:01:55Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Pennsylvania governor Josh Shapiro's house was firebombed. Minnesota lawmaker murdered. What's your message to those on the left and the right who would seek to commit acts of violence? Well I think primarily on the left, a little bit of both, but I think primarily on the left. I think they have to tone it down. I think they have to approve the shutdown so it's not shut down. I think it's very bad what they're doing. They're hurting people. You know, if you think about it, if people aren't going to get paid, they're going to be, you know, a lot of angry people out there.

1:02:29They want to get their food. They want to get the money so they can live. In some cases, whatever they want to get, they want to get. I think by the Democrats not giving us the votes, I think it's, I think it endangers both parties. I think is very bad. There's never been a case like this. This is, you know, this is fairly standard stuff. You do, extensions are almost automatic. In fact, they were virtually automatic. This is the only time. They don't want to do the extension because they're losing so badly that they said, maybe we have some leverage. One of the senators said that. Maybe this is the first time we have some leverage.

1:03:07But they really don't have leverage because the Republicans can't be extorted in order to ruin our country. Do you feel like we're at a breaking point given everything that you just said? No, it's been much worse. Because you mean... I mean, over history, it's been much worse. Sure, the political violence that, you know, we just outlined the number of members of people in public that have been targeted. And then I just read that there's now a number of your cabinet secretaries and aides who are now living on military bases. Yeah, usually when people talk, they're not the problem. It's the ones that don't talk in terms of that.

1:03:41But yeah, I think it's a lot of the rhetoric. Look, they call me a Nazi all the time. I'm not a Nazi. I'm the opposite. I'm somebody that's saving our country. But they call me Nazi. They have talking points. You know, they have just talking points. And the press is largely responsible for it. The fake news, what they've done, I think one of the greatest terms I've ever come up with is fake news. What What they've done to our country is very bad. They have to change around. Now, nobody believes the fake news. Nobody believes them. I mean, they've gone. You talk about popularity. You talk about approval.

1:04:16Their approval numbers have gone from like in the 90s to in the teens now. We need borders. We need fair votes. And you really need a fair press. And you do. You have some great journalists, some great reporters. But you have some terrible, terrible dishonest journalists. And I see it all the time because I'll give them a story and they'll have it. Even my trip with China, it was so successful. But of all, the Wall Street Journal, they said Trump lowers tariffs. That was the headline. Trump lowers tariffs. That wasn't what happened. I lowered tariffs in order to get everything that anybody could possibly dream of.

1:04:54The point wasn't lowering tariffs. I put up a high number. I cut it. And I got everything. And yet the headline in the Wall Street Journal, beautiful picture of myself and presidency, everything nice, but the headline was, Trump lowers tariffs. That wasn't the story. The story was Trump got everything, got everything, including world peace. We're respected as a country. We're not threatened right now, and we're not going to be threatened. As long as we have a strong, smart president, we're never going to be threatened by anybody. There's been a lot of talk about 2028, and who will be at the top of the Republican ticket.

1:05:33Can you set the record straight you're not going to try and run for a third term? Well, I don't even think about it. I will tell you, a lot of people want me to run, but the difference between us and the Democrats is we really do have a strong bench. I don't want to use names because it's inappropriate, but it's too early. But people do like when you start talking about whether you like J.D. Vance or Secretary Rubio. I do like J.D. Vance. I like Marco Rubio. I like so many people. We have an unbelievable bench. we could run two people together we have a great bench so I don't want to start talking about elections it's too early one thing I can tell you the 2020 election was rigged and a lot of people say when it's rigged you're allowed to do it again it was rigged and it's been caught and they and you see the same information that everybody else does and it's coming out now in spades but with all of that we have a great bench we have unbelievable people you could go up and down my cabinet.

1:06:25We have great people. They don't. They have a guy that's ruined the state of California, ruined it, destroyed it. And I have a lot of property out there. I can tell you they've ruined the state of California. He has been terrible. Other than he's got a good line of bulls**t. That's all it is. He's ruined the state. And he's one of the people running. Jasmine Crockett. She's a low IQ person. They say she might run for president. Jasmine Crockett. This is a very low IQ person. AOC, I watched her speak the other day. Almost the first time she was screaming, she was like a crazy person. She's got not a good speaker.

1:07:06Doesn't have, I don't think, but you never know what it is. You never know what it is that can spark an election. When Joe ran, the first time I thought he was terrible, he was horrible. I won by a lot. The second time he was running, he was doing very poorly, had a bad debate, and they replaced him in the middle of the election. This could only happen to me. They replaced him with somebody. The press got behind her. Oh, they were so behind her. But eventually she failed because she couldn't speak. She wasn't a very intelligent person, in my opinion, but she couldn't speak properly. She could not speak.

1:07:40and actually 60 Minutes paid me a lot of money. And you don't have to put this on because I don't want to embarrass you and I'm sure you're not. You have a great, I think you have a great new leader, frankly, because the young woman that's leading your whole enterprise is a great, from what I know, I don't know her, but I hear she's a great person. But 60 Minutes was forced to pay me a lot of money because they took her answer out that was so bad, it was election changing two nights before the election and they put a new answer in. And they paid me a lot of money for that. You can't have fake news.

1:08:14You've got to have legit news. And I think that it's happening. I see good things happening in the news. I really do. And I think one of the best things that happened is this show and new ownership, CBS and new ownership. I think it's the greatest thing that's happened in a long time to a free and open and good press. Mr. President, can I also ask you, we're now at the end of your first year of this second term. What do you hope to accomplish in the next three years? Well, I hope I can have the same year that we had. Look, we have been acknowledged to have the greatest nine months. You know, it's nine months.

1:08:51The greatest nine months in the history of the presidency. So if I can keep that going, I'll be very happy. Because what we've done, I inherited a mess. And I fixed it, other than it will take a while to get all the criminals, the real criminals, the ones the real bad ones out but we've gotten a lot of them out we've gotten a lot of the murderers out we've gotten a lot of the people from jails out and we've taken them back to their countries in some cases they're so dangerous that we've actually had to put them in our jails because we didn't want them coming back i want to just keep it going pretty much the same way i want safety in our cities our cities are a mess and i hate to say it they're democrat run cities.

1:09:30If you take the top 25 cities, they're almost all, almost every one of them is run by Democrats. And to people that say they're struggling with cost of living expenses, what could you do about that? Well, let me just say, cashless bail is a disaster. It's got to be changed. Sanctuary cities really have to be changed. They're sanctuary, you know what they're sanctuary for? Criminals. Things, some basic things have to be changed. But one of the things I really have focused on is making Chicago great again, making, and we're just getting started in Chicago. But what we did in DC, where we took DC from being so bad to so beautiful, such good, the restaurants are booming.

1:10:06You can't get into a restaurant. They were closing and now they're all opening. You can't get a restaurant now. You can't get into a restaurant. But if you want to buy a restaurant or own a restaurant, you almost can't find it. I want to make this happen all over the country. I want it to be like that in New York, in L.A., in Chicago. I want to do it as much as can. You know, by the way, Memphis, we're there now. Memphis was a dangerous hellhole, 65 % down in crime. And this is after two weeks. We can do it all over the place. It's turned out to be a new passion for me, making our city. I had no idea we could be that successful.

1:10:42I thought it would take a much longer period of time. Do you know, in Washington, in 12 days, it was really good. In one month, it was close to perfect. And for those that are suffering with cost of living increases and saying they're living paycheck to paycheck? Well, I'd be very upset with Biden because we don't have any of those problems. We don't have inflation. You know, essentially, we don't have inflation. I inherited the worst inflation in the history of our country. We don't have inflation. We're down to 2%, even less than 2%. A couple of items like beef, I'm getting down. But our groceries are down.

1:11:17Health care premiums? I can fix health care, give them better health care for less money. Obamacare is hurting people. Obamacare was a disaster from day one. I can fix it and make it good. I'd really rather start with a fresh plate, but if it's required to keep it, we can make it much better. But it's bad health care, and they're going to get big increases, and that has nothing to do with me. that has to do with the fact that it was originally put into play. It's a shame. But we can make it better. Energy is way down. You know, you're going to have$2 gasoline very soon. Nobody could believe it.

1:11:58You were at$4,$5,$6, and even$7. Look at the cost of gasoline in California, what it was. I brought it down. Problem is, when I bring it down here in California, they put more tax. They tax the gasoline to such an extent. No, we're in great shape. This country is in great shape. We're ready to really rock. As I say often, we were a dead country. We were a dead country one year ago. Now we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. Leaders have said that to me. Just recently they said that to me. Even President Xi, he said, I'd like you to be congratulated. He said it so beautifully. I'd like you to be congratulated on the incredible job you did in bringing back the United States of America.

1:12:41President Xi said that to me. I know we're out of time, but just on that matter when we talk about that because I know how closely you follow the stock market Do you worry about an AI bubble? I guess I worry about everything, you know, I mean, you know, I'm a worrier I worry but you know what I do. I worry and then I fix it I'll fix it that way. I don't have to worry It's a lot of money behind it. Well, there's a lot of money and right now I'm taking advantage of it because we're leading a You know, we're leading it by a lot China's in second place, but we're leading it by a lot We have the greatest minds of any country anywhere in the world and we're using that.

1:13:15I'm using those great minds to help us. Now, will something happen later? I guess, you know, something. But it could also be something very good happens. And I hope it's going to be very good. But if it's not so good, we're protected. Our country is doing great. We're strong. We're solid. We've never been. I think we haven't been like this in maybe ever, maybe ever. We have a great country and you should be very proud of it. Mr. President, thank you very much for your time. Thank you very much, Nora. Thank you.

1:13:49I've been hearing for decades that the markets can solve climate change. Today, we have more incentives for market solutions than ever, and emissions are rising. on this season of Drilled Carbon Cowboys, the story of three market solutions colliding in one multinational boondoggle. You gotta give Bruce and the guys credit. They're Republican. They don't give a s*** of money. Listen anywhere you get podcasts.