President Donald Trump sat down with Ross Douthat for a 60-Minutes interview discussing the Republican losses in the midterm elections, the wars in Iran and Ukraine, immigration, AI/Tech, his personal and presidential legacy and UFOs.

The full video (partially aired) and transcript is below.  The interview is almost an hour long.

CHAPTERS:
• Midterm Elections: Analysis of Republican results and voter dynamics (0:00 – 6:30).
• Iran and Foreign Policy: Discussions on the war, nuclear non-proliferation, and the Strait of Hormuz (7:36 – 13:58).
• Immigration: Views on border security and potential legislative deals (13:58 – 19:41).
• AI and Technology: The race for super intelligence with China (19:41 – 26:04).
• Administration and Legacy: Staffing, succession, and presidential pardons (26:04 – 31:19, 45:46 – 51:47).
• UFOs: Insights into government inquiry and pilot reports (37:36 – 40:33).
• Russia-Ukraine War: The status of the conflict and diplomatic efforts (40:33 – 45:46).

[FULL TRANSCRIPT] – Interviewer, Ross Douthat: Mr. President, thank you so much for doing this. We’re going to start with the midterms. Two years ago, you won a big, some might say historic victory. Just now, the Republican Party in the midterms suffered a big, some might say historic defeat. Give me your political analysis of what just happened.

[00:23] Donald Trump: Well, number one, I was not on the ballot, but I campaigned hard for some people, and I think if I was on the ballot, it would have been a much different situation because you saw the level of popularity and love—there was love. We had massive rallies. Nobody’s ever seen rallies like that for midterms, and there wasn’t one room that didn’t have thousands of people outside who couldn’t get in.

So you had to transfer those voters, however, to candidates that they didn’t like. But there’s something beyond that: they didn’t like the war, they didn’t like the fact that gasoline went up—because I had it down at a low in Iowa, it was $1.85 a gallon, 85 cents a gallon. And when you look at $1.85 and you go up to $3.50, $4 dollars—still lower than Biden, lower than Obama—but the war was blamed for that. And they didn’t like the war, I think mostly for that reason, because I think everyone agrees that Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon and they will never have a nuclear weapon. They won’t have that. But, and there’s a great dislike, incredibly, for Israel. There seems to be a dislike for Israel. So you have that, you have the war itself, you have the gas prices, and I think those are the primary reasons. And, you know, MAGA and I—I always, I want to keep out of wars. I’ve settled eight wars. I settled eight wars. I mean, India-Pakistan would have been a nuclear war. I got it settled before it got going. They had 11 planes shot down; they were ready to go. The Prime Minister of Pakistan said Trump saved 30 to 50 million lives. I settled a lot of wars.

[02:07] Interviewer: So, let’s—let’s go through those then one by one. Start—start with the candidates, right? You said it was tough to transfer your own appeal to candidates, but in a lot of cases, you picked the candidates. You picked, you endorsed Ken Paxton in Texas—he had a tough time. You endorsed Darlene Graham in South Carolina—would have lost also…

[02:24] Donald Trump: Darlene, I did that in honor of a man named Lindsay who was a friend of mine, good politician, good guy, a very good…

[02:32] Interviewer: Okay, and she fought hard. She fought hard. She really did, she… But she lost a very Republican state…

[02:39] Donald Trump: Oh, to a very liberal… I won South Carolina by the highest vote in history, by far. I won Texas by the highest vote in history, by far. I won Florida, who by the way I did endorse, and he’s going to be a great governor and a great senator. I endorsed both of them, and had I not endorsed him, they wouldn’t have won because there was a wave. You know, I also brought a lot of people a lot closer to victory. If you look at Ohio, he was—John, you said, who was a good guy, but he was 15 down, he ended up losing by a point, maybe less than a point. It was, he almost won. But I don’t make excuses for that. I won Ohio by the most votes in history, too.

[03:21] Interviewer: You’re only talking—Why couldn’t it—I just—Why can’t it transfer? You were out on the trail and you said, “Vote like I’m on the ballot,” and people didn’t. Or—or did they? Did they vote because they were mad at you about…

[03:36] Donald Trump: I think they didn’t vote, really. I think they didn’t vote. I think in some cases they didn’t like the candidates, and that’s, you know, their prerogative. Look, three times they’ve not necessarily listened to me. The two other times I didn’t go as much out as I did this time. I went all out. I did I think 30 rallies in like 28 days or something, and they were massive rallies and they were very good, and they loved me. I mean, you saw the—it was like unbelievable.

[04:02] Interviewer: But there’s no—there’s no question that part of the country loves you, but as you said, there’s another part of the country, I think, that just by your own description, right, was unhappy with the war in Iran, unhappy with the economy. Talk about the economy for a moment. You handed me the jobs numbers that just came out a couple days after the election—they’re very good job numbers, low unemployment rate that’s been true throughout your second term. But in poll after poll, people say they’re unhappy with this economy in a way they weren’t in the first term: cost of living, inflation, and so on. Is that all just the Iran war, or are there other things that haven’t been fixed?

[04:37] Donald Trump: Well, it’s not really the Iran war, because the numbers are phenomenal. The numbers that we have are historically good numbers. I think it was bad messaging, maybe by me, but I would talk about it all the time, so I don’t know—how much can I talk about it? Look, the press doesn’t cover it. Americans are—the press doesn’t cover positive news for Republicans. They don’t cover certainly positive news for me. So I have to do it myself; I have to get it out there. One of the reasons I did rallies was to do that. But I would talk about how good—we have historically good numbers. We have the highest stock market in history. Now, we lost yesterday because of the election—$3 trillion, the market lost almost 2,000 points because of the Democrats. They got in, and the world said, “I don’t want to invest with these people,” because they look at what happened in France, they look at what happened in Italy and all over the world, and they say this is the same ideology.

But we have had—let’s go to the day before yesterday, right before the election, you know, and we’re talking about now a day before the election, we picked up $25 trillion in worth, in the worth of our, in value. Nobody’s ever done that before.

[05:58] Interviewer: But why don’t Americans feel it then? Why don’t they?

[06:03] Donald Trump: Because they’re obviously—like you in the press, you and the media, you and our business have been in tension throughout your career, correct? But you still won elections, right? So why couldn’t you win this? I think it was bad messaging.

[06:14] Interviewer: What was the bad message?

[06:15] Donald Trump: We couldn’t get the word across. Look, you’ve just seen job numbers that came out the day after the election, right? Too bad they didn’t come out the day before the election, but they came out, and the numbers are way beyond anybody’s expectations by over 125, 130,000. We had 165,000 jobs just in a short period of time. Notice this, in like—they’re when you look at polls, they’re upset about their every—I think they’re going to notice it in the next two, three, four months.

Okay, now tariffs, let me just explain. So we have trillions of dollars right now being built in factories and everything else. That’s why these numbers, the construction numbers, the job numbers are through the roof. If I, you know, I listen to these people and I’m really good at money and finance—it’s probably maybe my best thing, although I was very good on the border too, I was good in a lot of things. But in terms of that, you take a look at the kind of numbers that we’re doing. We’re doing numbers that have never been done before. 401(k)s are at their all-time high by a lot. Under other presidents, they were a disaster. 401(k)s have made people rich. And for some reason—remember during rallies, I’d say, “Please look at your 401(k) before you go to vote.”

[07:31] Interviewer: Maybe, I mean, not everyone has a big 401(k). It’s wages, it’s gas prices…

[07:36] Donald Trump: Let’s say who has a 401(k)? And almost half the room, lots of people have them.

[07:40] Interviewer: Let’s—on gas prices and Iran, you know, a couple days ago your Vice President, JD Vance, wrote a social media post where he says, “The reason we lost is the war,” meaning Iran, and he said things in that post about Israel, yeah. So do you agree—do you agree with his analysis?

[07:57] Donald Trump: I don’t disagree with it.

[07:58] Interviewer: Did you know he was—one thing: did you first, did you know he was going to write that post?

[08:01] Donald Trump: Uh, he told—he asked me, “What do I think?” I said, “You write what you—” I said write what you feel. By the way, what are you going to write? Okay, so, but he said the one thing he left out is that I would say, and maybe he wouldn’t say it, I don’t know, I never asked him really. But if you had it to do again, would you do it? And that’s Iran—would you go and attack Iran and take away their—because we won that war. That war has been won. Now they’re withering away as a country and they’ll come and they’ll make a deal. They’ll definitely, they want to make a deal. We, by the way, just before we get—they wanted to make a deal just before the election, and that gives them a little bit of a hope certificate now. But we were close to making a deal. If we didn’t have this election, we might have even had, or within the next few days, we would have had a deal. But this gives them hope.

Let’s go with that, but I just mean, no—before I, the only thing I wish he would have said there, if he felt it, and you’d have to ask him about that, but: if you had it to do again, would you do it? You know, he was part of a decision-making process. And my answer is an emphatic yes, because you can’t let Iran have a nuclear weapon. I think historically this will be a very good decision. Is it a good decision for today and tomorrow? Maybe not, but I would—you know, I have to go with what’s right for our country. If they had a nuclear weapon, you and I would not be speaking the way…

[09:26] Interviewer: Oh, then I’d really be excoriated.

[09:29] Donald Trump: If they had a nuclear weapon during my term, I would be excoriated far worse than what’s happened. But I’ve stopped them from having a nuclear weapon. That’s a big thing, and they were ready to make a deal with me. We would have had a deal except for this election, and we’ll make a deal anyway because they’ll get over there.

[09:48] Interviewer: So you’re not going to escalate the war now that the midterms…

[09:52] Donald Trump: I’m not looking to. I don’t think there’s any reason to. I don’t think there’s any reason to. Look, they still have—they still have nuclear…

[09:57] Interviewer: They still have nuclear material.

[09:57] Donald Trump: They have—they have nothing. It’s buried under thousands of tons of rock, and we have, through Space Force, which I created, we have telesopic lenses that are unbelievable. I can tell the color of the red dots on your tie. And we watch every one of those sites, the three that we blew up, and also Pickaxe. Pickaxe Mountain.

[10:20] Interviewer: So there’s still stuff in Pickaxe Mountain?

[10:25] Donald Trump: Well, we don’t know that there wasn’t. There’s been very little activity there. They have other problems; they’re not looking at Pickaxe Mountain. But what does—if we needed to do Pickaxe, if we needed to do Pickaxe, we’ll watch it. If we needed to do Pickaxe, which we don’t at this moment, we would have that done in one hour. It would be taken care of.

[10:44] Interviewer: So what’s the deal in the end with them that gets—that gets the Strait open? Because it’s important—it’s important to…

[10:49] Donald Trump: The Strait is open! The Strait has traffic moving through it because the US military is sitting there, sitting there. Your favorite newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, two days ago had an article that said there is more oil going through the Strait of Hormuz than there was at the beginning of the war. Think of that. We have ships going, but the ships that are going through are being babysat by a large US military presence.

[11:17] Interviewer: So how do we make a deal that gets—that gets that presence out of there?

[11:22] Donald Trump: Not very expensive, we can just leave them there. End of this whole thing, those countries that we’ve protected are going to pay us back any and all costs that we’ve had for the war. We’re going to get all that money back, and I’ve told them, and they’re going to do it 100%, because without us, they wouldn’t exist. Without us, Israel wouldn’t exist.

Let me tell you: Israel… Tell me about Israel. Israel would not exist except for Donald Trump, because we went in with those beautiful B-2 bombers more than a year ago, and we hit the three sites. At the time, you know, I call it nuclear dust—they were loaded up with nuclear dust, they were two weeks away from having a nuclear weapon. And if I didn’t hit them—and it was an incredible raid, and people said, “Oh, well, maybe they hit…” It turned out to be, when Atomic Energy went in and they said it was the most accurate imaginable. I mean, they were totally destroyed.

[12:15] Interviewer: You say you have no regrets about that decision. Do you have any regrets on—on—but on Israel, do you have regrets about the decision to help the Israelis do decapitation strikes on Iran? Because that changed the Iranian regime, and it seems like it made them escalate. You could have just kept hitting the—the nuclear facilities, right?

[12:34] Donald Trump: Yeah, you could have done that, but we had people that would have gone further. Look, this—I want to have it for the long term, not for the short term. We decapitated their nuclear arsenal. If I didn’t do that, there would be no Israel right now. Israel would be gone.

In my—look, I deal with these people. I deal with a lot of people, and that’s what I’ve done my whole life: I make deals. And obviously I make good deals, because I made a lot of money and I became president. Bill, you know, that’s a deal too. I became President of the United States. A lot of smart politicians thought, “Oh gee, this should be easy.” But it wasn’t easy for them. I became president—wasn’t easy. I became president easily.

So that’s what I do. I deal with the Iranians. They would use a nuclear weapon in 24 hours, just like the Democrats will terminate the filibuster immediately, and I’m trying to get that knowledge imparted into the Republican Senate. But the Democrats will immediately, or as soon as they have the right opportunity, they will terminate the filibuster and do things to our country that are very, very big.

[13:36] Interviewer: I’m trying to weave through this, so let’s—let’s do the weave and talk about the Democrats. Thank you. You came out after the midterms, you congratulated the Democrats, you said that you were open to working with them.

[13:49] Donald Trump: True.

[13:49] Interviewer: What is one thing you would like to work with a Democratic majority on?

[13:53] Donald Trump: I’d love to do something on immigration.

[13:56] Interviewer: What—because—well, so do you think immigration hurt you in the midterms? Do you think the crackdown hurt?

[14:05] Donald Trump: I think it both helped and hurt. I think I got an A+ for closing up the border, because we had 25 million people come in through Biden over a 4-year period, and many of those people were—as you know, they were from prisons, they were drug dealers, they were from mental institutions, they were from all over the world, not just South America. And some of them—some of them, as you once said, are good people.

[14:23] Interviewer: No, I—I said that…

[14:28] Donald Trump: Yeah, some are good and some are really bad. Just to clarify, you had 11,888 murderers, most of whom—more than half of whom—committed more than one murder. They were allowed into our country; we’ve gotten most of them out. So closing—and I think you would agree that I get an A+ for that. I get an A+ for closing—nobody in the last 17 months just came out. Zero people came in through our southern border, as opposed to 25 million people. 25 million people—they came in through caravans, nobody ever saw anything like it.

Okay, for getting people out, I get very high marks for getting the bad ones out, but I get hurt because we also took people that had good jobs, that created one violation or breaking of the law, that was that they came into the country illegally. Now, there is a large part of the country that think that they should be put out, and there’s a large part of the country that think that they should be allowed to stay if they’re good people, working in a landscaping company or working in a hotel or doing something right, and in some cases paying taxes. And there’s a large group of people think that they should be allowed to stay.

[15:41] Interviewer: So—so you think your deportation policy went far—it was too tough?

[15:46] Donald Trump: I think it might be too tough, yeah. And a lot of people would say that it’s great, but a lot of people think it’s too tough.

[15:52] Interviewer: What would happen—what does the deal look like?

[15:52] Donald Trump: I think ultimately that hurt me. I think it… Well, the deal would be we would work something out, and I think it’s something—I think that’s something that’s actually doable. But a lot of people…

[16:03] Interviewer: Doable to create some kind of—some kind of legal status for the landscapers?

[16:10] Donald Trump: Yeah, when you go into a hotel and you say, “Let me see your pass,” and you have a woman that’s worked there as a—you know, as a maid, as a cleaner, as a this, as a that, as a waitress… A lot of good things, great jobs, and all of a sudden they’re being taken out of the country. It’s tough. It’s a tough thing. Also 25 million people came in—that’s a lot of people to take out. But there’s a group of people that I would say on the sort of pretty far right that would like everybody taken out, and there’s a group of people…

[16:46] Interviewer: Do any of those people work in your administration? Are they in the building with us right now?

[16:46] Donald Trump: No, no, well—there are a lot of those people. Then there’s also people that are more modified on that, in other words: get the killers out, get the—get the rapists out, get all the—the rough ones out, get the drug dealers out, but let the people that are here, and in some cases here for 10 and 15 years, work a deal for them. Okay, so that’s another group.

And then you have a group that… So you have the group that wants to get everybody out, then you have the group that wants to modify it, and then you have a group that’s in—a very dangerous group, the sanctuary city group, that want to let murderers stay. They want to—they don’t want to give us the criminals we have. They have murderers that they know are murderers, and I don’t understand that group. They don’t want them out of our country, they want to protect them, and they’ve literally murdered people. They’re drug dealers, they’re really bad people, and…

[17:37] Interviewer: But do you think—but do you think the Democratic Party right now has people in it who would be interested in this kind of deal?

[17:43] Donald Trump: I think so, yeah. People have already called me.

[17:48] Interviewer: Who’s called? Who’s called?

[17:48] Donald Trump: I get along with a lot of the Democrats, a lot of people.

[17:52] Interviewer: So I saw—so I’ll say, I saw James Talerico, the new Democratic senator from Texas, I saw him on Fox News and he said immigration was one of the things he wanted to work with others…

[18:05] Donald Trump: South Carolina said you did, in the course of the campaign, you did occasionally call him “Talifico,” yeah, I did.

[18:12] Interviewer: Do you think you could work with the Democrats without insulting them consistently?

[18:12] Donald Trump: I could. I also call—I also call many of them Democrats.

[18:19] Interviewer: You did that just the other day. If it took six months of not insulting the Democrats to get a deal done, do you think you could do it?

[18:24] Donald Trump: Very easily.

[18:24] Interviewer: Okay, that’ll be interesting to watch. Do you think you could help the country—do you think you could do it if they’re investigating you, if they’re running investigations into your administration, can you work with them?

[18:34] Donald Trump: Well, I did it for four years. You know, what they did with me was—there’s never been weaponization. They impeached me twice, and there are those that say that worked out to my advantage. I mean, you know, cuz I…

[18:47] Interviewer: Do you think they’ll impeach you again?

[18:52] Donald Trump: I can’t imagine it. You know, they did—hey, look, what have I done? I’ve had the best two years in the history of the presidency. You just read the numbers, you just read in terms of the economy, in terms of everything up until—except for public opinion. Well, the only public opinion that’s—you also saw public opinion with the rallies. I mean, I had the largest rallies in history, I had the greatest amount of love, if you want to call it love. Those people love what I’m doing, they love what I’ve done.

But—but just so you understand, in two years, think of it: we have for 91 days the highest stock market in history, we have more jobs created than ever before in history, we have the highest amount of exporting, we’re exporting…

[19:41] Interviewer: So a big part—let me ask you about that economy. A big part of that economy has been the success of artificial intelligence. I know we call it super intelligence in this house, and you have said repeatedly, “whoever wins super intelligence wins the future.” But again, if you go into polls, Americans, they don’t love data centers. They’re pretty negative about AI/super intelligence. What does the average American get out of AI?

[20:03] Donald Trump: First, let me just tell you that when you say a big part, yes, it’s a part, but we’re also building automobile, sure, factories like we’ve never built before. Audi just announced $4 billion…

[20:16] Interviewer: But super intelligence…

[20:16] Donald Trump: No, but you said a big part. Automobiles—how about pharmaceutical? Eli Lilly, Merck, Pfizer, they’re building… A lot going on in the economy.

[20:31] Interviewer: But I want to know about…

[20:31] Donald Trump: I know, but there has never been a time where there is the activity. Trillions and trillions of dollars right now, as we sit, is being built. In a year from now, because they started a year ago, in a year from now, many of those plants are going to be open, operating.

[20:48] Interviewer: But I want—what do Americans get? You have—I talked to people in Silicon Valley who say that the decisions you make around AI are the most important things that you’ll be remembered for. That’s what—that’s what they think. And at the same—but at the same time, there is all of this anxiety and concern. And I just want you to know, as someone—you are an AI bull.

[21:04] Donald Trump: I am.

[21:11] Interviewer: What—what does the average American get out of that technology?

[21:11] Donald Trump: Excuse me, before I answer that: the reason I’m an AI bull, yes, one of the reasons is because President Xi left here two weeks ago, we had a great meeting. He’s all-in to SI, as I call it, because it really is super intelligence. It’s a—it’s a much better name, I think, because it’s not artificial, it’s—it’s… Well, that at least is what—it’s what they think they’re racing towards, yes.

So China—so we’re in a race with China. And if—and I said whoever wins that race wins. The level of power of winning that race is very important.

[21:43] Interviewer: What is the power?

[21:43] Donald Trump: And China has no problem with data centers, right? China has no problem with electricity. And by the way, we don’t either, because I’m letting—I’m demanding that they build their own electric plant. Every one of those centers that goes up now under me is building their own electric, and they’re giving the excess electric—they’re giving the excess electric right now, they’re giving it into the old grid that we had. We have an old, broken grid, and that juice is pouring into the grid. It’s going to lower…

[22:13] Interviewer: You had all of the AI tycoons in here.

[22:13] Donald Trump: Yeah, I did.

[22:19] Interviewer: And Elon Musk said then, as he’s said often, the endgame with AI/super intelligence is that we’re incredibly rich and nobody has to work, and everyone gets paid a universal high income. You like to work.

[22:34] Donald Trump: Yeah.

[22:34] Interviewer: Does that sound like a good future to you?

[22:34] Donald Trump: No. What—what he meant, I think, is that when a data center, as an example, goes to a community—look at West Virginia, they’re going wild, they love it. They say, “Come on in.” Uh, and many, many country—many places like it, by the way, other countries like it. They’re building them in Finland all of a sudden, because if we lose that, we’re losing a cash cow. It’s a cash cow. But here’s the thing…

[22:57] Interviewer: I think you’re saving—so look, I think you are taking his very weird statement and, because you’re a good politician, making it sound normal. But the people in the AI industry—I almost said the super intelligence industry, you’re working on me—are weird. They’re strange. They do things like stand outside their company and say, “Hey, we’re creating this amazing company, and there’s a 10% chance it kills humanity.” Like you standing outside a hotel and saying, “Here’s my new hotel, and it might collapse.” But that’s—you think that’s fake? Why are you not worried about the doom fears that the people building it have?

[23:30] Donald Trump: Because we—first of all, because China’s going to have it. Okay, so if we don’t have it, China’s going to have it. That would put us at an unbelievable disadvantage. It’s all between us and China, there’s nobody else. China’s going to have it. China is now one year behind us, which is amazing. And President Xi said, “You are really moved.” President Xi got off his plane, he said, “Wow, have you done a great job.” And he means—he’s not a guy that, you know, he doesn’t—he doesn’t trade in casual flattery. I don’t think so, no. I mean, I’ve known—I know him better than probably almost anybody.

So we’re racing China, and that makes it worth the risk.

[24:08] Interviewer: Or you just think the risk is not real?

[24:08] Donald Trump: I think that the risk is not nearly as real as it—as they talk, and I think the risk can be managed. And it’s managed, you know who by? Who? The DOJ. We had a situation where somebody was reported to us to be doing something bad with AI. We called them very strongly and said, “Get ready to go to jail. Please give your wife a kiss good night.”

[24:35] Interviewer: Who was this person? This company?

[24:35] Donald Trump: I can’t tell you, but we said, “Uh, do you like the color orange? Because get rid—” Said, “Go home right now, see your wife and children, give them a kiss good night, and uh—that’s the story, because if the Democrats tomorrow morning—” “You’re going to jail.”

[24:55] Interviewer: If they wanted to make a deal to put that—this person totally changed everything.

[24:58] Donald Trump: Totally. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Yes, sir.

[25:03] Interviewer: Was it a leader of a major AI company? One of the big ones?

[25:03] Donald Trump: Yeah, okay. One of the big ones.

[25:07] Interviewer: And if the Democrats said, “We want to put—we want to codify this into law…”

[25:07] Donald Trump: Maliciously, but it could have been maliciously.

[25:13] Interviewer: Would you—would you work with the Democrats? You’re saying the DOJ could handle this…

[25:13] Donald Trump: Absolutely. I don’t mind on AI safety—I don’t mind guardrails, but I don’t want to put us in a deep second position. We’re leading number one, and China has no guardrails, by the way. So if AI is dangerous…

[25:31] Interviewer: Well, they have the guardrails of being a totalitarian state, right? They have the guardrails that whatever Xi says goes.

[25:38] Donald Trump: With me, it’s pretty strong, but it’s not quite that strong. By the way, you know, we have very brilliant people watching every one of these companies. Brilliant people.

[25:46] Interviewer: I hope so.

[25:46] Donald Trump: That—well, they’re the smartest. They’re of hopefully equal, equal, equal intelligence.

[25:54] Interviewer: Equal intelligence though to the people running the company, or to super—are they super intelligent?

[25:54] Donald Trump: They’re super intelligent.

[26:03] Interviewer: Okay, good. Speaking of your powers, I’m weaving again—uh, in a previous lifetime, you were rather famous for saying “you’re fired” quite often. After a big midterm defeat like this, do you expect to fire anyone from your team?

[26:16] Donald Trump: Yeah, I do. Little bit, little bit. I love my Cabinet. I think they’re good, but I’ll be doing maybe a few changes. I don’t want to mention who, because I think they’re…

[26:21] Interviewer: Well, I will say that we passed, uh, or we saw Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth in the hall. He was meeting with you just before. Now, his name has come up a few times as someone people have called for his resignation. Do you have confidence in him?

[26:39] Donald Trump: I do. Look, we’ve won two wars. We’ve won Venezuela and taken out billions and billions and billions of dollars already, and we will be taking out many billions of dollars. And get along very well, and you could call it a territory, you could call it whatever you want. We won that war in less than one hour, and nobody was killed.

[26:59] Interviewer: You credit Pete Hegseth?

[26:59] Donald Trump: No, but he was a part of it. You know, he was—he was a part. I credit great soldiers, great generals, and great equipment. We have the best equipment in the world. We make—you know, I have…

[27:09] Interviewer: Do you think Hegseth gave you good advice going into Iran?

[27:15] Donald Trump: Let me talk Venezuela first. We did an attack that very few people would have done. We went into a fort, a military base, with a very bad person who did very bad things to our country and a lot of other countries, including drugs and including, you know, giving us his prison population. Venezuela is—that’s where we got the Tren and everything else. And we went into a fort with many, many people, and we had 201, and we flew in with fire and fury, as they said, and we got him out of a steel cage. He lived in a house that was a cage.

[27:47] Interviewer: Is that—is Venezuela the reason that you decided to do the decapitation strikes in Iran?

[27:53] Donald Trump: No, no, it didn’t… We just—I just say the Venezuela attack will go down in military histories as one of—people said, “Don’t do it, you can’t do it.” You know, they have—they’re a very military-type nation, you know, you walk around, everybody’s a soldier. We went into that and we took out their leader and—and his wife, who is also very powerful, and they’re right now awaiting trial. And they’re guilty, they’re very… I won’t even say, let me not refer to it. I won’t talk about it, but they are…

[28:25] Interviewer: Prejudge anyone, surely…

[28:25] Donald Trump: Well, I don’t want to prejudge. I’m not involved in the case, but they were—they were very bad people.

[28:31] Interviewer: Back to—back to your…

[28:31] Donald Trump: They were very bad people, and it was one of the most incredible attacks anyone’s ever seen. They left the aircraft carriers at 1:00 in the morning, pitch black, everything went perfect. This wasn’t a Jimmy Carter deal. This wasn’t a, you know, where the helicopters are crashing into each other. This was a perfect thing.

[28:51] Interviewer: Okay, it was in the future… So—so you have—so you have confidence in…

[28:56] Donald Trump: People don’t like talking about that, no. Then we have another one: we have Iran. Iran is decapitated—their navy’s gone, their air force is gone. So these are all things I’m just…

[29:09] Interviewer: You’re telling me this for reasons you would keep…

[29:09] Donald Trump: Basically, I’m telling you this—what about this? Let me just tell you: we had, because they read the papers, they want to impeach him, very unfair. We had two wars, we won both: we won Venezuela, we won Iran. Now Iran is simmering, but it’s—it’s just, we are taking out more oil, we—we own the Hormuz Strait, just—just so you understand.

[29:31] Interviewer: Yep, I do. No, I do, I do. But how do you impeach a guy…

[29:35] Donald Trump: That we had two wars! Let’s impeach him!

[29:43] Interviewer: How about your succession? Speaking of personnel, in two years someone else is going to be the Republican nominee for president. I assume you’re going to endorse someone for that?

[29:49] Donald Trump: Probably. Not necessarily. Not necessarily.

[29:56] Interviewer: What would make you—what are you thinking about when you decide whether or not to…

[29:56] Donald Trump: We have a tremendous bench. I mean, I have so many people that I have great relationships with, and, you know, not necessarily…

[30:07] Interviewer: Who do you—who would be on the list besides the Vice President?

[30:07] Donald Trump: Well, I think Marco’s great. I think… Is he staying, by the way, as Secretary of State? I think so. I mean, he certainly loves it, and he’s doing great. He’s doing a fantastic job. The ones they think about… But there are many others, and I’d rather not mention their names. There’s some senators that are excellent, I know them all, I like them a lot. So I may or may not get involved, I don’t know. Maybe I’m better off not getting involved. I think it would play a big role if I did, because my endorsement capacity has been very strong—people I endorse.

[30:35] Interviewer: Do you think you can have MAGA without you as the leader?

[30:41] Donald Trump: I think so, because MAGA is basically common sense. You know, MAGA’s strong borders, good military. Uh, I’d like to see the interest rates lower. I mean, the problem with interest rates is we have a board that was largely composed of Obama and Biden people, and they want to keep the interest rates as high as possible because that’s bad for the country, which is therefore bad for me—very unfair. We should have much lower interest rates, because, you know, in the old days when you had success, the interest rates went down. You just see numbers, but those numbers are nothing. We have created—we have created wealth at a level that our country has never seen before.

[31:19] Interviewer: Including for yourself! There’s a Forbes story that said that your net worth—maybe it’s changed with the stock market recently, but your net worth went up by $3 billion since you returned to…

[31:33] Donald Trump: Okay, you ready? So everyone’s—my net worth did not go up by $3 billion for the stock. I—I should have—you should have had stock. I should have had stock! Excuse me, so how did I—how did it go up? I think…

[31:44] Interviewer: Well, let me explain…

[31:44] Donald Trump: I devote almost no time to my net worth. I don’t care. I make—I have a lot of money, and far more than I ever thought I’d have, and I guess it’s gone up, I don’t even know. But just so you know, this is a really important—let me explain it. Let me explain it to you.

I have a son who’s a very straight, good guy. He watches over money. I don’t even talk to him about it. He watches—they gave my money… I have a lot of cash. I’ve had a lot of cash long before I came in here. I don’t take a salary, you know, $2 and a half million dollars, I don’t take a salary.

[32:22] Interviewer: But you’re doing okay.

[32:22] Donald Trump: I’m doing fine, but I don’t take a salary. Do you know I’m the only—supposedly, I don’t know if that’s right…

[32:26] Interviewer: It’s very generous of you to the American taxpayer…

[32:26] Donald Trump: But I am the only president that didn’t take… Every other president took their salary.

[32:32] Interviewer: All right, here’s—here’s what I want to understand, though. This is something I’ve thought about for a while, right? So your son manages, or helps manage, a cryptocurrency company called World Liberty Financial. You are a—we are a co-owner of that company. That’s correct, right?

[32:47] Donald Trump: That’s correct, right.

[32:47] Interviewer: This company is also partially owned by investors connected to the government of the United Arab Emirates. I think if I told you that story and it was about the Biden family, if I said Joe Biden is the part owner of a company and it has all of these investments from the Middle East, you would say that sounds corrupt, right?

[33:13] Donald Trump: Well, he did have a lot of different… But why is it—why is it different? Well, here’s—tell you why: because I know nothing about it.

[33:18] Interviewer: But why do you need…

[33:18] Donald Trump: I made a lot of money before.

[33:21] Interviewer: But then why do you need the money? Why not just divest, walk away?

[33:21] Donald Trump: I do! Look, most of my money—most of my money is in, is given to the biggest firms on Wall Street to invest.

[33:28] Interviewer: I have—also true of me, through index funds, so we have that in common.

[33:35] Donald Trump: And they’re index funds, yeah. So it came out that I traded like 40,000 stocks. So among the stocks would be like, that have a tiny little amount… It’s billions of dollars, it’s billions. I understand that. But companies that are invested in by people in countries… It seems like you could just walk away from that, and then, you know, and then you would not be accused of corruption, right?

I have—but you have sons where they go around and they build buildings, that’s what they do. That’s what I did long before I became president. I did it better than anybody. Now I’m putting my expertise to use at the White House, fixing the White House and doing things that should have been built long ago. But I was very good at real estate, I made a lot of money. But—but I have a company, my sons run the company. It’s hard to say to them, “Don’t do anything anymore for four years because I’m president.”

[34:29] Interviewer: No, you—but—but you could divest from the company yourself and let them do whatever they… But you’re not like sitting in the Oval Office thinking, “Thank God I have that 50 million.”

[34:35] Donald Trump: How do you divest from cash? So I took a lot of heat because I think they traded like 50,000 stocks, because that’s what they do—it’s all computer-generated. So if they buy a little tiny piece of Nvidia, “Oh, Trump is a—” I have no idea what the hell they’re buying, I’ve never even heard of it before. It’s all computer-generated, it’s done by the biggest companies in the world. I’ve never even spoken to the company, I don’t care. Honestly, I don’t care what it is. You take billions of dollars, you give it to these guys, “Good luck, right?” And then they start trading, and they trade…

[35:13] Interviewer: Where—but do you think—do you think the people—the people who are investing in the company that you co-own with your sons, who are coming from foreign countries, who want things from your government—don’t you think they think that they are buying influence?

[35:25] Donald Trump: Uh, I don’t know, but that’s true. Look, every president has a problem. You have people, and they work for you, and guys like you cover them, and you do profiles on them, and they become like—everybody thinks that Trump loves them and everything else, which in some cases is true and some cases are not. This is true for every president, true going back to George Washington, yes.

[35:48] Interviewer: Every president has not owned a cryptocurrency company, however…

[35:48] Donald Trump: But they owned something, whatever crypto was at the time, okay? You know, there’s crypto, and before that there was oil, and the… Okay, and every president has had this problem. So you have a guy, a trusted aide, everything’s good, and then the trusted aide says, “Sir, I love you so much and I’ll be leaving.” I said, “Well, good luck.” And he goes into a company that’s a defense company—or I mean defense more than crypto, frankly. They go into the defense, they go into the this, they go into the financial market, they go to Wall Street, they go… No matter what they do, there’s a conflict, because the president is all-encompassing, right? And this is not me—every president that there’s ever been. They have people, many people. I watch it all the time. Every time you have a president, their top people—sometimes they stay, I mean I have some that will stay right till the last day. Other—but after they leave, they go crazy. They go crazy. It’s true for every president.

[36:42] Interviewer: Sometimes I feel like there have been more people doing things like that while serving in the administration…

[36:48] Donald Trump: But listen, a bigger name than other presidents, whether we like it or not. And people will leave office and then they’ll go into the oil business, and then immediately everyone says, “Oh, they have a conflict.” Look, every—I watched Bush, I watched—look at—look at Biden, but look at Obama. Obama got from Netflix—how much? Obama, what Obama did, Obama got hundred million to make a movie that never…

[37:19] Interviewer: What Obama did after his presidency…

[37:19] Donald Trump: Was he made the deal during his presidency. During his presidency, and he made a movie afterward, and the movie made about three cents.

[37:34] Interviewer: I’ll have to ask ChatGPT about that after this conversation. Your administration, alone among modern administrations, has spent a lot of time releasing footage of UFOs, unidentified flying objects. I think a lot of that footage, for people who are interested in the topic, has been interesting, but fuzzy, you know, unclear, maybe a little disappointing. Is there anything that you have seen or heard about or been told about that would lead you to think that there’s something more there than just we’re having a good time looking at things in the sky?

[38:14] Donald Trump: It’s so amazing that you asked this question, because it is one of the questions in private I get asked about more. People ask me about UFOs than, I mean, I believe it. People that you wouldn’t think…

[38:22] Interviewer: So what’s the answer?

[38:29] Donald Trump: So here’s the story: I’m not too much of a believer, but I sat in the Oval Office first term and a little bit second term, meeting with Air Force pilots that are really good, solid people. These are not people that you would say are conspiracy theorists—they don’t even know what it means. But they’re great, great pilots—uh, young, handsome, they have, see, beautiful, nice flat tops. I’d like to have a haircut just like him. They look perfect, like Tom Cruise.

[38:56] Interviewer: Mm-hmm.

[38:56] Donald Trump: It looked Tom Cruise—very, very, in the posterior they’re thinned, very thin and very everything. And, but they’re real, they’re the real deal. And they’ve told me things that are very strange. They said that, uh, in—in certain cases, they said, yes, there’s something going on out there, because they’re flying an F-22, which is the best there is, the fastest, the best plane that anyone’s ever seen, and something goes by them at three times their speed, and it’s round. It’s not aerodynamic, it’s round, and it’s… Well, maybe it was a comet. So that’s the mystery.

[39:32] Interviewer: But then along with those pilots, there’s a set of people who have styled themselves as whistleblowers who have come out and said, “Actually, there’s also a secret program that even presidents don’t know about to study this stuff.” Have you seen any evidence that that is the case?

[39:47] Donald Trump: And I haven’t heard that, but if there is, I’m going to find out about it right after this interview. Okay, it’s an amazing thing, though. I have more interest… And, you know, if you go to Nevada, where they have a very, very common chain-link fence, there’s more tourists at that chain-link fence because that’s where they say it all happens. I don’t know if that’s true, I don’t think it’s true, but did you ever see the people? Thousands and thousands of people looking over a piece of land. There is more interest in that subject than any of the questions…

[40:23] Interviewer: But you’re interested in it because people are interested in it?

[40:23] Donald Trump: I’m interested because…

[40:28] Interviewer: You’re on the way to discovering it…

[40:28] Donald Trump: I—I would like to find out whether or not it’s true. I will tell you, you have a lot of very solid people that believe it’s true.

[40:32] Interviewer: You came into office promising to make peace in Ukraine. There’s still a war going on. What’s the biggest obstacle to peace?

[40:39] Donald Trump: Uh, it was the hatred between Zelenskyy and Putin. I believe that we’re very close to making a deal. And I think two things: if I were president, because as you know, the…

[40:52] Interviewer: Well, you’re not going to admit it…

[40:52] Donald Trump: The—I—it was rigged. That’s why I did it a third time, because it was rigged. That was my ultimate poll. If I had been president, that war would have never started, zero chance. But it did start, so I inherited that war. I believe we’re very close to making…

[41:09] Interviewer: Who do you trust more: President Putin or President…

[41:09] Donald Trump: Well, I’d rather not say, but I get along with both. And in fact, we have—we have a meeting. We have a meeting—this show will air, and the meeting will have taken place. It’s going to be on Saturday, but it’s going to extend to Sunday and to Monday into Tuesday. And there’s—so you’ll be seeing it. Uh, there’s a very important meeting taking place. I believe that that war is going to end, and it’s going to end soon. And the only reason it’s going to end is because of me. There is tremendous hatred between President Putin and President Zelenskyy, and, you know…

[41:44] Interviewer: Isn’t it more understandable coming from President Zelenskyy, given that his country was actually invaded?

[41:44] Donald Trump: Well, it is, but it was also uh, very, very uh—when they had their first meeting, there was great disrespect shown to Russia. So I’m not going to say anything. I mean, but balancing out invading disrespect… Let’s put it this way: the war never happened during my four years, and it was never going to happen, even though it was the apple of President Putin’s eye.

[42:07] Interviewer: Do you think that Putin is—you don’t think he’s—do you think he is stringing you along? Oh, I don’t think so… Because you’ve been saying over and over you’re going to make peace, and it just seems like he’s the obstacle.

[42:18] Donald Trump: There’s been nobody that’s been tougher on Russia than me. Look at our trade, look what I’ve done to them on trade, with the sanctions and everything else. Look what I did to them as an example: I gave them the anti-tank busters, right? I gave them—I gave them…

[42:36] Interviewer: Well, you’ve gone back and forth. Wait a minute, wait a minute…

[42:36] Donald Trump: No…

[42:36] Interviewer: You’ve gone back and forth. You—at some points you have done lots of things, big things, in support of Ukraine. But just recently, you lifted diesel sanctions on Russia, like you’ve done various things to take pressure off…

[42:48] Donald Trump: I didn’t lift diesel sanctions. Uh, I made it possible for Russia to give, not us, but to the world, uh, thousands and thousands of barrels of oil—of diesel oil, which it needed. Uh, didn’t do any big favor, but look at what I’ve done. I’ve given them—in fact, there’s an old statement that Obama gave them sheets and I gave them anti-tank busters, okay? That’s what I gave them.

[43:17] Interviewer: And—but now it’s—but now it’s Europe supplying them weapons, not us.

[43:17] Donald Trump: No, it’s us! We’re supplying the weapons.

[43:24] Interviewer: Well, Europe is—Europe…

[43:24] Donald Trump: Europe is buying the weapons! Biden gave them $350 billion worth of cash and weapons. I gave them uh, nothing. I give it to Europe, sell it at full price, and they pay us. And not only that, the 350 billion—I felt so bad about it, because I thought it was so stupid. Europe has money, Europe would have paid, but nobody asked, so we just gave weapon after weapon after weapon, and we supplied the weapons. And by the way, Ukraine had the courage to use them, because you still have to have courage to use them, and they’ve been very formidable. But they had the best weapons on Earth, uh, and we got nothing for it. I sell…

[44:06] Interviewer: We got—we got—we got Ukrainian independence for it, right?

[44:06] Donald Trump: Well, you haven’t gotten it yet, you haven’t gotten anything yet. Let’s see how it all works out. Uh, but I hope…

[44:16] Interviewer: But you expect it to all work out with a free…

[44:16] Donald Trump: I think we’re going to have it done, and I think it’s going to happen, and they’re going to end up with a uh, little bit different shape. Ukraine—look, this is a war that should have never happened. If I were president, this war would have never happened.

[44:33] Interviewer: Last Ukraine question: on the aid and support we give them, one form of support comes through Starlink, which is a satellite system owned by Elon Musk. There was a version of it that’s controlled by the US government. There was a recent case where Starlink speeds were slowed down a lot, which made it harder for the Ukrainians to use it. Who is actually in charge of that system in—in the world, you or Musk?

[44:52] Donald Trump: It wasn’t me, I don’t know. I would say that probably I have a lot of power over everything. You know, you’re the president, you have a lot of power, so I’m not going to…

[45:02] Interviewer: Shouldn’t you have the power to control a system that’s uh, probably part of a war zone that we’re involved in?

[45:08] Donald Trump: And if it was necessary, probably that situation was fixed pretty quickly.

[45:14] Interviewer: So did Elon turn it down?

[45:14] Donald Trump: I—I don’t think he literally turned a dial. I can’t tell you who turned it down. I can tell you ultimately he turned it back up, and so they have it.

[45:23] Interviewer: Why can’t you tell me who turned it down? Seems like an important question.

[45:23] Donald Trump: I don’t know. I mean, uh, the system is a very good system, and uh, it was perhaps turned down. I mean, I don’t even know, I haven’t been—it hasn’t been proven to me that it was turned down. There’s a lot of lies going on with that war, but I know this: that when I heard about it, it went back up.

[45:40] Interviewer: All right, let’s finish up. Last legacy questions. Um, first: do you expect to issue a lot of pardons when you leave office?

[45:46] Donald Trump: Yes, I do.

[45:52] Interviewer: Do you expect to pardon yourself?

[45:52] Donald Trump: Uh, I don’t, but it’s certainly…

[45:59] Interviewer: Do you think you have the power to pardon yourself?

[45:59] Donald Trump: I do. But—but more importantly, uh, I don’t want to have good people that are serving this country and doing a great job spending the rest of their life like I had to do for four years, defending myself by radical left lunatics, by people that were very nasty and mean. Uh, I intend to issue tremendous numbers of pardons. In fact, I say oftentimes, anybody that got within a thousand miles of the Oval Office, because I don’t want people spending the rest of their lives…

[46:29] Interviewer: So will you pardon me? I—I think, I mean, we’re very close to the Oval Office.

[46:34] Donald Trump: I think I might have to after this interview, I think I might have to. No, I think it’s very unfair. Um, I pardoned the J6ers. I don’t think any group’s been treated more unfairly than them, and—and to this day, when they see me, they cry.

[46:49] Interviewer: They were—even the ones who attacked police officers were treated unfairly?

[46:49] Donald Trump: There were some that got rough, but, you know, they were rough to them, too.

[46:54] Interviewer: You don’t—cops have a right to use force against people…

[46:54] Donald Trump: Nobody’s better with police than I am. I’ve—I had 99.9%, you know, every police—every group of police endorsed me, the Fraternal Order, every single…

[47:09] Interviewer: The Capitol Police?

[47:09] Donald Trump: They like me, they love me. And by the way, speaking of that, the crime rate in Washington, D.C. is down 89%. It’s the safest. And when I was here, it was a killing field: three murders a week. Now we haven’t had a murder in a long time.

And by the way, nobody has died. You know, when you call it a war, it’s not a war. If you look at what’s happened with Iran in the last six months, five months, six months, we haven’t lost one soldier. You know, I wrote one thing down, I think it’s interesting, I just wrote it—I just looked at it this morning. So we’ve been in Iran seven months, maybe eight months; there have been 18 people. And that includes Venezuela—two wars. Venezuela, where by the way, we’ve taken out 50 times what the war has cost already. To the victor belong the spoils! But listen, just one second: Afghanistan, 20 years, thousands of people killed. Iraq War, 9 years, 5,000 people killed. Vietnam, 21 years, 60,000 people killed. The Korean War, 4 years, 40,000 people killed. This is—this is a good—wait, this war: 7 months, 18 people killed. That includes Venezuela—18. Now this is a good segue to my last question.

[48:28] Interviewer: Okay, but just…

[48:28] Donald Trump: 18 is too much, I hear you, but you’re talking about 40,000, 50,000, 60,000…

[48:34] Interviewer: I agree that the Iran war has had many fewer casualties, but what did we get? What did we get?

[48:41] Donald Trump: No nuclear! We won, and there will be no nuclear! And they didn’t get anything. Those wars were lost, and they lost 60,000.

[48:47] Interviewer: Let me talk about death. Okay, you have survived multiple assassination attempts. One came very, very close to you. I imagine that that had some kind of effect on how you think about mortality. What do you think happens when you die?

[49:01] Donald Trump: Well, I hope I miss… No, I mean—I mean to you. No, but I really hope I… I understand. I mean to… I think I’ve done a good job as…

[49:11] Interviewer: What do you think happens to Donald Trump when you die? Well, again, not your memory, yourself.

[49:11] Donald Trump: You mean where I go, exactly? Well, I’m a religious person, so in theory I go to heaven.

[49:19] Interviewer: Do you think you’re going to heaven?

[49:22] Donald Trump: Uh, I hope so. I don’t want to go to hell.

[49:22] Interviewer: So I watched you at Charlie Kirk’s memorial service, and Erika Kirk, his widow, got up and gave some very moving remarks about Christian forgiveness—how you have to forgive your enemies, right, and your opponents. And you followed her and you said—and I know this was a little bit of a joke, but I think facts come through jokes—you said, quote, “I hate my opponents and I don’t want the best for them.”

Let me say you pass away, you’re entering the next life, and all you have to do to enter paradise is feel love and forgiveness for James Comey, Nancy Pelosi, anyone who you have expressed hate for over the years. Do you think you can do it?

[50:10] Donald Trump: Well, then I wouldn’t be real, would I? I mean, if I said to you, “Sure,” the easy answer to that, “Oh yes, I could forgive…” No, I don’t think it’s an easy question. I found them to be extremely dishonest people, very bad people, very bad for our country. I love our country far more than I can love people—and people like that.

[50:28] Interviewer: Is the answer no?

[50:28] Donald Trump: The answer is no. I want to be honest before the judgment throne of God. Before the judgment… No, I think they were very bad people and uh, I dislike—I can use the word hate—I do hate some of my enemies. I think they’re—they’ve been terrible. Look what they put me through, the weaponization, I…

[50:45] Interviewer: You have—Mr. President, Mr. President, you have had the most charmed and remarkable life of any American in my entire lifetime, and you are telling me that before the judgment throne of God you couldn’t find it in your heart to forgive some of your enemies after all that’s been given to you? Come on, help me out here.

[51:04] Donald Trump: I mean, it’s such an easy answer. All I have to do is say, “Yes, I can.” I—again, I don’t think it’s an easy answer, that’s… Can I—can I be honest? I probably cannot do that, no, because I do hate some of my enemies, and I always will.

[51:19] Interviewer: Lots of presidents are remembered with a single line: “He freed the slaves,” “He won the Cold War.” A hundred years from now, while you’re working out your situation in purgatory, what is the line that your presidency is remembered with?

[51:30] Donald Trump: That I made America great again.

[51:39] Interviewer: I guess I asked for that. Thank you, Mr. President.

[51:39] Donald Trump: Thank you. Thank you very much.