Donald Trump Fox and Friends Interview Transcript – Trump Interviewed After Impeachment Hearings

Brian Kilmeade: (00:00)
… Trickle it out in friendly outlets.

Steve Doocy: (00:02)
Well, apparently a draft report has been circulating to people who were involved, and some of the information has now made it out there. We are joined right now, it is our great pleasure to welcome the President of the United States, Donald Trump, calling in. Mr. Trump? Good morning to you.

Ainsley E.: (00:19)
Good morning.

Donald Trump: (00:19)
Good morning.

Good to have you on Fox & Friends today. As you said in your tweet, another slow news week. Let’s start with the fact that … the story that Griff just brought us, and it sounds like a former FBI lawyer, it sounds like, was doing something with the FISA application. That person got removed. And this goes to your argument that somebody at the FBI was out to get you, right?

Well, it certainly does. And they were spying on my campaign and it went right up to the top, and everybody knows it, and now we’re going to find out. You have Bull Durham, who is supposed to be the toughest. I’ve never met him, never spoke to him, but he’s supposed to be the smartest and the best, and he works for Bill Barr, who is a great Attorney General. We would maybe have ended this thing a lot sooner had he been there originally, but you have some people that are great people now, patriotic people, they love our country. And this was spying on my campaign, something that has never been done in the history of our country. This was an overthrow attempt at the presidency. They tried to overthrow the presidency. This is a disgrace, but I’m not surprised to see it. It’s just starting to come out, but I think this is nothing compared to what you’ll see over the next couple of weeks.

Ainsley E.: (01:35)
These media outlets are-

Because people are sick.

Ainsley E.: (01:37)
These media outlets are saying that the FBI lawyer manipulated and altered key documents related to that warrant application so that they could get permission to surveil Carter Page. He was on with Maria, Mornings With Maria, a few minutes ago, and he says it’s a cover up. Listen.

Carter Page: (01:53)
They have just been putting false information out there to the media. The Democrats and their allies in Washington and in the media. Constantly pushing lies after lies, and then finally, this gets picked up by a court, it gets picked up by the Comey/McCabe FBI, and they got a warrant, a fraudulent warrant I believe, to spy on myself as a way of getting into the Trump campaign.

Carter Page: (02:22)
There has been a continued cover up to this very day. We still don’t have the truth, but hopefully we’ll get that soon.

Ainsley E.: (02:29)
How does this compare with what happened with that Ukraine conversation? Democrats want to impeach you because of that conversation, but this looks pretty bad.

So my conversation was a perfect conversation. The Ukrainian president said, “What are they talking about? They must think we’re nuts in this country.” Because this conversation was flawless, it was appropriate, it was perfect, it was nice, it was everything. And they even said that. They came out and said it. Now, compare that and they try to impeach. And by the way, they’ve looked like fools over the last five days. These interviews have been … And these were their witnesses, this was the best they’ve got. Adam Schiff is a sick puppy. It’s been incredible.

What you’re going to see, I predict, will be perhaps the biggest scandal in the history of our country. Political scandal. But I guess that’s the biggest because what’s more important than political when it comes to that?

What do you mean by that?

I think you’re going to see things that are going to be incredible if it’s done right. And I purposely stay out. I tell Bill Barr to handle everything. I wouldn’t have to, I could get very much involved, but I purposely don’t, and I haven’t, and you know what? It’s better that way, I guess. I don’t have any obligation legally to do that, but I’ve let them handle it. So you have a FISA report coming out, which the word is, it’s historic. That’s what the word is. That’s what I hear. And if it’s historic, you’re going to see something. And perhaps even more importantly, you have Durham coming out shortly thereafter. He’s the US Attorney, and he’s already announced it’s criminal. And we’ll see what happens, but-

Mr. President-

I’ll tell you what, you have a lot of very, very bad people. And a lot of people say Deep State. I don’t like to use the word Deep State, I just say they’re really bad, sick people.

Mr. President, you say it could be historic. You have suggested in the past that this might go much higher than the Department of Justice or the FBI during the Obama administration. Are you suggesting it could actually go up into the West Wing of the Obama years?

When you’re dealing with the highest levels of government, they were spying on my campaign, this is my opinion. I said it a long time ago. Remember when I put out a tweet and I talked about the wire tapping in quotes, meaning modern day version of whatever wire tapping may be, and all hell broke loose-

Well, how high did it go, Mr. President?

Who would have thought-

How high did it go? Your opinion.

Personally, I think it goes all the way, okay? Because I think it’s impossible-

To Barack Obama.

Brennan, and for Clapper, and for all of these losers that you had over there, I think it’s impossible for them to being doing things. Let’s see what it all says, but it’s impossible. Susan Rice, the person that worked at the United Nations, who went after FISA reports and went after reports like she ate them for lunch. When you look at the previous administration, they went after a few, and she was getting them at levels that nobody’s even imagined before. It had nothing to do with her. No, I think this goes to the highest level. I hate to say it, I think it’s a disgrace. They thought I was going to win and they said, “How can we stop him?” They wrote up the phony, fake dossier, the disgusting fake dossier, and they tried to have it put out prior to the election, and just to show you how incompetent they were, they spent millions and millions of dollars. Hillary Clinton paid for it and the Democrats. A lot of it had to do, they say, with Ukraine.

But Mr. President-

It’s very interesting. They have the server, right, from the DNC, Democratic National Committee-

Who has the server?

The FBI went in and they told them, “Get out of here. We’re not giving it to you.” They gave the server to CrowdStrike or whatever it’s called, which is a company owned by a very wealthy Ukrainian. And I still want to see that server. The FBI has never gotten that server. That’s a big part of this whole thing. Why did they give it to a Ukrainian company? Why-

Are you sure they did that? Are you sure they gave it to Ukraine?

Well, that’s what the word is. That’s what I asked, actually, in my phone call if you know. I mean, I asked it very point blank because we’re looking for corruption. There’s tremendous corruption we’re looking for. Why should we be giving hundreds of millions of dollars to countries when there’s this kind of corruption? When you look at my call, I said corruption … I think he said it to me. He’s looking. He got elected on the basis of corruption. And I also, by the way, going back to that, why isn’t Germany putting up money? Why isn’t France putting up money? All the European nations, why aren’t they putting up? You have the European Union, and they’re benefited a lot more by the Ukraine than we are.

But Mr. President, can I ask you-

[crosstalk 00:07:18] massive wall … Yes-

Who is-

Why aren’t they putting up money? How come it’s always the United States that puts up money? The suckers, why is it always the United States? And these are the questions I ask and continue to ask them.

True. Mr. President, the best you can. I know you’ve said that from day one about wire tapping and you’ve felt as though the previous administration basically seems to have set you up to really struggle for the first three years. What are your sources that are telling you that the Obama administration was out to really hurt your administration?

Well, first of all, Brian, I haven’t struggled because I’ve done more in the first two and a half years than any president in the history of our country, and almost everybody admits it. Between rebuilding our military, the biggest tax cut in history-

Okay.

Regulations-

Would you say they’ve been in your way?

Two Supreme Court … Wait a second. Two Supreme Court justices. Within a few weeks, we’ll have 182 federal judges, it’s a record. So I’ve done more than anybody that’s ever had the position for this short time.

Understood.

But they haven’t made it pleasant. They’re bad people, they hurt a lot of innocent people. People came down here, they got served subpoenas by Mueller and the crew, and they went through two and a half years, they found nothing. So when you say that, I think we’ve had the most productive presidency ever for the first two and a half years, but it doesn’t mean that it was pleasant.

No, I know. Maybe I should have been clearer. My point is this. I know you’ve had that point of view and some things are coming in that direction to prove it. Who is your source that’s telling you this?

I can’t tell you that. I can only say that we have a lot of information that a lot of bad things happened. And when you look at Strzok and Page with the insurance policy where … the two lovers, the two great lovers from the FBI where he’s saying, “Oh, she’s going to win a hundred million to nothing. But just in case she loses, we have an insurance policy.” Well, that means we’re going to take him down. We’re going to take down the president. You wouldn’t even believe this is possible, but the insurance policy, that was a very big find. Finding that text. And the only reason we found it was they didn’t want to use their private servers for a very bad reason, okay? So they used the public server. They used the FBI server. So here’s the thing. Regardless of what’s coming out, the information that we have now is beyond belief already. But what they have coming out, I hear is historic. That’s the way it was explained.

Ainsley E.: (09:55)
All right. Coming out in December.

I heard the story.

Ainsley E.: (09:57)
All right, Mr. President-

Now, of course the fake news will try and downplay it, but I don’t think you can downplay this.

Not now.

The fake news is part of it. It’s the Democrats and the fake news, they’re one in the same. They will downplay it because, like I see in these hearings, we have a great day, then you pick up the phony New York Times, which is a total phony paper. I don’t read it anymore, you can’t read it. It’s not even … it has no relationship to the truth. And you read a story that took place and they don’t tell you what happened. They only put in the bad, they don’t put in the good. Same thing with The Washington Post. It’s a phony paper. We no longer have it in the White House [crosstalk 00:10:35]-

Ainsley E.: (10:34)
Mr. President, so-

And we’ve saved a lot of money.

Ainsley E.: (10:37)
When we’re watching those closing arguments yesterday, Adam Schiff, Democrats love it. I’m sure he’s getting patted on the back every time he walks down the halls in Washington because people are saying, “Keep pushing. Keep pushing. We want impeachment.” But if you ask Republicans, and we’re going to play a sound bite of his closing arguments, they say, “This is all theatrics.” Watch this and we’re going to get your reaction.

Okay.

Adam Schiff: (10:58)
It came down to the fact that the day after Bob Mueller testified, the day after Bob Mueller testified that Donald Trump invited Russian interference. “Hey Russia, if you’re listening, come get Hillary’s emails.” And later that day, they tried to hack her server. The day after that, Donald Trump is back on the phone asking another nation to involve itself in another US election. That says to me this president believes he is above the law, beyond accountability.

Ainsley E.: (11:37)
Mr. President, was there quid pro quo extortion, bribery?

No, none at all. And let me tell you, he’s a sick puppy. He’s so sick. This guy … I’ve been going through it for two and a half years about Russia. I’ve been tougher on Russia than any president in history, but for two and a half years I’ve had to listen. This was their talking point. Trump and Russia. And if you take a look at it, just look at the facts. Even look at what I’ve done for Ukraine by giving them tank busters, by giving them stuff, and Obama would send pillows and sheets, he wouldn’t send anything else. Now Schiff, remember this. He makes it all up. He’s sick. There’s something wrong with him. So he made up my phone call. He made it up. He made up a phone call, and then when I released it, everybody was embarrassed. And crazy Nancy Pelosi, who, by the way, is going to go down as the worst Speaker in the history of the House of Representatives, she hasn’t done anything. She’s like paralyzed. She cannot do anything. She-

Well, Mr. President-

I predict she worked on USMCA because Richard Trumka, who’s a good guy but a big union guy, only cares about a union. Richard Trumka has her mortified. She won’t do USMCA and everybody in the country wants it. The farmers, the manufacturers. But Richard Trumka has her, he plays her like a fiddle, and I predict she won’t even do it. And by the way, she’s got such pressure on her to do it. All she has to do is put it to a vote. She’s holding it for six months, it’s growing dust on it, and Mexico and Canada are calling saying, “What’s going on? Where’s our agreement?” They signed it. They’re all set-

Mr. President-

That’s the big thing. Yeah, go ahead.

A couple of days ago, your ambassador to the EU, Mr. Sondland, in his opening statement said that there was quid pro quo. There was quid pro quo he said because you wanted investigation into corruption in exchange for a visit to the White House or something like that.

No. Well, that’s total nonsense. I do want always corruption, I say that to anybody. Why should we give money to a country that’s known corrupt? It’s a very corrupt country. I mean, I love the people in the Ukraine, I know Ukrainian people, they’re great people, but it’s known as being the third most corrupt country in the world. Now, with this guy who, by the way, I hardly know him, okay?

Sondland?

I’ve spoken to him a few times. How about the guy with the telephone? How about that one? I guarantee you that never took place. He said he’s sitting there listening to me. I spoke so few times to him, but the guy yesterday on the telephone, David Holmes, yes, I heard the conversation. Well, I have really good hearing and I’ve been watching guys for 40 years make phone calls, and I can’t hear … you could be two feet away. I can’t hear people making calls, I can’t hear the other side, the phone is up at the ear, unless you have it on a speakerphone, you can’t do it. That was a total phony deal. Again, call it Deep State-

Right, but Mr. President, Mr. President-

Call it bad people. Call it anti-Trumpism.

Your ambassador said that there was quid pro quo because you wanted an investigation into corruption, but it involved Joe Biden and Hunter Biden. And then it becomes like a, “Look! He’s going after dirt on the Bidens because Joe Biden could be his opponent in 2020.”

Yeah. Well first of all, that’s not true. Number one. It’s absolutely not true. Now, then you have to say-

Which part?

If you saw Joe Biden, Joe Biden is corrupt.

Okay.

It’s not true what he said. Now what he said also is there was no quid pro quo. I want nothing. Remember, it was trending number one. I want nothing. He said that.

He did.

When he was questioned. And by the way, check out his lawyers. They’re Hillary Clinton lawyers. This guy has Hillary Clinton lawyers. They’re Democrats.

Sonderland.

But he’s sitting there … Sonderland, yeah. He’s sitting there with Clinton lawyers, they’re passing him notes all the time, and he didn’t put the most important phrase in his 22 page statement that he read. The most important phrase was, “I want nothing.” Twice I said it. I want nothing, I want nothing, I want no quid pro quo. Have President Zelensky do whatever is right. Something …

Have President Zelensky do whatever is right, something to that effect. And they didn’t put that in. That was the end of him. [crosstalk 00:16:08] I turned off the television. That’s what he said. Now, with all of that, of course you have to look at corruption. Are we going to be sending massive amounts of money to a country and they’re corrupt and they steal the money and that goes into everybody’s bank account? So you have to look at that. And I will tell you this about Joe Biden. I never said it specifically on him, but I watched Joe Biden with the prosecutor, who a lot of people said was a great prosecutor and they took him off, and he was prosecuting that company. And the kid who never made 10 cents in his life, and all of a sudden is making millions of dollars-

Hunter Biden.

The day he … I mean, you tell me. This is a guy who got thrown out of the Navy dishonorably. He gets thrown out of the Navy, shortly thereafter … made no money, went through, made no money.

But, Mr. President [crosstalk 00:17:00]-

Then all of a sudden his father becomes VP and he’s making millions and millions of dollars, not only from there, but from China.

So Mr. President [crosstalk 00:17:08] … the accusation is this, that you’re using aid, taxpayer dollars, to attack a political opponent in Joe Biden. And you do say, I wanted to hold up that aid because of corruption, but you also in that phone call-

[crosstalk 00:17:25] No, no. Two reasons. For corruption, because it’s known. I want to make sure the money is going to be spent properly, but there’s another reason that is maybe to me the most important.

Which is?

Why isn’t Germany, France, the European union, why aren’t all those countries in Europe, why aren’t they paying? Why is it always the United States the sucker? I got elected on that.

But [crosstalk 00:17:48] they do give aid. They do give aid. We give more. We always have. But Mr. President, you decide to say Rudy Giuliani, a longtime friend, mayor and prosecutor, you send him into the Ukraine. I want you to hear what Ambassador Sondland said and it’s been pretty consistent among state department workers. It seems like Rudy Giuliani was getting under a lot of people’s skin. I want you to listen to what he said.

Well, that’s Rudy.

[crosstalk 00:18:11] I want you to hear … listen, I’ve known him for a long time too. Let’s listen.

Sondland: (18:16)
Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker, and I worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States. We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani. We all understood that if we refuse to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose a very important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine.

So why was it necessary to put Rudy in the middle of the Ukraine, a country he knew little about, as opposed to let the people do their jobs there and just give them the same mission?

Okay. First of all, Volker, I don’t know him. Don’t know him. [crosstalk 00:18:59] This guy Sondland, hardly know him. I’ve had a couple of conversations with him. I see him hanging around when I go to Europe, but he was really the European union ambassador and all of a sudden he’s working on this. Ask about that. Rick Perry, I know him very well. Frankly, I’d like Rick to make a statement and Rick would make a statement. He’s a great guy. I think he already made a statement. Great guy. Rudy is a great crime fighter. Rudy is the best mayor in the history of New York City. Rudy Giuliani is a very legendary figure in our country. Rudy was the US Attorney. He also worked at the Justice Department.

Believe me, this kind of crap wouldn’t have happened in the Justice Department if Rudy Giuliani was the attorney general, just like I believe Bill Barr will straighten it out and straighten it out for good. But Rudy Giuliani was one of the great crime fighters of all time. He’s also a friend of mine. He’s a great person. He’s like a iconic figure in this country for two reasons. He was the greatest mayor in the history of New York, and he was the greatest crime fighter probably in the last 50 years. When you’re dealing with a corrupt country. If Rudy Guiliani’s … he’s got credentials because of his reputation. When Rudy Giuliani goes there and you hear it’s a corrupt country, I mean, it means a lot. It means a lot.

But two of his sources are indicted on … are right now in jail. Those are two of his sources and one of his other sources is looked at as a corrupt figure. So in the end, it seems like you had state department and Rudy Giuliani working against each other and then the accusation comes in that your ambassador is being tarnished by Rudy Giuliani.

Look, the ambassador, the woman, she wouldn’t even put up she’s an Obama person. I said, “Why are you being so kind?” “Well, sir, she’s a woman. We have to be nice.” She’s very tough. I heard bad things. And by the way, when I was talking to presidents Zelensky, it’s right on the phone. You could read it. He didn’t like her. He brought up her name and he didn’t like her at all. How do you have an ambassador with the president, the new president doesn’t like her. Because she was so wedded in. And don’t forget, Ukraine hated me. They were after me in the election. They wanted Hillary Clinton to win and when I won, all of a sudden they became so nice, they had to make up. There were many articles where they had to get to be friendly, cause we’re like a gravy train for them. Okay?

We’re like their gravy train. So they were totally in favor of Hillary Clinton. But this ambassador that everybody says is so wonderful, she wouldn’t hang my picture in the embassy. Okay? She’s in charge of the embassy. She wouldn’t hang it. It took like a year and a half or two years for her to get the picture up. She said bad things about me. She wouldn’t defend me and I have the right to change an ambassador and Rudy didn’t say good things, but he wasn’t crazy about it. It wasn’t like a major topic, but I have the right to change. This was an Obama person that didn’t want to hang my picture in the embassy. It’s a standard, is you put the President of the United States pictured in an embassy. This was not an angel, this woman. Okay? And there were a lot of things that she did that I didn’t like and we will talk about that at some time, but I just want to let you know this was not a baby that we’re dealing with.

Ainsley E.: (22:17)
There was one woman who was in all of these testimonies this week who was sticking up for you, Congresswoman Elise Stefanik. She was asking questions, doing her job. She said her constituents want to get to the bottom of what happened with the Bidens and that investigation. She questioned Tim Morrison and Kurt Volker on Capitol Hill. Listen to this.

Okay.

Elise Stefanik: (22:37)
But the truth is the facts are indeed not complicated. And I’m going to close out with two questions for the both of you. Did Ukraine open investigation into the Biden’s, Mr. Morrison?

Tim Morrison: (22:48)
Not to my knowledge, ma’am.

Ambassador Volker.

Kurt Volker: (22:51)
Not to my knowledge either.

Did either of you ever have any evidence of quid pro quo, Mr. Morrison?

No, ma’am.

Ambassador Volker?

I did not.

Any evidence of bribery?

No, ma’am.

No ma’am.

Ainsley E.: (23:03)
She’s been raked over the coals for that. Kellyanne Conway’s husband was one of the ones that called her trash.

So I’ll tell you, first of all, she’s become a star. Every time you do something, you have guys like Jim Jordan and Meadows and all these guys that they’ve been around and they’re stars, but they’ve been stars. Every once in a while you meet a new star. I know a lot about stardom, I know a lot about it. I’ve made plenty of them. But I’ll tell you what, this young woman from upstate New York, she has to become a star her way. You can never define exactly what it is. You understand that. You’re a star. Okay? Why? Who the hell knows? But you’re a star. There aren’t many of them, but what happens is she has become a star. Her mannerism, her way of talking her [crosstalk 00:23:53]-

She’s direct. Right to the point.

No, it’s just the whole thing. It just works. She’s a tremendous person. She was fantastic during the hearings. Turner, every … so many people, they were so great. But you know what? The bottom line is, all of those witnesses, they’re all shifty-shifts. Don’t forget there was no due process. You can’t have lawyers. We couldn’t have any witnesses. We want to call the whistleblower, but you know who I want as the first witness. Cause frankly, I want a trial. I think I could have it [crosstalk 00:24:23]-

You want a trial?

… whatever I want. Oh, I would … look, number one, they should never, ever impeach. This is not … I watched five people in your network yesterday say there’s nothing here. Andy McCarthy. How about Ken, the special prosecutor?

Ken Starr.

[crosstalk 00:24:44] special counsel. Ken Starr. He was fantastic. He said there’s nothing here. So, ready? Number one, there should never be an impeachment. This is not an impeachment. That phone call was totally appropriate. Okay? Totally. But, assuming these people are as sleazy as they are, and Nancy Pelosi is totally incompetent. She’s lost, absolutely lost … she doesn’t know what she’s doing. She hasn’t done anything. She can’t get anything approved.

Everybody’s working on this and they just got blown away because they put their witnesses up and [crosstalk 00:25:18] we’re not going to get US MCA [crosstalk 00:25:19] because [inaudible 00:25:20] and everyone are going to vote against Democrats like you’ve never seen before. But if they do put it up, because they’re crazy. I mean, Adam Schiff is a nut job. Listen to this. Adam Schiff gets up before Congress and he made up my statement [crosstalk 00:25:35] and I said, “Who made that statement?” He made it up-

Mr. President?

And then after he got caught, three days later, we started saying parody.

Mr. President?

The thing I did that was right, Brian. The thing I did that was right, was I released the transcript of the call immediately. [crosstalk 00:25:52] Had I not done that, I would have had a big problem, a big problem, because they all lied about my call. My call was perfect. If you heard Adam Schiff’s made up version of my call, I mean, it was the worst thing I’ve ever heard. I said, “How could that be possible?” And you know the sad part? Because he made it in the halls of Congress, he has immunity. I can’t sue him, the Republican party can’t sue him, [crosstalk 00:26:13]. And one other thing before we get off. The Republican party-

We’re not getting off.

Yeah, I know. We can keep this going all day. Right? That’s easy. But look, the Republican party has never been more unified, both the Senate and the House. Mitch, Lindsey, I could name 20 names up there. I could name … they have never had … look, we won 196 to nothing. That never happens. I always say, the Democrats are lousy politicians, they have lousy policy, but they stick together and they’re vicious. [crosstalk 00:26:46] They’re more vicious, frankly. But the Republicans, they have a tendency, they break up. They don’t … the Republicans, I have never seen anything like it, they’re sticking together.

Mr. President, [crosstalk 00:26:56] we understand that there were six Republican senators, this is a perfect transition into this question, who talked to you yesterday along with the White House lawyer, I know Jared Kushner was there. You’re trying to figure out some sort of strategy going forward, because it does look as if Nancy Pelosi, her back is up against the wall. She’s going to have to go ahead and proceed with the impeachment vote. It’s going to wind up in the Senate and you say that you, to your earlier point, you want a full trial because then you will wind up with, according to the story, due process which you feel you did not get with Adam Schiff. Which means you can call your own witnesses and you would love to see Hunter Biden in the chair to answer all those questions about Ukraine.

Well, there’s only one person I want more than, where’s Hunter? And that is Adam Schiff. I want to put that guy with his way.

[crosstalk 00:27:48] What’s your first question for Adam Schiff?

I almost said something that might’ve been slightly controversial, but I didn’t. See, I’m learning. See that Steve, I’m learning. But after all these years, I finally learned. But look, I want to see Adam Schiff testify about the whistleblower, who’s a fake whistleblower because the whistleblower report was about my conversation with the President of Ukraine. It bore no relationship. It said there were eight, seven or eight quid pro quos. There were none. It bore no relationship to my call. Nobody brings that out. The whistleblower is, in my opinion, a political operative just like his lawyer who’s one of the worst people in Washington.

Do you think you know who it is?

I know exactly who it is. Everybody does [crosstalk 00:28:29]-

Is he still there? Is he still there? [crosstalk 00:28:32] Does he go to meetings? Does he go to meetings?

And by the way, you know who the whistleblowers is too, otherwise you’re not doing your job. You know who the … everybody knows it. If the whistleblower were on the other side, they would have revealed the whistleblower two months ago.

Ainsley E.: (28:46)
Mr. President?

But the Democrats and their machine, the media machine, the fake corrupt media, they protect. But you know who the whistleblower is, so do I. I know it. But, I want the whistleblower who put in a false report to testify. I want to know why did the IG put in the report … you have an IG, right? Why did the IG, instead of saying, “Let me take the report. Let me now go to the White House, ask the President to declassify his conversation so that it has to match up?” He didn’t do that. So what you do is you have a whistleblower with a fake story, just like … it’s just as fake as Schiff’s story. That’s why … a lot of people think that Schiff basically is essentially the whistleblower, or he told the whistleblower what to do.

I mean, his whole story that he doesn’t know the whistleblower. If he doesn’t, then he’s the only person in Washington that doesn’t, and it’s already been acknowledged that his staff met with the whistleblower. Okay? And it’s probably more than [crosstalk 00:13:40]-

All right, so [crosstalk 00:29:43] … go ahead.

Ainsley E.: (29:42)
Mr. President?

Who I want to testify most is shifty-Schiff and I want to find out why did he make up my statement? He made up my statement and I want to find that out. Why did shifty-Schiff, who’s a crooked politician. He’s a corrupt politician. Why did he make up my statement? He made up the statement and I’m [crosstalk 00:14:00]-

Ainsley E.: (30:00)
Because he didn’t think you were going to release the transcript.

No, no, that’s right. Exactly, [crosstalk 00:14:04]. Where this whole thing fell apart and where frankly, the Republicans became so incredibly unified, is after they read my statement. Every one of them said, [crosstalk 00:14:17]. The only ones that are a little off on my statement are the people that haven’t quite read it yet that say, “Well, this isn’t impeachable.” But they didn’t read it. I said [crosstalk 00:30:23]-

Ainsley E.: (30:24)
Well, if we read it, Democrats are going to say it was quid pro quo. If you’re a conservative, you’re going to [crosstalk 00:30:30] say no, it wasn’t.

You can’t.

Ainsley E.: (30:31)
Well, they’re saying that it was. [crosstalk 00:30:34] They believe in a roundabout way it was.

Well, Adam Schiff says what I said too, and it was totally different.

[crosstalk 00:30:38] But the bottom line is, is this an impeachable offense? Did you do anything that they can impeach you for?

There’s nothing there. In fact, they asked these terrible witnesses yesterday. Again, I don’t even know these people. I come to Washington. So you’ve had Bush, and you have never-Trumpers. So you have Bush, you have Clinton, you have Obama, so you have 24 years of people in positions, right? Then I come in with no experience, which is a good thing. But I know life. And I come in and I end up with thousands of people that are never-Trumpers, Clinton people, and sometimes the never-Trumpers are worst than Clinton and Obama people, believe me. I mean, it’s an amazing phenomena. Don’t forget [crosstalk 00:31:24]-

Speaker 1: (31:24)
President Obama released every … yes.

Listen to this for a second. And with no experience at doing this, but I’ve had a lot of experience in life and we’re doing great as a country and we’re respected again as a country. And we were not respected. With no experience, I come to Washington. I’ve defeated the Clinton dynasty. I’ve defeated the Bush dynasty, and I’ve defeated the Obama, whatever you want to call it, right? The three biggest. I defeated them all at one time with no experience. The hatred is incredible, but I have to deal with crazy Nancy. I mean, she’s crazy as a bedbug. She is nuts.

She’s crazy as a bedbug. She is nuts. And what she’s doing … and she’s not talented. She’s highly overrated. All she’s doing is sitting. She’s not doing any work for the people. And now it turns out that the whole impeachment thing is a scam.

Okay, got you. So, Mr.-

And now on top of it, now you’re starting to get some feedback that the IG report is coming out and I think that will be-

Explosive.

… the greatest political scandal in the history of our country.

And if we could just now let’s switch and let’s talk a little bit about 2020.

Let me just interrupt for a second. Mr. President, you said we know the name of the whistleblower. We’ve seen names on the internet. We have no idea who the whistleblower is.

Right.

No, I don’t believe. Steve, can I tell you? I know you [inaudible].

I’ve seen names, but I don’t know who it is.

But it’s … All right.

I don’t think Steve has ever told a lie, Ainsley and Brian and his life, but that one, I’m sort of thinking, oh come on.

So, you expect to-

You’re a great person. I’m always telling people I watch your show in the morning. I don’t watch the garbage, the other garbage that would love to have me on, that would do anything to have me on.

No, we’ve seen names online, but Mr. President, we don’t have any verification.

And it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter anyway. We’re not going to use it. We’re not going to use it.

You don’t need verification. You know exactly who it is, Steve. Okay. But I like that you say that.

Right. So, Mr. President, you expect an impeachment vote. You expect to get impeached. And would you say, you said you embraced the idea-

No, I don’t expect it.

You don’t expect it?

Actually, I don’t.

You don’t expect Democrats going to vote for this?

I think it’s very hard for them to impeach you when they have absolutely nothing. No, I would expect that … Okay, ready? You’ve seen the polls over the last week. I’m going through the roof. In Wisconsin, I’m way up over every Democrat.

You are.

The swing states, which is the important one. You know, you have two elections, you have electoral college, you have popularity. I like to go for the electoral college. By the way, for me to win the popular vote would be much easier. The electoral college is much harder to win, much harder. You have to go to many more places, etc., etc. But if you look at those swing states, I’m way up in every one of them because of the impeachment thing. And it’s crazy what’s going on because the people get it. It’s a hoax. This is a continuation of the witch hunt, which has gone on from before I got elected.

If you look at the, you know, we talked about the insurance policy, right? You know, we’ve got an insurance policy just in case you lose this, right? This was a text between the two great lovers. If you look at that, that was long before the election took place. So this was taking root with Comey, who’s a totally disgusting human being. Which by the way, and if I didn’t fire Comey, I would’ve been in some trouble right now.

And maybe you should have done it right away. But Mr. President-

Because they were coming after me and I wouldn’t have known that he was a phony and that Strzok and Page and all of these people, McCabe, the whole gang of them, we wouldn’t have been able to find it out. Turned out to be the best move I’ve ever made, firing Comey, because they were looking to take down the president of the United States.

Yeah, he doesn’t agree. John Bolton has just gone back on Twitter. His account was frozen for two months. Did you guys freeze his account?

No, of course not. Of course not. No, I actually had a good relationship with John. We disagreed on some things and some methods, but I actually had a good relationship. No, I didn’t do that. I didn’t even know that.

Ainsley E.: (35:18)
Mr. President, let’s talk about 2020 because we saw the last Democratic debate and the ratings were really low. I don’t know if that’s an indication that it’s too early or if people are not interested in these candidates, and maybe that’s why some of these other guys are talking about jumping into the race. Elizabeth Warren says she’s going to use tax dollars to take down your border wall. Listen to this.

Moderator: (35:40)
Would you ask taxpayers to pay to take down any part of the wall on the nation’s southern border?

ElizabethWarren: (35:45)
If there are parts of the wall that are not useful in our defense, of course we should do it. The real point here is that we need to stop this manmade crisis at the border. Trump is the one who has created this crisis.

Ainsley E.: (36:00)
Tom Homan said the reason that the numbers are down is because of the wall. What do you say?

Absolutely. We’ve built almost a hundred miles of wall. It’s going up fast. Army Corps of Engineers is doing it. We have the funding. I took it out of the military. You know, I’ve rebuilt the military. That’s another thing we’ve done, which was when I took it over. And we defeated ISIS, we took the caliphate. We just took out al-Baghdadi. I got, you know, I don’t want it. I don’t want it frankly. But if Obama did al-Baghdadi, the biggest terrorist in the last hundred years, if Obama did it, it would be a two year story. With me, I got a day. Not that it matters, but it was a tremendous thing. We defeated him. But let me just tell you about the wall. Without the wall, and Tom Homan’s a great guy. Without the wall, it would be a disaster.

Absolutely.

And if she took down the wall … You need the wall. You know, they want to have drones. They want to have drones flying around, up and down and this and that. It’s all just a waste of money. Other than we have drones flying to see if anybody’s trying to break through the wall, because if you have a bulldozer or if you have heavy blow torches and things, you can break through. We have, the wall is electrified so that if anyone touches it, we know exactly what’s happening and we can get there within minutes. Now we built that-

You electrified the wall?

We’re building a fantastic wall and without the wall … Now it just means she’s going to lose, because one of the issues that I won on last time was border security. And you see where the numbers are. Now until I got the wall built, I got Mexico because we’re not allowed, very simply, we have loopholes and they’re called loopholes for a reason, because they’re loopholes. I could end those loopholes in 15 minutes with crazy Nancy Pelosi and Schumer. I could end them in 15 minutes, but they don’t want to meet about them because they like trouble, because the more trouble we have, they don’t care about the country. The more trouble they have, the better it is for them. They think the worse it is for me. So I got the wall built despite them fighting me. I got so much money for them for the military. The one thing they wouldn’t give you money for is the wall because they thought that was a very good thing politically. If you don’t have a wall, we don’t have a country. If we don’t have a border, we don’t have a country.

And you see what’s going on in-

Right. Mr. President right now, Elizabeth Warren wants to take it down. Who do you think right now is likely to be your opponent? Mayor Pete is evidently moving up in the early states.

Ainsley E.: (38:23)
Biden’s still at the top.

Joe Biden wins most national polls. Elizabeth Warren is still among the leaders. Who do you think it’s going to be?

Well, I don’t know if Joe can make it mentally. He’s off. There’s no question about it. So I don’t know if he’s going to make it mentally. If he can get through it, without cracking up, which is a real question, maybe him. You know, don’t forget, people have seen his name for a long time. But Pete is, you know, I call him Alfred E. Neuman. To me, he reminds me of Mad magazine, Alfred E. Neuman. I don’t see him. I don’t see him dealing with president Xi. I don’t see him dealing with Kim Jong Un. I just don’t see it. But maybe he is.

I mean, look, I wouldn’t mind running against any of them. So I would say maybe Biden has the advantage. I think Pocahontas has come up from the embers. I thought, I mean I hit her too early. I came up with this name that seems to have stuck very nicely-

Bloomberg?

… but they don’t use it. I don’t see him. I know him pretty well. He finished very weak in New York. He starts with the telling you what you can drink, what you could do, what … No, I don’t see it. He’s desperately … I’m sure he’s going to run. He is going to spend … He’s got the money to put on a great campaign. I don’t see it. I think his time has come and gone.

Got you.

It would be hard to believe a New York real estate developer or a billionaire could ever be president. Mr. President … Just kidding. You know, the stock market hit another record this past week. Clearly that is your strong suit going into 2020 because you look at the polls, people feel better about their money situation right now. Going forward toward November of next year, how are you going to make sure everybody understands what you have been able to do over the last then four years?

By talking to you. That’s all I have to do. Everyone’s listening right now. Nobody’s listening to any other show. But look, strong suit. My strong suit is I rebuilt the military, the vet. For years, you would turn on your television every night you’d see a story about the vets and how badly they’re being treated and it’s a horror show. You don’t hear that anymore. I got veteran’s choice. That means they can go see a doctor. If they have to wait on line, they go see a doctor, we pay the bill. It’s unbelievable what happened. I have veterans accountability. You couldn’t fire. For 50 years, they’ve been trying to get it. You couldn’t fire because there were union and civil service. So if you had somebody beating up vets, stealing from the VA, you couldn’t fire them for any reason. You couldn’t fire them for-

That’s certainly something to run on, and they are appreciative. On the economy, President Xi-

I’ve got that, but listen, rebuilding the military, all of the things I’ve done, plus we’ve had peace. You know we’re pulling way down in Afghanistan. We’re working on an agreement now with the Taliban. Let’s see what happens. The last time I was supposed to have an agreement, then they thought when they came over, they thought it would be good to kill people so they could negotiate from a position of strength. They killed 12 people in order to show their tough guys, and I canceled the meeting. I said, “That’s not what we’re dealing with.” Anyway, I’m pulling back. I just pulled out of Syria, except I kept the oil. If it was okay with you-

You have 600 guys there, right?

I don’t want to keep the oil.

Real quick, President Xi has just said this. “We want to work for a phase one agreement on the basis of mutual respect and equality with the United States.” Where are you at? You were kind of down on a deal and the market kind of dipped on this. Where do you stand right now with the trade deal with China?

Very good. We have a deal potentially very close. He wants to make it much more than I want to make it. I’m not anxious to make it. We’re taking in hundreds of billions of dollars in tariffs. We never took in 10 cents. We are not paying, like you know, they fed the line. You know, the media fed the line about us paying. Now normally you would pay for tariffs, but China is paying, not us.

But you just heard what he just said, Mr. President? He wants to do a deal. I very rarely see that. We want to work at a phase one agreement.

The problem is I didn’t like his word equality because we started off so low. We’ve lost $500 billion a year for many, many years. We’ve rebuilt China, and I give him a lot of credit. The ones I don’t give credit are our past presidents, and especially the last one with his crummy vice president. China took us to the cleaners. He didn’t even know that. Biden in the first debate said, “Oh, these are the wonderful people.” Sure, they’re wonderful people. We’re giving them 500 billion a year, 500 billion. That’s not including theft of intellectual property, etc. So I told President Xi, this can’t be an even deal, because we’re starting off from the floor and you’re already at the ceiling, so we have to have a much better deal. The bottom line is we have a very good chance to make a deal.

You do.

Ainsley E.: (43:10)
And not to mention what’s happening in Hong Kong with the pro democracy protestors.

Well, that’s a complicating factor. There’s no question about it. And if it weren’t for me, Hong Kong would have been obliterated in 14 minutes. He’s got a million soldiers standing outside of Hong Kong that aren’t going in only because I asked him, please don’t do that. You’ll be making a big mistake. It’s going to have a tremendous negative impact on the trade deal. And he wants to make a trade deal.

And if I could just-

Brian, one thing before I get off. I just want to say one thing. We have the strongest economy in the history of our country. We have the best unemployment numbers we’ve ever had. African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, the best in history. We have the best unemployment and employment numbers. More people working today than ever before. But listen to this, we have now the greatest economy that we’ve ever had. We’ve increased by $20 trillion. China’s gone down probably by $30 or $35 trillion. If crooked Hillary had won, China would now be the largest economy in the world. They were going to surpass us, expected to in the second year of the presidency. Right now, they are so far behind us, they’ll never catch up.

But the farmers do need relief. But the farmers were hoping for that huge purchase and it looks like they want to do a deal, but they-

Brian, they have it. Wait, wait, wait. Just one thing. So they have it because I said, “How much have the farmers lost because of China targeting them? Sir, $16 billion and 12 billion the previous year.” I gave them $12 billion out of the tariffs, had tens of billions leftover, and I gave them 16 billion out of the tariffs and had tens of billions leftover. It goes into the treasury. Brian, our farmers are doing great. And now we just signed a deal with Japan, $40 billion they’re buying from the farmers. We just signed a deal with South Korea a tremendous deal. We’re making tremendous deals, but you have to understand, these deals with China, they’ve been taking advantage of us for 25 years. It’s hard for them to understand it’s not going to happen anymore, and now they understand.

They are calling on you to veto legislation.

They had the worst year in 57 years.

They are calling on you to veto legislation coming out of the Senate that supports the Hong Kong students. What are you going to do?

Well, I’ll tell you, look, we have to stand with Hong Kong, but I’m also standing with President Xi. He’s a friend of mine. He’s an incredible guy and we have to stand. But I’d like to see them work it out. Okay? We have to see him work it out. But I stand with Hong Kong. I stand with freedom. I stand with all of the things that we want to do. But we also are in the process of making the largest trade deal in history.

If we could do that, that’d be great. China wants it. We want it. And I will say this, if it weren’t for me, thousands of people would have been killed in Hong Kong right now. And you wouldn’t have any riots. You’d have a police state, but thousands of people. The only reason he’s not going in is because I’m saying it’s going to affect our trade deal, you don’t want to do that.

Ainsley E.: (00:51)
Mr. President?

I speak to him.

Ainsley E.: (00:53)
So you’re running in 2020 and many people are … we all just assumed your vice presidential nominee would be Mike Pence. But then we’re reading headlines about Kellyanne Conway’s husband saying that Nikki Haley is fighting for that position. I’m a South Carolinian, originally from South Carolina. Nikki Haley was our Governor and I know she really did a good job as the ambassador. So, who’s going to be your running mate in 2020?

No, she’s great. Well look, first of all, Kellyanne is great, but she’s married to a total whack job. She must have done some number on him, Ainsley. I don’t know what Kellyanne did to that guy, because I don’t even know him. I mean, I met him for a [crosstalk 00:01:28] second. He’s got to be some kind of a nut job. She must’ve done some bad things to him because that guy is crazy. But you know what? Mike Pence is a great Vice President. He’s our man, 100%, and Nikki will absolutely be involved.

She’s a friend of mine. She endorsed me with the most beautiful endorsement you’ve ever heard. She did a great job at the UN. She’s now in the private sector. I assume she’s doing very well, but Nikki will be back in some form because she’s great and she’s my friend. But no, Mike Pence, I know I’ve seen this rumor. It keeps popping up and Nikki would be great. But Mike Pence has done a phenomenal job as Vice President. He’s our guy. He’s my friend. And look, we have a great team. It’s [crosstalk 00:02:17] been a very strong team.

[crosstalk 00:02:18] Mike Pompeo going to the Senate. Are you going to push him to do that?

So Mike is done an incredible job. I have an incredible cabinet. We don’t get enough credit. We have an incredible … Mike graduated number one at Harvard Law, number one at West Point. He’s an incredible guy doing a great job in a very complicated world, doing a great job as Secretary of State. Remember, they all said, Brian, I’d be in World War III my first day and now they’re saying, “Wow, he’s much more moderate.” Well, actually, I rebuilt the military to a level that nobody’s going to play games with us.

But if we don’t have to use it, that’s a good thing. Not a bad thing. So Mike would win easily in Kansas, great state, and it’s a Trump state. He’d win easily. And if I thought they had somebody out there that couldn’t win and Mike would really … he loves what he’s doing, but if I thought they had somebody out there that … and he came to me and said, “Look, I’d rather stay where I am.” But he loves Kansas. He loves the people of Kansas. If he thought there was a chance of losing that seat, I think he would do that. And he would win in a landslide because they love him in Kansas.

Speaker 4: (03:25)
Well, I am from Kansas and you’re right, it is a great state. Mr. President, a moment ago you were talking about rumors. I’m sure you saw there was a rumor that you went to the hospital last week. It wasn’t on the schedule and obviously something is really the matter with you. So can you tell us what’s the matter with you?

Okay. Yeah. A lot of things are a matter with me. I mean, number one, what did I do this for? But I love it, it’s one of those things. So I had some free time, my doctor calls, he said, “Would you like to do something ’cause I’m going to be slightly busy in 2020 in January and February?” Especially if crazy Nancy does something that nobody ever would even think of doing. So I’ll be busy interviewing Biden, watching the interviews of a shifty-Schiff and why he made up all of this stuff and why he made up my statements. So the doctor goes, “Sir, would you like to go out?” ‘Cause I had three hours. “Would you like to go out to Walter Reed and do your first part of the physical?” I said, “Yeah, go ahead, let’s go.” So we go out. I go there, I meet with parents, one in particular.

I meet with the wife and family of a young soldier who was being operated on and lost his arm and lost a leg. Horrible thing. And I spent time with them. Anyway, I do a very routine part of the physical, get in the car, come back. On the way back, I’m hearing that I’m in the hospital. And by the way, just so you know, literally many, many, many cars go. It’s not like … and they have a press van following when I go. I’d love to be able to go, like the old days, where I get in the car, close the doors, lock them up and drive. Right? That doesn’t happen anymore. It’s a little different life. But we have a press man. You know how that works? And so, we drive out to Walter Reed, greatest doctors, greatest everything, greatest place you’ve ever seen what they can do.

So I start my physical, go see the soldier, go see the families, did a little tour of the building, then get back in. On the way back, I’m hearing rumors that I’m in the hospital. Then I’m hearing rumors that I had chest pains. Then I’m hearing rumors that I had a massive heart attack. Then I’m hearing rumors that I’m not coming back, I’m staying at Walter Reed overnight and maybe for a long time. And I say … I come home and my wife says, “Darling, darling, are you okay?” I said, “Okay from what?” They have it down, CNN, mostly CNN, but that stupid MSNBC, which is just as bad. Can you imagine? I made them so much money on The Apprentice and that’s the way. But anyway, those two. And so, they started a false narrative and it was this. So the doctor gets on and he said, “No, no, it was just … ” It didn’t matter. No matter what we told them, they were going with it [crosstalk 00:06:09]-

Speaker 4: (06:07)
So Mr. President, your health is fine?

Well, let me tell you this, I just got back from Austin, Texas, where I was with Tim Cook. He’s going to be building a $1 billion facility to make whatever he makes. That’s Apple. And he’s going to build this incredible facility. We toured another facility where they make the Mac Pro, which is phenomenal, which was opening. The reason we … it opened that day. They’re making all of the Mac Pros all over the world and making them right in Austin, Texas. I left early, I got home very late, and I did many things in between, and I was sort of joking to some of the people. I said, “Hey, that’s not bad considering these people had me all washed up and finished in a hospital and I just get back from a 14 hour day.” No, it’s a disgrace. Let me just say what it really is. It’s fake, disgusting news. I’ll let you know. You know what? Nothing wrong. If you’re not feeling well, I have [crosstalk 00:07:05]-

Speaker 4: (07:05)
Right. But it wasn’t on your schedule, and so people thought, “Oh, there must be something.”

No, because the doctor said, “Sir … ” I’m not blaming [crosstalk 00:07:11], but [inaudible 00:00:07:13], would you like to go in and knock off half of your physical. I said, “You know what? That’s not a bad idea,” cause I had three hours [crosstalk 00:07:19] between that and watching a football game that I didn’t want to watch or doing … I had three free hours and he said, “Would you like to do it?” So here’s the thing, it’s so disgusting what they do because they knew it wasn’t true. They went with it. After we certified with medical people, we had three medical people call them up and say it’s not true. They went with it anyway. You couldn’t kill the story because they’re bad people. It’s fake, corrupted news.

[crosstalk 00:07:43] Mr. President. [crosstalk 00:07:45] I think it does good for your health. I’m not a doctor, but if I was writing a prescription calling in every week to update the country about what’s happening might be good for your health. That’s something to consider. You have the phone number.

I don’t mind [crosstalk 00:07:57] … Well, you know that I’ve been doing it for years [crosstalk 00:07:58]-

You have been.

With your group, I’ve been doing it for years [crosstalk 00:08:02]-

It’s a stress release.

If it was up to me, and it is up to me, and we’ll do it more often, but I have a lot of fun doing it and you know what? The nice part, we get the true word out and here’s the true word. Our country is doing great. We’re respected again. Our military is strong. We have the number one economy in the world by far, and China’s never going to catch us. As long as we have a smart person where I am, they’ll never catch us. They’ve had the worst year they’ve had in 57 years, and we’ve had the best year we’ve ever had by far. So it’s good. I get the word out on your show. I love your show and you people are great.

Ainsley E.: (08:32)
Thank you so much Mr. President for being with us.

Yep. President Trump, [crosstalk 00:08:34] thanks so much.

Thanks.

Ainsley E.: (08:34)
Thank you.

Speaker 4: (08:34)
All right.

All right.

Bye-bye.

Donald Trump Fox and Friends Interview Transcript – Trump Interviewed After Impeachment Hearings

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