Interview: Eric Weisfeld of WMBF News Interviews Donald Trump in South Carolina - August 21, 2026

Eric from the local news feature.

Hi, Eric.

It's a pleasure to meet you.

Nice to see you.

Nice to see you. How was your flight?

It was great.

Good. Tell me when you're ready.

Okay. Nice crowd, huh?

Uh, yeah. They've been here since last night.

Really?

Started lining up last night. You all set? You ready? Mr. President, you quickly endorsed Senator Darline Graham. The truth of the matter here in Horry County is that she was not the top vote-getter, neither was Ralph Norman for that matter. Russell Fry was. W- --

Yes. Russell's a good man too.

What would your direct message be to voters here as to why she is the best person to represent them in Washington, DC?

Well, I'm doing this in honor of Lindsey. Lindsey was a great friend of mine. He was a great politician, actually. Helped me a lot in Washington. Got a lot of votes. He could get anybody's vote if he wanted to. He was very talented. And she's just a fine person. She loves our military, she loves our country, she loves South Carolina.

She's gonna be a great senator. I think she's gonna be fantastic. She's got a good gene pool.

She does.

Right?

South Carolina health leaders are closely watching the implementation of the One Big Beautiful Bill. With hundreds of millions of cuts projected possibly with Medicaid, can you ensure voters in our area, hardworking residents, that their medical coverage won't be compromised?

Oh, it's gonna be the best. And the Democrats are the ones that wanna compromise it. And one of the things I did is Favored Nations Drugs. We've reduced the drug prices by 80 and 90%, uh, and nobody's ever done anything like it. Nobody's ever reduced them even 1%.

Yeah.

Uh, because of Favored Nations, we were the highest nation in the entire world, and now we're the lowest nation in the world, and I did that by getting other nations through the use of different things, like tariffs, if you don't do it. Uh, but I got them all to approve it, got the drug companies to approve it, and drug prices are down 70, 80, and 90%.

Wow. I just told you earlier that we had people, die-hard Trumpers outside at 6:30 last night.

Yeah.

They were here overnight. They've been here all day. We sent our crews out today and asked them, "If you had one question for the President of the United States, maybe one concern, what would that be?" And overwhelmingly, they said affordability, whether it comes to the price of food, putting gas in their cars, clothing on their backs.

What would you say to them?

Well, I'll tell you what, when I came in, the word was affordability, if you remember. I think you were there or you were close. We had a news conference in my first day, and they started screaming at me about affordability. I said, "I just got here. I haven't been. I've just got --" They mentioned eggs, which, by the way, have now gone down to lower than they were in my first term.

They got high.

They got high. Well, but when I first came in, my first day, they were four times higher than they were with me. So the word affordability is interesting because they're the ones that caused the affordability situation and I'm bringing it down now. We had to take the nuclear weapon away from Iran. We had to do it. That caused a spike, not as big as people thought, but it caused a spike in the oil prices.

They will very shortly be coming down to even lower than they were before.

Last question for you. Tourism is our number one industry here --

Right.

-- in the Grand Strand. We rely on solid roads, good infrastructure.

And golf.

And golf, absolutely. We're the golf ca- -- capital of the world, you know. [Laughs]

You have golf courses. I like.

Beautiful courses. What is your plan? What is your administration's plan for the rest of your term to ensure that we have solid roads so that we can get those visitors and those tourists to come here? For example, I-73, I know you're familiar with that project.

Right, right. Well, I don't, I know it very well because they wanna name it after me.

Yes, yeah.

And I can tell you the federal government is behind it 100%. All of my people, uh, Secretary Duffy, all of the top people in Washington, they're, uh, in favor of it 100% and they're gonna have the funding that's necessary for that project. It's a very important road. It was an honor when they did that. And that's not the reason I'm doing the funding.

I'm doing it because you need it in terms of growth, in terms of keeping it going in South Carolina. The governor wants it, I want it, and it's gonna happen.

We rely heavily, and that would be a major corridor.

It's gonna get done.

When you go back to the airport, take a look, because if you look maybe on 21st Street, you might see that billboard with your picture --

I saw it.

-- right there. Did you see it?

Oh, no. You think I missed it?

[Laughs]

I was coming in. They all pointed, "Oh, look, sir, look." Uh, no, we're gonna get it done very quickly.

Good picture of you as well. I appreciate you taking the time to speak with me. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Great honor.

It was great to meet you.

Thank you.

Thank you. Good luck.

Nice guy.

Yes.