Donald Trump Town Hall Transcript with Sean Hannity June 25

Sean Hannity: (00:00) And now, here's my town hall that we taped earlier today from an airplane hangar in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Now, by the way, we followed all the rules and recommendations of the county in which we're doing this. So as to have as many people as they recommended, small crowd, but an enthusiastic group of people. Obviously, because of all that we've been dealing with COVID-19, we had a lot of ground to cover tonight. Watch this. Thank you, Mr. President. Thanks for joining us. We're going to take some audience questions throughout the hour. You're here in Wisconsin, one of the things that everybody's looking for and we'll get into more detail throughout the hour is the economy, you are going to leave this town hall, and you're going to announce that you're building 20 new ships. You rebuilding the military and how many jobs? Donald Trump: (00:48) Well, it's going to be probably 6,000, 7,000 jobs, could go up to 10 in Wisconsin alone. And it's a great shipyard that was on hard times. And now it's a very good shipyard and a lot of people are going to be working. And it's one of the most beautiful ships. It looks like a yacht with a lot of ammunition on it, I will tell you. It's really something. And we'll probably end up with 20 or 25. And these are big ones, beautiful ships. And they do a beautiful job in Wisconsin. So I'm here, it's sort of like a launch. We're starting work and the contract's all given and you won it right here, so congratulations folks. Sean Hannity: (01:27) We as a nation, we've been watching, it was universal agreement that what happened to George Floyd should never happen, can never happen again. And you've been very outspoken about it as well. And they were peaceful protestors, but then there were people rioting. We see anarchy, we see rocks and bottles and bricks and Molotov cocktails thrown at police officers, police precincts burn to the ground. In Seattle, an autonomous zone that still remains, is changing apparently today but taken over, including a police precinct. And you're offering all of these states help, New York, Illinois, and Washington. What are they telling you when you offer them help? Donald Trump: (02:07) Well, first of all, we have arrested, I think almost, but it could be over the number, hundreds of people. We have arrested a lot of people for what they've done. They've created bedlam. They've destroyed very important things. I mean, you're also talking about statues of George Washington, Abraham Lincoln. They'd like to get Jesus, you know that, right? They said, "We want to get Jesus." Sean Hannity: (02:28) Yeah, you had Shaun King, the radical. Donald Trump: (02:30) These have nothing to do with any particular event, other than they're troublemakers or agitators. And they're anarchists. The big thing they want is they want to really destabilize our country and we don't let them. So I said to my people, "If you've arrested so many, how come we don't know about it?" They said, "We don't talk about it, sir, we do it." But I said, "I think the public should know it." And we have a statues act, a monument act, which puts you in jail for 10 years if you do what they've done. So we've got that. We've got all the tapes because the nice part is it's all on television. Like the character on the horse the other day, he's up there putting on the ropes. He's in trouble, on the Andrew Jackson ... beautiful, it's beautiful, right opposite the White House. Donald Trump: (03:09) And you got to remember Andrew Jackson, the Battle of New Orleans and so much. He was a very good president. He was a great general and you can't let that happen. But they're after Abraham Lincoln and tonight, I guess they're looking at Abraham Lincoln and that was the Emancipation Proclamation. So you have that and you're signing Emancipation Proclamation and you have somebody, I think that wasn't freed, and he's getting up. It's the position of, he's getting up. He's being freed by Abraham Lincoln. And I can see controversy, but I can also see beauty in it. And it was paid for by slaves. I don't know if you know that, it was paid for because they were so grateful to the president. Donald Trump: (03:51) It was paid for that reason and they want to take it down. And we can take things down too, I can understand certain things being taken down. But they ought to go through a process legally and then we take it down. In some cases, put them in museums or wherever they may go. But these are really rioters and they're a lot of bad people involved. They talk about protestors and they're protestors, but there are beyond protesters too, and we're not going to allow it. So we have many, many people under arrest and we have some just from the other night in Washington, but I'm talking about in other states also. Sean Hannity: (04:26) You've offered help to New York- Donald Trump: (04:28) Excuse me, by the way, and Washington is not D.C., not a state. Because if I say that, a little statement like that, sometimes I'll say, should I correct myself? Because the fake news will say, "He thought D.C. was a state." So I just want to make that clear so they can't do it, okay. Sean Hannity: (04:43) Always predicting ahead. Donald Trump: (04:43) Oh, by the way, they do it all the time. You know what I mean? Sean Hannity: (04:48) Let's talk about these states though. You see your old city, you're now a Florida resident. You're going to save a lot of money on taxes. There's no state income tax in Florida, but you see New York City, 350% increase. You see in Chicago last weekend, 102 of our fellow citizens were shot. 12 were children and 14 died. The carnage existed all throughout these years that Joe Biden was vice president. Barack was president. I don't know any reforms that they put in place after Ferguson or after Baltimore or many other incidents. Donald Trump: (05:22) Yeah, they did virtually nothing. And I call him Corrupt Joe, he's corrupt. And you look at that administration. They have had more ... and wait until you see what's happening. Because you saw the notes now from the Oval Office meeting and all of the things- Sean Hannity: (05:34) We're going to get to that. Donald Trump: (05:34) What's happening is a disgrace. This is a corrupt situation. We caught them spying on my campaign. They were spying. I said that a long time ago, remember, but I said it without great knowledge. It turned out to be correct. They were spying on my campaign. And if that were the other way around, if it was switched with Democrat and Republican, the opposite way, you'd have people in jail for 50 years for they did because that's treason. That's a terrible thing what they did. And what they've done to people like General Flynn and like others is disgraceful, it's disgraceful. Sean Hannity: (06:08) I want to get back to that. I want to stay on this issue though. If we are to become a more perfect union and if we really want to pursue happiness, we first have to have law and order. Donald Trump: (06:19) Correct. Sean Hannity: (06:20) Okay, these big cities, we've watched Chicago violence now for how long? All through the Obama, Joe Biden administration. Donald Trump: (06:29) Years ago. Sean Hannity: (06:30) They barely mentioned it in eight years. You see Seattle, you see New York City. We see now people dying in the autonomous zone. I don't know how people can pursue their happiness and dreams in life, if they don't have basic fundamental security. Donald Trump: (06:45) You can't, you can't. Look, Chicago's an example. It's like worse than Afghanistan. It's worse than, I shouldn't say because they're working with us, Honduras, Guatemala, they're all working with us now. You know, we have our lowest numbers. We have phenomenal numbers on the border. Border patrol has done a great job. We built 220 miles of wall. It's going up very rapidly. We should be doing about 10 miles a week now. And we're going to have ... it will be completed very soon. But what we've done there is incredible. But you look at Honduras, Guatemala, all of these different places. We have cities that are worse. In some cases, far worse. Take a look at Detroit, take a look at what's happening in Oakland. Take a look at what's happening in Baltimore. And everyone gets upset when I say it, they say, "Oh, is that a racist statement?" It's not a racist. Donald Trump: (07:38) Frankly, Black people come up to me say, "Thank you, thank you sir, for saying it." They want help, these cities, it's like living in hell. But last week and I think two weeks before that, they shot 14 and 18 people killed and 68 people in Chicago. Sean Hannity: (07:59) 104 last weekend. Donald Trump: (08:01) If I've ever seen a case, I know it's very controversial to say stop and frisk, okay. Stop and frisk, you take guns away. Chicago is the greatest example I think I've ever seen of that. Rudy Giuliani was a great mayor, he did it in New York. He started it and it worked great. Bloomberg blew it because he went crazy with it. And ultimately it took away a lot of rights and a lot of, it wasn't a good job he did. But Rudy Giuliani started stop and frisk and he did a great, it was a great thing he did for New York. Sean Hannity: (08:33) The murder rate went, for those that don't know, I lived in New York City at the time, went from around 2,500 a year, they drove it all the way down to 500. And what they did is they went into the areas that had the highest incidents of crime. Donald Trump: (08:48) That's right. Sean Hannity: (08:48) And saved a lot of lives. So we're Americans, I think we can do anything. I'm that optimistic, we could stop the violence, right, we could- Donald Trump: (08:55) Could stop it quickly. And at some point in the not too distant future, I'm going to do it. And if they don't do something with Seattle, we're going to do that. We're going to go in there because what's happening, they're taking over American cities. By the way, in all cases, it's Democrats, they're Democrat run, in all cases. And Joe Biden would have that be the whole country. It's so crazy what's happening. Here's a guy, doesn't talk. Nobody hears him. Whenever he does talk, he can't put two sentences together. I don't want to be nice or un-nice, okay. But I mean, the man can't speak and he's going to be your president because some people don't love me maybe and all I'm doing is doing my job. Don't forget, before the China plague came in and it's the China plague, before that came in, we had the best job numbers we've ever had. Donald Trump: (09:43) We had the best economy we've ever had. We had the best stock market we've ever had, which by the way, is getting very close to those numbers anyway. And in NASDAQ, it's actually beat those numbers. But we have the best numbers we've ever had. African American, Asian American, Hispanic American, women, young people without a diploma, young people with a diploma, college, everything, everything. We had the best numbers we've ever had, the best economy we've ever had. I was absolutely doing a number on China. Not that I want to, but we're taking billions and billions away. China ran away from us when we had ... they were going to take over our country. If I didn't come along, they would have taken over our country. What they did to Obama and Biden, they ripped off this country, hundreds of billions of dollars a year, going into China. And nobody said anything. They didn't even talk about it. Donald Trump: (10:33) You know, it's not like we had a bad deal with China. It was worse, we had no deal. They did whatever and I get along very well with them. I said, "How did it happen?" They said, "Nobody ever asked." Nobody said, we've got to make a deal. We're taking in hundreds of billions of dollars worth of tariffs. And we're not paying for them, China is paying for them because they devalue their currency. So we've done an incredible job. We beat China badly. China had the worst year they've had 67 years, prior to the plague coming in, they had the- Donald Trump: (11:03) In 67 years prior to the plague coming in, they had the worst year they had in 67 years because of the tariffs and all of the things that I've done. But he'll say, "He got beat in the China deal." They didn't do a China deal. China ate our lunch before me, and they would have destroyed our country. China, in my opinion, would have destroyed our country economically if I didn't get elected, and many other things. Coronavirus ... we did the ventilators. We didn't have any ventilators. We did the ventilators. We did so much. Sean Hannity: (11:28) Ten days after the first identified case of coronavirus in the United States- Donald Trump: (11:33) Right. Sean Hannity: (11:33) You implemented a travel ban, followed by a quarantine that hadn't had happened in 50 years, and then subsequent travel bans. Joe said it was hysteria, xenophobic, and- Donald Trump: (11:45) That's right. Terrible. Sean Hannity: (11:46) ... fear mongering. Donald Trump: (11:46) Well, he didn't say it. They have people that ... I'll make a statement. It'll be a nice statement. It'll be a little complex, or maybe it's not complex. And they will have that statement analyzed, and they'll say, "Vice President Biden said ..." and they'll have it broken down to ... And I said, "He didn't say that. He never said xenophobic, because I don't think he knows what the word means." But he said it was xenophobic. It was horrible. I made it ... that was at the end of January. That's very early. January. Sean Hannity: (12:12) January 31st. Donald Trump: (12:13) Nancy Pelosi and many other people, including Republicans, were ... months later, they were saying, "Let's go to Chinatown and celebrate." Nancy Pelosi was celebrating- [crosstalk 00:12:23] Sean Hannity: (12:23) February 24th. Donald Trump: (12:24) Correct. In the streets of Chinatown. You know, there's no business like this. You could do a great job like Schumer. I did a phenomenal job on a trade deal, and they asked him, "What'd you think of the deal?" Donald Trump: (12:38) "I didn't like it. No good. No good." He never even saw the deal. It's just an automatic thing. You hear the sound of that helicopter? Is that a beautiful sound? Sean Hannity: (12:45) Beautiful sound. Donald Trump: (12:46) Made in the USA. It's all made in the US. Sean Hannity: (12:50) You mentioned earlier [inaudible 00:01:51]. Look, I was a little surprised. I'm not going to lie. They had predicted for May 9.5 million jobs lost. We ended up gaining 2.5 million. Donald Trump: (13:03) Almost three. Sean Hannity: (13:04) We had the largest retail sales month ... I don't know if you all saw the numbers. 18%. That's a record. Here's my list- Donald Trump: (13:11) And we had a pretty good number come out today on jobs, too. Sean Hannity: (13:14) I didn't see that number. Donald Trump: (13:15) Also, better than projected. But more importantly ... So, we have more cases because we do the greatest testing. If we didn't do testing, we'd have no cases. Other countries, they don't test millions. So, up to almost 30 million tests. When you do 30 million ... You're going to have a kid with the sniffles, and they'll say, "It's coronavirus, whatever you want to call it." I said the other night, "There were so many names to this, I could name 19 names like CORONA-19," but I could name 19 names. But the fact is that there's never been a thing like this. We've done 30 million ... almost. We'll be there probably today or tomorrow. 30 million tests. Donald Trump: (13:53) Now, when you do tests, you have cases. But what they don't say is there are fewer deaths than they have been way. Way, way down. Our mortality rate is among the best countries in the world meaning people that die, because a lot of these tests, it's a case. It's a kid that doesn't even know. In some cases, it's people that didn't even know they were sick. Maybe they weren't, but it shows up in a test. So, they'll say 30 million tests. Now, you have a big percentage of that, but other countries do very few tests. So, it shows very few cases. Sometimes I jokingly say or sarcastically say, "If we didn't do tests, we'd look great." You know what? It's not the right thing to do. Sean Hannity: (14:30) Treatment vaccine. Where are we? Donald Trump: (14:33) I think the vaccines are coming along great. And I think the ... what they call therapeutics are coming along great. I think we're going to have an answer very soon. Very soon, indeed. I think it will be even before the end of the year, we'll have a vaccine. We have great companies, and we're totally mobilized. Military is doing it. We're ready to go. As soon as they have it, we will be distributing that all over the country. Sean Hannity: (14:56) Let me go. You had talked about my list earlier. Joe Biden was Vice President for eight years. He has a record that at some point, I assume, somebody might have to ask him, or maybe you will when you debate him if he shows up ... which is a question we will find out in the future. But 13 million more Americans after eight years were on Food Stamps, 8 million more in poverty, the lowest labor participation rates since the '70s. Donald Trump: (15:22) Right. Sean Hannity: (15:22) Worst recovery since the '40s, lowest home ownership rate in 15 years. Now, I look at your record. Pre-coronavirus, we had record after record low unemployment with every ... African Americans, Hispanic Americans, you know the list. Even African American youth unemployment. I want to get to the issue, because it seems like if we look, and compare, and contrast historically Black colleges of five-year commitment with more money than ever before, opportunity zones, I think one of the biggest changes is- Donald Trump: (15:55) Criminal justice. Sean Hannity: (15:56) Criminal justice reform. Donald Trump: (15:58) Well, the biggest thing, criminal justice reform. Obama and Biden never even tried it. That was something so important for the Black community. They came to me. They wanted it so badly, because it is ... it's a very unfair situation. And they came- Sean Hannity: (16:13) Unfair to minorities. Donald Trump: (16:16) And especially Black and Hispanic. It's so unfair. And I said, "Why wasn't this done before?" Now, Obama didn't try. If he did, he may come out and say, "We did try," but he didn't get it done. I got it done. People said, "You wouldn't be able to get it done." I got it done with the help of some very good Republicans that frankly ... they could have gone either way on it, to be honest. Although we had some very strong conservative Republicans, like Mike Lee. Republicans that wanted it very much. Chuck Grassley. Some great, strong conservative Republicans that wanted it very much. Donald Trump: (16:51) It was both ways. Very unusual. You had some very strong conservatives, and you also had some really, really liberal people. But we did criminal justice reform. Nobody thought it was possible to get it done. I got it done. They couldn't get it done. Then they'll say such horrible things. I mean, on the campaign they'll say such horrible things about me. It's a very unfair business. But it's a great ad for them. "I got beaten by China." Wrong. I beat China very badly. [crosstalk 00:17:22] I didn't do this coronavirus. Sean Hannity: (17:24) I might take Joe's side though, because I don't think your son got 1.5 billion dollars. Donald Trump: (17:31) That's right. That's right. It's a way of looking at it. I'll tell you. Now, nobody's ever seen anything like that. But what they'll do is they'll take five or six points, and just say I lost. If you look at what we've done on ventilators, on testing, again, where we have 30 million ... Germany is second with maybe 4, maybe 5 million. Germany is going to show fewer cases because they're testing far fewer people. Different sized countries and all, but they're testing far fewer people. But many countries don't do testing like that, so it shows we're way up in testing. Donald Trump: (18:01) But what it also shows by doing that ... in all fairness, it shows a very, very low mortality rate. Just about the lowest. We're right at the bottom in a positive way. I think that people are starting to see it. But if I don't do a show like this, which is live or semi-live ... If I don't do a show like this, we're not going to get the word out. Because the press is really corrupt and dishonest. I can't believe it. I used to say, "Fake news. Fake news." It's much worse than fake news. And it's not only what they say. It's what they don't say. Sean Hannity: (18:34) Yeah. Donald Trump: (18:34) Something great could be happening, and they refuse to report it. Sean Hannity: (18:37) You mentioned General Flynn. We saw Peter Strzok. A lot of it was redacted, my sources have been telling me. In this program- Donald Trump: (18:46) It's big stuff. Sean Hannity: (18:46) I've devoted almost three years to unpeeling every layer of the onion. In fact, what we now know is that there was that Jack Flynn was exonerated. The case was going to be closed. Then Joe Biden brought up the Logan Act, which you mentioned earlier, 1799 law nobody's ever been prosecuted for. Now, not only was it that. We've now learned that there was premeditated fraud on a FISA Court to spy on you as a candidate, you and your transition team, and deep into your presidency. James Comey signed three of the four warrants, but he came to you after he signed the first one in Trump Tower and said ... well, again, now we know the bulk of information was Hillary's dirty Russian disinformation document. Donald Trump: (19:29) She paid a lot of money for it. Sean Hannity: (19:31) She paid for it. They knew it. They said they had verified it. It turned out to be all untrue. But it ended up for you to be in the country a three year nightmare. My question though is this: I mean, General Flynn lost four years of his life. Donald Trump: (19:48) Right. Sean Hannity: (19:48) Roger Stone's supposed to report to jail, and the jury foreperson in his case ... Paul Manafort's case was dead. And many people that work for you paid how much in lawyer's fees over this lie? Donald Trump: (20:02) So, start in reverse order. Paul Manafort, they sent it a book. It looked like he got all sorts of cash. It turned out to be a fraud. What they did to that man ... what they did to Paul Manafort. Roger Stone, what they've done to Roger Stone because he knew me ... he wasn't on the campaign except the very, very beginning. What they did with Roger Stone, what they did to General Flynn. Then how about Papadopoulos? I didn't know Papadopoulos. But what they put him through. He turned out to be totally ... they had a tape of his conversation. It was supposed to be this conversation was like a perfect conversation. Donald Trump: (20:34) They also have a tape of Flynn's conversation with the Russian ambassador, which is a normal thing to do. You're going to have that position. You start calling up because you want to coordinate between countries, and the tape was ... as you said, with the Russia, with the Ukrainian situation. It was a perfect tape. It was a perfect conversation that he had. What they've done to General Flynn ... who's a nice man, tough guy, smart guy, a great general. I'll tell you, General Milley said he's one of the finest people. He's just a good man, Flynn. Donald Trump: (21:07) What happened to him, the way they went after him ... And if you remember ... you remember well. The FBI left. They said he did nothing wrong. They said he didn't lie. They didn't say he lied. They said he didn't lie. They persecuted him. Sean Hannity: (21:18) They threatened to put his son and go after his son. Donald Trump: (21:20) They said to me, "What was the toughest friends of mine? What's the toughest country to deal with? Who is it? Is it China? Is it Russia? Could it be North Korea?" I said, "No, it's the United States of America. The toughest country to deal with." Because we have Schumer, and Pelosi, and people that are bad people that I honestly believe don't love our country. What they do to our country, and what they've done with this scam ... the whole scam. Flynn is a piece of it. The Mueller scam. Now, it came out that Mueller should have announced in the first week that we did nothing wrong. In other words, they had evidence in the first few days that there was no collusion with Russia. There was nothing to do with Russia. They knew that immediately. He didn't have to take two or two and a half years. Donald Trump: (22:03) They knew that immediately. He didn't have to take two or two and a half years. They knew it immediately. What they've put this country through. Jeff Sessions was a disaster. He was a total disaster because he basically let it happen, unknowingly because he's not very smart, but they let it happen. And it's a shame what they put this country through. Sean Hannity: (22:22) As you look... We now have a Durham report, we now have the Inspector General report. I would imagine there's probably going to be indictments at the end of this. When you look at the names of the people, for example, the jury foreperson in Roger Stone's case was prejudiced against... That was not a fair and impartial jury. Donald Trump: (22:39) Can you believe it? Can you believe it? The hatred that she had for him and for me. And she said, "Oh no, I don't know." She acted like she was an innocent. She ran for Congress or something and lost. But she was pretending to be an innocent. How did she even get into the jury pool? She must have had a little contact. And the judge, who's been brutal. The judge who sentenced Roger has been brutal. Take a look at what she's done to people. Sean Hannity: (23:05) Same judge in the Manafort case. Donald Trump: (23:07) Well, take a look at what she did for Hillary related things, okay? Wasn't brutal there. But look at what she did to people. Just take a look at what she's done. And Roger Stone had a jury foreman, forewoman, who was a disaster. How that's not declared a mistrial or more than a mistrial is incredible to anybody that sees it. This is a person that hated Roger Stone, hated me, and obviously said wonderful things. Otherwise, she couldn't have gone and- Sean Hannity: (23:39) It looks like he reports to jail, I believe in four days. Are you thinking about a pardon for any of them? Donald Trump: (23:45) We're going to see. I don't want to get into that. Sean Hannity: (23:47) Commutation? Donald Trump: (23:47) But I think he was treated very unfairly. Sean Hannity: (23:51) Clearly. Donald Trump: (23:51) Other than he may have been involved very early on, and I've known him for a long time, but I've known him like everybody in Washington knew him. You have a lot of guys in Washington. He was not involved in the campaign. Maybe a little bit at the very, very beginning, but he wasn't a part of the campaign. But he's a professional. They've destroyed his life. Totally destroyed his life. What they've done to Roger Stone is incredible. And the jury forewoman stands out. And to at least not give him a new trial is inconceivable. And by the way, she was a dominant person. The jurors said she was very dominating in the room. She dominated. He got a tremendously big sentence. You see these guys, they're burning down buildings, they're ripping down statues, they're hurting police. They don't go to jail. Nothing happens to them. They wanted to give him nine years in jail. Sean Hannity: (24:48) Process crime. Donald Trump: (24:50) Yeah. If that. If that. And then you have these prosecutors who were Mueller related, the whole Mueller related thing. One friend said to me, "You have to be the most innocent man in the history of the United States." I had 18 angry Democrat geniuses, all smart, smart as hell. Mueller lost it. But they're all smart as hell. All these guys were after me. They spent 45, 49, 55, I hear all different numbers, million dollars over a period of two and a half years. And they got nothing on me. I think I am the probably... A friend of mine said, "You have to be the most perfect person." Sean Hannity: (25:32) They had everybody. We'll take a break. We'll come back. As we continue from great Green Bay, Wisconsin. Also, the president will be answering your questions as we continue. Stay with us. Sean Hannity: (25:49) All right, welcome back. We are in Green Bay, Wisconsin. All right. The audience has some questions for the president. We're going to start from Linda. Hi Linda from... Linda: (25:59) Wausau, Wisconsin. Sean Hannity: (26:00) Thank you for being here with us today. Say hello to President Trump. Donald Trump: (26:03) Wausau Windows, right? Windows. You know, I bought a lot of Wausau Windows over the years. I shouldn't give them a free commercial, but they did a good job. It's a great window. Linda: (26:12) They are. Donald Trump: (26:13) Wisconsin. Linda: (26:14) Love it up here. Donald Trump: (26:15) Thank you. Linda: (26:19) [foreign language 00:26:16] My Cuban background. Donald Trump: (26:21) Good. Linda: (26:22) I have a question for you. I appreciate so much what you have done for this country. And I know it's been tough. What do you think is your greatest accomplishment, in your eyes? Donald Trump: (26:37) So a lot of people think it's the fact that we will have, I think before I'm finished this term, we'll have close to 300 federal judges. A lot of people think... Because that's a record. That's a number that nobody can even believe. And part of it was that President Obama was unable to get judges approved in a large number, about 142 judges. So I took it off, got them approved, and then got a lot approved beyond. So we'll be close to 302 Supreme Court judges, great ones. And so I think a lot of people would say that. Donald Trump: (27:07) I think one of them, though, is our military. We have Space Force, which we've added after 76 years, we've added a new branch of the military. It's a big deal, a very important deal, because space is going to be very important. It already is. I would say the rebuilding of the military and the taking care of our vets. We had a 91% joint approval rating the other day. The VA. The VA was a disaster. All of my life, I've seen these horror stories. I don't want to really jinx it, because they'll go around and find somebody that's unhappy. But you don't see that anymore. And our administrator, our secretary, has done a fantastic job. And we're 91% approval rating with the VA. Donald Trump: (27:47) And we got Veterans Choice approved and Veterans Accountability. That's where you can fire people that do a bad job. You couldn't do it before. Very hard to get. They tried to get it for 50 years. Because of civil service unions, et cetera, you couldn't get it. I got it. And the other thing is Veterans Choice, where if they can't see a doctor, we have great doctors in the VA. But if you can't see a doctor, you go out and you get a private doctor, we pay the bill. You have no idea how great it's been. And it's actually, you save money, believe it or not. But you have no idea. We save lives, tremendous number of lives. And I would say that's an achievement. Donald Trump: (28:22) But we've done a lot. The largest tax cuts ever, the largest regular... If you look at our regulation cut, Sean, more than any other administration in history, whether it's eight years or in one case, more than that, we cut regulations. And we we still have a lot more we're going to be cutting over the next month and a half, two months. So we've done a lot and we're very proud of it. And we had the best, until this artificial problem, because I call it an artificial problem. We had to turn off our country to save millions of lives, and now we've turned it back on, and it's coming back much faster than anybody thought possible. So we've done a lot of things. But it could be judges, could be the military. Thank you. Linda: (29:03) Thank you very much. Sean Hannity: (29:05) Two questions. Question I get asked most often. The people that love and support you, they want to know why you fight so hard with the media. Why do you fight against them? Why do you com... You take on anybody that goes on. And you answered this, interestingly, in the Martha and Brett town hall. And for those that say, well, maybe you shouldn't fight on all these issues, what do you say to them? Donald Trump: (29:32) I don't think I have a choice. If I didn't take on the media, I guarantee I wouldn't be here with you tonight. I'd be watching on television, maybe I'd be in the crowd, but I'd be watching. I wouldn't be interviewed. You couldn't win. And I haven't, even to this day, every... The New York Times is so dishonest. The Washington Post is so dishonest. They write things... You can do something great and they can make it sound horrible. You can do something good and they can make it sound beyond belief bad, like it's the worst thing ever. And I said it a little bit before, you can do something great and it doesn't get reported. That's, in a way, just as bad, because a lot of people can figure it out. Donald Trump: (30:15) The level of dishonesty in the media is... I think they're the most dishonest people I've ever dealt with. Now, not everybody. You're an honest journalist. You're a great journalist. We have great journalists. Look at the Pulitzer Prize. The Pulitzer Prize is very embarrassed. It's lost a lot of its credibility, because all these writers got Pulitzer Prizes on the Russia, Russia, Russia, and they were all wrong. But John Solomon and all of the people that you deal with. And you, by the way. Laura, Lou Dobbs, Fox and Friends, people that are great. Great group in the morning, including the weekends, to be honest, with Pete. You have some great people. But they got Pulitzer Prizes on Russia, Russia, Russia, and they were wrong. Now, a committee should meet- Sean Hannity: (31:05) We were right on the deep state. They were wrong. For years, they were wrong for three years. Donald Trump: (31:09) No, you were right about everything. You were right on Ukraine. The Ukraine thing was a hoax. It was a pure hoax. Think of it. They impeached a duly elected President of the United States on a perfect conversation. Actually, there were two conversations. The first one was, "Hello, goodbye." They don't even talk about that. The second one was about the same thing. They impeached a President of the United States. Now, in all fairness, the Republican Party was great, because they got 196 to nothing Republican votes in the House, and 52 1/2 to 1/2, Romney. Romney. Half of a... I call it 52 1/2 to 1/2, because he had two votes and one was yes. But we did. They were great. The Republican Party was great. They were steadfast because they knew it was a hoax. It was purely a party line impeachment. Nothing like that's ever happened before. Sean Hannity: (32:05) To add to that, they had to ignore Joe on tape saying, "You're not getting the billion unless you fire the prosecutor investigating my zero experience on making millions." But with that said, Jim is with us from beautiful Wisconsin. Hey, Jim. Jim: (32:20) Thank you, Sean. Mr. President, welcome to Green Bay, Wisconsin and Northeast Wisconsin. Donald Trump: (32:25) Thank you. Jim: (32:25) Great to have you with us. My question for you is, with all the unrest we've seen across the country, and right here in the state of Wisconsin, last night in our capital city, a Senator was beaten, Lady Forward was ripped off her pedestal, we lost some other statues. What steps is the administration taking to give us back our streets? Donald Trump: (32:44) So very strong. You happen to have a Democrat governor right now. If you would have had Governor Walker, that wouldn't have happened. Jim: (32:52) That's right. Donald Trump: (32:52) Wouldn't have happened. I'm not saying it. If Scott were your governor, that would not have happened. But it did happen and it was a shame. And the person they beat up was a dem- Donald Trump: (33:03) And it was a shame. The person they beat up was a Democrat who happened to be gay. He was probably out there rooting them on or something, because Democrats think it's wonderful that they're destroying our country. It's a very sick thing going on. Nobody's ever seen it. Donald Trump: (33:16) Biden is going to be... Look, I don't think Biden's a radical left, but it doesn't matter, because they're going to just do whatever they want to do. They'll take him over. He can't perform. He's not going to be able to perform. He's shot. He's shot. Whether you like it or not, he's shot. The radical left is going to take him over. Look what happened. Eliot Engel was a pretty main line guy. He lost by like 37 points or so. He just got killed in the election we just had yesterday. Donald Trump: (33:45) He was supposed to be a shoo-in, and he got hit by a strong far left candidate. You have a couple of other Congressmen and women that probably are going to lose, or are going to lose, very close. Too close to call. Look at what's happened to the Democrats, and these are real lefties. These are people that... Take a look at Venezuela. Venezuela was a very rich country, a great country, a beacon 20 years ago, 15 years ago. People looked... Richest country in Latin South America. Richest, everything good. They don't have food. They don't have water. They have death all over. People have nothing. Donald Trump: (34:27) It's the same exact mindset and philosophy that we have today on attack, and it won't happen. Not while I'm here, it won't happen. But a guy like Biden, he's going to have no power to do anything about it. And they're dragging him. I don't know if you saw, Bernie Sanders said, "My sole focus now is to take Joe Biden way left." They're going to do it, because there's nobody in the center left. He was left anyway, but there's nobody in the center or center left. Donald Trump: (34:56) I mean, it's a disgrace what's happened to our country. Now, with that being said, the Republicans have to get tougher. And I'm telling them all the time, because they're sitting back, they want to be politically correct. They think, "Oh, it's terrible to say something bad." No, no, no. I told them. You'll see, if anyone attacks... I stopped it the other night, I stopped it a number of times, but you'll see what's happening. We told him, every night we're going to get tougher and tougher. At some point, there's going to be retribution, because there has to be. These people have vandals, but they're agitators, but they're really terrorists, in a sense. Donald Trump: (35:33) So I think you'll be extremely impressed, but you have to put pressure. Also, I love the Republicans. I told you, they came from me a hundred percent. I'm at 96% approval rating in the Republican party. But I said, "You're going to have to get tougher. You can't be politically correct anymore, because we're really fighting something that's very dangerous." Thank you. Speaker 1: (35:53) Thank you, Mr. President. Sean Hannity: (35:55) Let's talk about a second term. If you hear in 131 days from now, at some point in the night or early morning, we can now project Donald J. Trump has been reelected the 45th president of the United States. Let's talk. What's at stake in this election as you compare and contrast, and what is one of your top priority items for a second term? Donald Trump: (36:17) Well, one of the things that will be really great... You know, the word experience is still good. I always say talent is more important than experience. I've always said that, but the word experience is a very important word. It's a very important meeting. I never did this before. I never slept over in Washington. I was in Washington, I think, 17 times. All of a sudden, I'm president of the United States. You know the story. I'm riding down Pennsylvania Avenue with our First Lady and I say, "This is great." Donald Trump: (36:43) But I didn't know very many people in Washington, it wasn't my thing. I was from Manhattan from New York. Now I know everybody, and I have great people in the administration. You make some mistakes. An idiot like Bolton, all he wanted to do is drop bombs on everybody. You don't have to drop bums on everybody. You don't have to kill people. [ crosstalk 00:37:01]- Sean Hannity: (37:01) If John Bolton, in fact, released classified material. Should he be prosecuted? Donald Trump: (37:06) Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Well, he did release classified. Actually, he had a... A judge said that they released the book early, so he couldn't do it. Sean Hannity: (37:14) Yeah, so they couldn't stop it. Donald Trump: (37:14) But he said, "This is very dangerous, what you've done for yourself. And also, any money that you've made, good luck." This was a very powerful opinion that we had. No. He's sort of a sick guy. There's something wrong with him. But I noticed that earlier, he made two very bad mistakes. He made a mistake where he talked about the Libyan model. I won't go to explain that, but some of you understand, he was on Deface the Nation. And he talked about the Libyan model. I said, "That's a disaster," because you know why. Donald Trump: (37:45) And the other thing he said, "Going into Iraq was a good thing." I said, "Okay, John, but now you know it wasn't, right?" "No, no. I still think it was." I said, "So we're in for $8 trillion in the Middle East, and you think that was a good thing?" And I'm pulling out, you know, I've getting everybody out nice and easy. Everyone's going nicely. Going nicely. "You think it was good to go into Iraq, go into the Middle East?" Donald Trump: (38:10) "Yes." So those two things happened early in his little period of time. He was only there a short while. Once he said those two things, I no longer paid much attention to him, if any. But I'll tell you, he was good for one thing. Everyone thought he was crazy, because all he wants to do is bomb people. You know, he'll fight Russia. Let's fight Russia. Let's fight China. Let's take them on at the same time. He's crazy. When I walked into a room with him, I knew that. When they saw Bolton, they always gave me what I wanted, because they said, "Trump's going to drop bombs on me. He's got this maniac with him." Donald Trump: (38:42) So in a way, he helped me in terms of a negotiation. But seriously, he didn't do a good job. He wasn't smart. He wasn't sharp. And he's the only man I think I've ever met... I knew him for a year, one year, whatever the time was, short time. I don't think I ever saw him smile once. I said to him once, "John, do you have a smile?" And it tells you something about somebody. Sean Hannity: (39:04) You still beat back the caliphate. You got Baghdadi and associates, you got Soleimani. You got the al Qaeda leader in Yemen. Donald Trump: (39:11) We've done a lot, we've done a lot. We took out Soleimani, number one heroist in the world. We took out al-Baghdadi. He was also considered number one. I guess they fought for number one, I got them both. Obama should have gotten al-Baghdadi, but we took them both out. Sean Hannity: (39:25) And the caliphate. Donald Trump: (39:26) We took a hundred percent of the caliphate. When I took it over, it was all over the place. It was a disaster. That's the ISIS caliphate. Sean Hannity: (39:32) It won't be on your second term agenda to drop cargo planes of cash for mullahs in Iran, I'm just guessing. Donald Trump: (39:40) I got 1.8 billion in green, beautiful cash. But in cash, 1.8 billion, I think it was five plane loads of cash. Five plane loads. Sean Hannity: (39:48) Cargo. Donald Trump: (39:49) 1.8 billion and 150 billion. Actually, I was more impressed with 1.8 billion in cash, if you want to know that truth. So it was one of those things. Sean Hannity: (39:56) Mark, Wisconsin. Hey Mark, how are you? Donald Trump: (39:58) Hi Mark. Mark: (39:59) Doing well. Looking forward to your second- Donald Trump: (40:02) He looks like Bolton, but a better looking version. Look at him. Mark: (40:06) I could do the same- Donald Trump: (40:07) Much better looking. Mark: (40:07) I could do a better job, I think. Donald Trump: (40:08) I don't think he likes it. Mark: (40:10) Looking forward to your second term. Donald Trump: (40:13) Thank you. Mark: (40:13) The big concern I've got is, how are you going to make sure that the election is fair and free from fraudulent "absentee votes" and mail-in ballots? That's the concern I've got. Donald Trump: (40:25) I think it's the most important question I'll be asked, because it's a great question. Now we have a mail-in thing. As you see California, he's sending out millions and millions of ballots. Where are they going? Where aren't they going? Is the postman going to hand them out? Are they going to take them out of the mailboxes? Donald Trump: (40:42) The other thing, Mark, it's very important. You get to foreign countries. You know, they keep talking, oh, Russia, China, this. Especially China, not Russia, especially China. Are they going to print millions of ballots using the exact same paper, using the exact same machines, and are they going to print ballots, and then hand them in? And all of a sudden, it's the biggest risk we have: the mail-in ballot. Not so much the absentee ballot, because an absentee, like I'm in the White House, and I have to vote in Florida, et cetera, et cetera. You're absentee, it's okay. Donald Trump: (41:14) But people go through a process for that. You know, it's really pretty good. But the mail-in ballots, they mail them to anybody, and they send them out by the millions. I think I read over 30 million ballots are going to be sent out in California. Where are they going? Nobody's standing there watching you vote. At least the other way, you get in line, and they're using... You know, I said the other day. We went through World War I and we voted. We went through World War II and we voted, and now we have a virus. By that time, it'll be less and less. Why aren't we going to vote? People want to vote, but it would be nice to be able to see the people. On top of that, they should have ID voting. Mark: (41:53) Absolutely. Donald Trump: (41:53) Okay. We should have ID ballots. Mark: (41:55) Absolutely. Sean Hannity: (41:57) Great question. You've said you would like to have more than three debates with Joe Biden. Donald Trump: (42:03) I said I'll have three, and any amount they want. I didn't say I want more. See, if you say you want more, just to show what a tricky business is. I want more. They'll say, "Oh, he feels he's losing. He wants more," so I don't like to say that. I will do whatever number they want to do. That's okay with me three. Sean Hannity: (42:19) But a minimum of three. Donald Trump: (42:20) Yeah, I guess the three is the minimum. Now, he's already saying that he can't do the debates because of COVID. You believe it? "I can't do the debates because of COVID." I just heard a little inkling of it two days ago. I said, "Watch this one." Now, I will do any amount of debates. You understand what I mean? If I say, "I want to do 10 debates," they'll say, "Oh, he's afraid. He's afraid he's going to lose." Donald Trump: (42:40) No, no. What I want to do is, I'll do the three, and I'll do any amount that they want. It doesn't make any difference to me. He is a candidate that will destroy this country, and he may not do it himself. He will be run by a radical fringe group of lunatics that will destroy our country. And people have to know that.