President Donald J. Trump: America at 250 7/3/26

13:35Donald 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 kind of like almost anything they do, if they want to buy a truck, if they want to buy, you know, if 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.

14:17Donald J. Trump: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 president. I knew you before.

14:29Joe Kernen:And we did a lot of it. Melania, I think. Yeah, that's right.

14:32Donald J. Trump: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 to have a business person. And if you look at what's happening, we're beating everybody. We're beating China. We're beating every single country with the envy of the world. And AI, whether it's good or bad, we have it. Let's talk about that. And we are leading by so much. I'm letting all of these big plans. 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.

15:10Donald J. Trump: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 A.I. 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 not be in first place.

15:54Donald J. Trump:We would be in last place. We wouldn't have any, we don't have enough from the old good. What about taking some sort of proud of that?

16:01Joe Kernen:Reportedly, Sam Altman is discussing giving the government a 5 % stake in open AI. Is that possible? And is that true? And would other AI companies do similar things? Well, I did something with Intel that a lot of people don't know about and talk about.

16:18Donald J. Trump:But 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 percent 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.

17:02Donald J. Trump: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 And the stock has gone through. So I think we made$60 or$70 billion in eight months. Do I get 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.

17:39Joe Kernen:I think they had a loan anyway from the CHIPs Act. And now it's better to have equity than a loan, you would think.

17:44Donald J. Trump:Well, it worked out well from our standpoint.

17:46Joe Kernen:Right, that's what I mean.

17:47Donald J. Trump:We really had no investment. On zero investment, we made about, I guess,$70 billion in a period of eight or nine months. But that's a great thing. What's happened is Intel has gone through the roof. It's one of the hottest companies, and they've done a great job.

18:01Joe Kernen:Is Chinese AI catching up and are there some new restrictions you're thinking about that would make sense on technology?

18:11Donald J. Trump:Well, you need some guardrails, but you want to do as little as possible. You want to be good. 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 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'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.

18:55Donald J. Trump:And right now we're substantially number one.

18:59Joe Kernen:I'm going to try and do as much as we can. You go ahead. I hope that's okay.

19:04Donald J. Trump:If he needs a little more time, just relax. I'm not Kamala. They give him four minutes and then start screaming at him. That housing bill. Don't be nervous, okay?

19:16Joe Kernen:I'm only in the Oval Office with the—no, I'm not.

19:20Donald J. Trump:He's been my friend for a long time, and he's a good man, too.

19:23Joe Kernen:In a few days, it's going to become law one way or the other, the housing bill, right? Are you going to sign it? Will it become law? Where do you stand on that? I know you called it a yawn. I don't think you were necessarily anti-housing bill. You called it a yawn because you think what's really important is safe. Save America Act, yeah.

19:41Donald J. Trump:So I think the Save America Act is the most important thing 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 and 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 So I have the three things.

20:47Joe Kernen:You let it go to housing.

20:48Donald J. Trump:You let the, you wouldn't veto it, 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 was very complex stuff. But the housing bill is fine.

21:10Donald J. Trump: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.

21:24Joe Kernen:You think through reconciliation or filibuster?

21:27Donald J. Trump:Because if you do Save America, you're not going to have cheating.

21:31Joe Kernen:Practically, how do we get there on Save America? What would you like Majority Leader Thune to?

21:35Donald J. Trump:Well, I would like them to get it passed. What I'd really like is for them to kill the filibuster, terminate the filibuster. So when they terminate the filibuster, then they'll immediately approve to 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, the Democrats. I call them the Democrats because their policies are so bad. But the one thing, unfortunately, they stick together.

22:14Joe Kernen:They don't have Mitch McConnell, now Mitch McConnell. The Democratic Party's got their own issues right now. We'll talk about that a little later. It's a different kind of issue. When they vote on something, look at the Supreme Court justices.

22:27Donald J. Trump:The three Supreme Court justices, every vote, bah, bah, bah, if it's for or against, it's 100%. I don't think they had 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. And the three justices vote as a bloc. I think I can remember one time, but very, very seldom do they not vote as a bloc.

23:16Whereas our people, and we have six, but they move around a little bit and they suppress.

23:22Donald J. Trump:For instance, birthright citizenship. I should have won that. That wasn't meant for billionaires from China bringing a child over and becoming an American citizen. And far worse than that, much worse than that.

23:38Joe Kernen:It was a tariff vote.

23:40Donald J. Trump:I'll tell you, the worst vote was tariffs. I'm doing the same tariffs, but now it's much tougher. 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. Eleven 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.

24:24Joe Kernen: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 a stage in Iran, you pointed out, we don't know who's talking at any given time. There's different factions. We killed one group. And then another. We killed the second level. But$67,$68 oil. We're down to lower than we were before. 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?

25:05Donald J. Trump:Well, I think I've done much more than reciprocal.

25:09Joe Kernen:You want diplomacy at this point.

25:11Donald 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.

25:47Donald J. Trump: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.

26:29Donald J. Trump:They're doing better than they've ever done with oil. The big companies are moving in. And we're getting a good chunk of it, too, as we should. But with Iran... What if they jerk you around?

26:41Joe Kernen:What if they jerk us around again with either the straight or with with the you know, they know the midterm for something.

26:46Donald J. Trump: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 them a one point seven billion in cash. You remember that because you reported that they put it on a beautiful 757 Boeing.

27:24Donald J. Trump: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. because I've been the best president in the history of Israel. And by the way, in Israel, I think I was at 99 % or something.

28:11Donald J. Trump: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 report. 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.

28:54Donald J. Trump: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 &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 my term. We spoke. And nobody else. But Joe, neither would end. And they said nobody else would either. They said, if I could get to 45 ,000.

29:31Joe Kernen: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. That's true. And there are other concerns.

29:38Donald J. Trump:But Joe, Joe, we're in Vietnam for 19 years. But we're 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 them two nights in a row very hard.

30:21Donald J. Trump:And we're negotiating and we'll see whether or not. I think they've agreed to just about everything we need.

30:28Joe Kernen:No. 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.

30:36Donald J. Trump:We have all the assets. No, they're just waiting.

30:38Joe Kernen:You're not anticipating another full. I did a blockade that was essentially not a blockade.

30:44Donald J. Trump: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 percent 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.

31:27Donald J. Trump: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 percent from 5 percent. 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. Now, 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.

32:14Donald J. Trump: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 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. It took us years to get out of it. I don't ever want to be in a depression.

32:59Donald J. Trump: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, I've seen guests on your show where they They go, oil will be$350 a barrel and there'll be a depression. Because at$350, there's a depression. It's automatic.

33:41Donald J. Trump: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.

34:19Donald J. Trump: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.

34:38Joe Kernen:But Jim, think of it. Did we ever get above 115? Never went up as... Think of it. Originally, it was 115 came down quickly.

34:46Donald J. Trump:No, but they thought it was going to go to 300. If you have 300, then I become Herbert Hoover. I don't want to be Herbert Hoover.

34:53Joe Kernen:Have you spoken to Elon since he became a trillionaire?

34:56Donald J. Trump:I haven't. 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 bandaid.

35:32Donald J. Trump:But when I actually did it, Elon was not thrilled about that. And I can understand it, but he's doing good.

35:40Joe Kernen:He's moved on. Do you think if you talk to him about donating SpaceX to something you might want to talk about or donating SpaceX stock to Trump accounts?

35:49Donald J. Trump:Well, I think that he will do that. micron which is a great company that did it uh michael tell is fantastic guy he did

35:59Joe Kernen:six million two hundred and fifty you're ringing the bell next week or something and i'm ringing

36:03Donald J. Trump:the bell right here i think they're gonna have a bell and it's new york stock exchange and nasdaq i said what do you mean they don't do both you're invited to the nasdaq if you want to well they they well that's interesting it's very interesting no they're doing it together it's the first time i can do that i have 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 the head of Nasdaq is coming in and we're doing it together. See, it can happen. We're doing it. See this spot right here? The bell is going to be right there.

36:34Joe Kernen: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 Dusson talked about the the trump doctrine there were there are five things and i think we got to have national capacity here for anything we need we need to have we need to be able to get it here reciprocity we we've can't be you know it can't be flowing one way to the rest of the world um we got to write the rules for for the new technology which is what that's ai um dollars got to stay strong we need financial leadership but maybe most importantly it's all got to flow up and down to to every Every American needs to participate in the prosperity here.

37:19Joe Kernen: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 powerful. Instead of just transfer payments. It's a beautiful thing.

37:30Donald J. Trump:It's a child who 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 ,250 ,000 ,000. That's a tremendous amount. 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.

38:19Donald J. Trump:So many companies are doing that. 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.

38:34Joe Kernen:Do you have a favorite president or do you think there's a period that that was so formative that if we've lost our way in any respects?

38:44Donald J. Trump:We had some very bad presidents. The president has got tremendous power in this country, even before the decision that I got slaughter. They go with the slaughter decision, which is an interesting name, but that's a very powerful decision. But he 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 very special. We are respected again as a country, maybe like never before.

39:24Donald J. Trump:A year and a half ago, we were laughed 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 it. He 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.

39:46Joe Kernen:Well, let's hope for another 250 like that. Thank you very much. We're on a good start. Thank you, Mr. President.

39:52Donald J. Trump:Thank you very much. For all your time. Thank you. Great job. Happy semi-quincentennial. Happy something, right? Thank you. You're welcome.

39:59Joe Kernen:Thank you.

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