[Laura Ingraham interviewed Donald Trump at the White House on November 10, 2025 at approximately 5:00 pm. The interview aired in three parts on the evenings of November 10th, November 11th and November 12th. The complete interview is presented here. Video courtesy and copyright Fox News.]
Sir, what lessons do you think the Democrats should learn from this shutdown saga?
Well, the country loses a lot of money when they do this. And, uh, they're not getting much, but nobody gets a lot. But, uh, it's, it's terrible. What they really wanted was one and a half trillion dollars for people that came in illegally. People that came in through and out of prisons, you know, we had like Venezuela, they emptied, they dumped their prisons.
They said that was all exaggerated by you.
Oh yeah, I know. It's exaggerated. They wanted one and a half trillion for healthcare from people that were, uh, in some cases, 11,888 exactly, murderers, many of whom murdered more than one peo- -- person. So they came into our country, they poured into our country, and they want to take care, and we're trying to get 'em out because we don't want 11,000 murderers in our country.
You don't want it. Nobody wants it. And we have drug dealers and we have everything else that they want to make sure they got good healthcare. That's not what our country's about. And it would've hurt other people's healthcare.
On Obamacare, you raised several times during this, uh, shutdown debate that it, it's clear that this was never going to work without these massive subsidies. Now they wanted to continue the COVID subsidies. So given the fact that Obamacare really can't survive as they thought without these subsidies, what next?
Well, I watched Obama from, uh, when this thing came about, yeah, as you know, I opposed it very strongly. Unfortunately, we had a couple of negative votes, which should never have happened. But I said, it's gonna be a disaster. And I was exactly right. The, the premiums have gone up like rocket ships. And I'm not just talking about recently, I'm talking about for years they've been going up and he said, "Premiums will go down.
Everything will be wonderful." It's horrible health insurance at a very high price. And what I want, and probably what you're alluding to, is the fact that I want, instead of going to the insurance companies, I want the money to go into an account for people where the people buy their own health insurance.
It's so good. Uh, the insurance will be better. It'll cost less. Everybody's gonna be happy. They're gonna feel like entrepreneurs are actually able to go out and negotiate their own health insurance. And they can use it only for that reason. That's the beauty, only for that purpose. And if we did that, that would be so exciting.
Call it Trumpcare, call it whatever you wanna call it, but anything but Obamacare. Obamacare is a disaster just like he was as a president.
Um, how do Republicans avoid this shutdown saga from reoccurring on January 30th when this deal ends?
Well, we're trying to put in a bill, as you know, the bill or a bill that you can never do that again. You can't just shut down the government because you're trying to renegotiate a deal that you didn't -- don't forget when we passed the great big beautiful bill, which gives you tremendous middle income tax benefits, and tremen- -- it gives so much to everybody.
Think of it, no tax on tips, no tax on social sec- -- social security and no tax, very importantly on overtime. If you work overtime, you don't have to pay tax. So many other things. It gives you a deduction if you buy a car, you, you know, borrow money, you put a, a, a loan on a car, you're allowed to deduct the interest.
That's never happened in our country before, you know, that's always been for the richer people. They're allowed to take deductions. Now you can deduct interest on a car. So we have tremendous goodies in there. You know, they like to try and disparage it. Oh, it's the greatest bill ever passed in the history of a country.
That's why we did it all in one. It's four years worth of goodies and it's largely for jobs and for the middle class and for security.
But the Democrats clearly wanted to renegotiate this.
They didn't --
And hold the country hostage, did it not?
They didn't get what they wanted in the great big beautiful bill. And so what they tried to do is renegotiate it at a time where they hold the country hostage, yeah.
One of the big problems for the country, uh, I encountered on Saturday, coming back from Florida to D.C. with the airports. Um, so hours delayed, thousands of flight cancellations that are continuing this week.
Yeah.
You put out a Truth Social post earlier today.
I did.
Where you blasted the air traffic controllers who had not shown up for work, uh, and offered potentially a bonus of $10,000 for those who have worked despite the shutdown. Are you worried that given the fact that we have a deficit of air traffic controllers still, I know we're trying to change that, that that might be a difficult position?
No, we don't have much of a deficit. And we have a lot of people want the job. What, I was not happy when I saw all these people, oh, we have to, look, life is not so easy for anybody. Our country's never done better. We should not have had people leaving their jobs. And what I basically did is say the ones that stayed, of which were, there were a lot of them, uh, I'm sending them a $10,000 bonus.
Where's that money coming from?
Uh, it's, I don't know. I get it from someplace. I'll get it from, I always get the money from someplace, regardless. It doesn't matter. We did a lot of, I do a lot of bonuses for people because it's really something that, it, it's like the American way when you think about it. So here's somebody that goes and shows up every single day.
Some of them showed up early because they knew there was gonna be a problem. Those people should be rewarded. Others, we couldn't, we, we can't make it, we can't, you know, a lot of the people that showed up also had a second job. They took a second job temporarily, but they all know the money's coming and the money was coming.
So I wanna reward the people that showed up without a lot of nonsense, with, without a lot of talk. They did their job and in many cases they worked longer hours to get us through this period.
When can we expect the flights to resume more or less on better schedule?
Well, you know, I've heard a lot of people say, in fact, on your show two nights ago, somebody said, "You know, I just took a plane. I got better service than I got in the past." Now maybe 'cause a little bit fewer people are traveling.
There are a lot of delays now, sir.
But, but a lot of people. Yeah. But a lot of people are getting through. I think the people are gonna start showing up. I was very strong on that truth. I said, "Now you get to work."
Did you remember the air traffic control firing of Reagan in 1983?
Yeah, I do.
I believe it was. I remember [Inaudible]
It was one of the highlights of his life. You wanna know the truth?
Hmm.
He fired them because they didn't show up to work and he never let 'em come back.
Mm-hmm. Um, the economy was listed as a top concern. Uh, I know you know this for voters in New Jersey, New York, Virginia. Um, I know you've been all over the affordable, uh, affordability issue today and for the last several months, eggs, gas, uh, a dinner cost for Thanksgiving, way down. But other things, as you noted, have gone up.
Shh --
Beef, coffee --
-- but they're gonna come down very shortly.
-- auto repairs. Is this a voter perception issue of the economy, or is there more that needs to be done by Republicans on Capitol Hill or done in terms of policy?
More than anything else, it's a con job by the Democrats. They just have a say, you know, they put out something, say today, costs are up. They feed it to the anchors of ABC, CBS, and NBC and a lot of other, and you know, CNN and et cetera. And it's like a standard. I'll never forget they had used the word like manufactured.
Do you remember the word manufactured? It's a manufactured economy. Nobody uses that word. Every anchor broker manufactured, they do exactly what they say. It's such a rig system. So are you ready? Costs are way down. Gasoline is gonna be hitting $2 pretty soon or around $2. Gasoline is at $2.70 now, and it was at $4.50 under Biden, under Sleepy Joe.
When gasoline comes down, when energy comes down and everybody agrees, energy's down, we are drill, you know, drill, baby drill. We're going, like, wild. We produce more, uh, gasoline, oil and gas in the last month than we ever have before by far. And we're gonna also end up filling up the national strategic reserves, which were taken out by Biden in order to try and win an election.
Didn't work out too well. They, uh, they tapped in. That's supposed to be for war, for national emergency not to get --
So are you saying that voters are --
[Inaudible]
-- are they misperceiving how they feel or --
So when I took over, you remember, I was --
'Cause you said Biden did that too. 'Cause he was saying things were great.
So Biden and, and, uh, let's say it's synonymous. Biden and Kamala, you know, because you didn't know who the hell was campaigning. I mean, it got to a point -- So I was up by 20 points on Biden or some crazy number, and they said, "All right, let's get him out. We'll put a new one. This never happened to anybody." All of a sudden they have somebody new and they had the six-week honeymoon, you know, which was standard in the world of politics.
She got a little honeymoon and she had her little honeymoon, but then eventually people got to know her too. And then they had the 60 minutes catastrophe where they, you know, changed her answer.
Housing costs are still outta reach. And another thing that your administration is trying to tackle.
Yeah.
Uh, many Americans, the average age of first-time home buyers are now up to age 40, which is sad. The country you and --
[Crosstalk]
I inherited that. Look, you have to understand.
Right. But let, lemme get to the question though --
Housing, I --
-- because your, your housing director has proposed something that has enraged your MAGA friends, which is this 50-year mortgage idea. So a significant MAGA, uh, backlash, calling it a giveaway to the banks and simply prolonging, uh, the, the time it would take for Americans to own a home outright. Is that really a good idea?
It's not even a big deal. I mean, you know, you go from 40 to 50 years and whatever you just --
30%, but yeah.
-- you pay, you pay something less from 30, that some people had a 40 and then the, now they have a 50. All it means is you pay less per month. You pay it over a longer period of time. It's not like a big factor. It might help a little bit, but the problem was that Biden did this. He increased the interest rates.
And I have a lousy fed person who's gonna be gone in a few months, fortunately. I have a guy too late, you know, Jerome Powell, we call him too late. He was too late and everything, except when it came to before the, you know, the Democrat so-called Democrat election, which didn't work. But, uh, we're gonna get interest rates down, but even with interest rates up, the economy's the strongest it's ever been.
You know, you asked me, just to go back to the beginning of your question. You talked about presses. We're down on energy, we're down on interest rate. You know, interest rates are down despite the Fed. Now, if the Fed, if we had a normal person that the Fed would've really low interest rates, and we will soon have that, we'll have somebody that's --
And why are people saying they're anxious about the economy? Why are they saying that?
I don't know that they are saying, I think polls are fake. We have the greatest economy we've ever had. We have, uh, clo- -- we will have over $20 trillion come into our economy. And it's largely because of my election, but it's also largely because of tariffs. Even the tariff thing, it's such a disgrace.
I'm watching them saying, "Well, no money would have to be paid back. 'cause it's not that much." It's trillions and trillions of dollars would have to be paid back whether it's --
If the Supreme Court rules against the tariffs.
Sure, it would be a disaster for our country. Now, will I do something? I'll figure something out because I do. That's what I do in life. I figure things out. But it's so, President Xi was willing to do the rarer thing. That's magnets. Now nobody knows what a magnet is. If you don't have a magnet, you don't make a car, you don't make a computer, you don't make, uh, televisions and radios and all the other things.
You don't make anything. It's a, a 30-year effort to monopolize a very important thing. Now, within two years, we'll have magnets. All the magnets we want, but we don't -- because of tariffs, I called, I said, "Listen, here's the story. You're gonna play the magnet. I'm gonna play the tariff on you." And for national security purposes, I raised the tariff by 100% over and above what they were paying, which was 55. So he was at 155%. Within 10 minutes, I got a call, "We'd like to meet," and we settled it out and we made a wonderful deal, great deal for our country.
But we made a great deal. We would've had a closed country. We would've had a depression. We, the whole world would've had a depression.
Doesn't show us that we're too dependent on China? It's not just on rare earth, sir. We're --
Mm-hmm.
-- dependent on them for still pharmaceuticals, still key industrial components. The, the Journal did a huge piece and they're, they're --
They're all coming back.
-- they're fairly pro-China, but they're --
Yeah.
-- but a very extensive piece.
But it's all coming back, Laura, because of tariffs. I'm charging them tariffs of 100% and 150% for pharmaceuticals. What's happening, the pharmaceutical companies are all back here building plants right now. That's part of the $20 trillion of money that's come in because of tariffs. And we're not dependent on China.
We're dependent on having a smart president. If we have a smart president, we're gonna have no trouble. If we have a guy like we had last time who was such an embarrassment, if we have stupid presidents, whether you have tariffs or don't have tariffs, it doesn't matter. If we didn't have tariffs, if I didn't have the power of the tariffs right now, we would have a country that wouldn't be making cars, wouldn't be making anything.
Um, a new detailed report on CNN, of, of all places, documents China's expansion of most, 60% of its missile facilities. It's staggering, bigger than anyone had ever thought, more robust growth. Um, and over the weekend, uh, uh, the new Japanese prime minister, who I know you like a lot, Takaichi, um, called the Taiwan situation extremely severe in its phase and that they may consider any move on Taiwan by China to be a national survival crisis for Japan.
Now, that gets better, a Chinese diplomat today said in a social media post that she, the prime minister of Japan, should be beheaded for her comments. These are not our friends, sir, are they, in China?
Well, a lot of our allies aren't our friends, either, Laura. Our allies took advantage of us on trade more than China did, and China took big advantage. I mean, we built the, the, you know, because it's [Inaudible]
We built their military.
We built their military.
Yeah.
We built their whole thing. The whole thing was -- And, and by the way, if you remember, in my first term, I took in hundreds of billions of tariffs. I put tariffs on China very early. Then when we got hit with COVID, we fought that. We did a very good job. But that was COVID. It came from a certain place in China.
Right. [Laughs]
You remember? [Laughs]
Another great gift from China. [Laughs]
It was another little gift we got. But, look, I get along great with President Xi, I get along great with China, but the only way you're gonna get along well with China is you have to deal from a position of strength. We have tremendous strength because of tariffs. We have tremendous strength because of what I've done.
I've rebuilt our military. And they have a lot of missiles, but we have a lot of missiles, too, and they don't wanna mess around with us, I can tell you that Laura.
A lot of MAGA folks, um, are not thrilled about this idea of hundreds of thousands of foreign students in the United States. Um, we have about 350,000 Chinese. One point during COVID, you were gonna, you know, the, the, push a, you know, get them out, but, um, that was pulled back. You've said as many as 600,000 Chinese students could come to the United States.
Why, sir, is that a pro-MAGA position when so many --
Well --
-- American kids --
[Inaudible]
-- wanna go to school and there are places not for them, and these universities are getting rich off Chinese money?
Sure, sure. Uh, never said about China, but I, we do have a lot of people coming in from China. We always have, uh, China and other countries. We also have a massive system of colleges and universities. And if we were to cut that in half, which perhaps makes some people happy, you would have half the colleges in the United States --
So?
-- go out of business.
So what?
Well, I think that's a big deal.
Are they fans of --
You would have the historically --
-- fans [Laughs] of the United States?
Yeah, but you would have, as you know, historically black colleges and universities would all be out of business. That, uh, uh, you would have a system of colleges, uh, and universities would go down the tubes --
So we're dependent on China to keep our university system going?
No, not China, but, but I think it's good to have, I actually think it's good to have outside, uh, countries. Look, I wanna be able to get along with the world.
They're not the French, they're the Chinese. They spy on us --
Uh --
-- they steal our intellectual property, they --
Well, do you think the French are better?
Yeah.
[Laughs] Really?
[Laughs]
I don't know. I'll tell you, I'm not so sure. We've had a lot of problems with the French --
Mm-hmm.
-- where we get taxed very unfairly on our technology --
Yeah.
-- with, you know, they put 25% taxes on American products.
Mm.
Look, assuming everyone treats us badly, 'cause that's the way I am, but we take in trillions of dollars from students. You know, the students pay more than double, uh, when they come in from most foreign countries. Uh, I wanna see our school system thrive, but at the same time, I want to be -- I know you and I disagree.
Yeah.
We're never gonna agree on it --
No.
-- but that's okay. And it's not that I want them, but I view it as a business. We have millions and millions of people. Also, I wanna get along with countries if possible. You know, people are shocked. Remember, Hillary Clinton said, "We'll be in a war." I stopped eight wars in the last nine months. I, I don't wanna be in wars.
If I am in a war, we're gonna win the thing fast and it'll be violent.
Speaking of --
But you know what? I don't wanna be in worse. But one thing, you don't want to cut half of the people, half of the students, from all over the world that are coming into our country, destroy our entire university and college system. I don't wanna do that.
I wouldn't lose any sleep over it.
And don't forget, MAGA was my idea. MAGA was nobody else's idea. I know what MAGA wants better than anybody else, and MAGA wants to see our country thrive.
[Commercial break]
Um, Gavin Newsom had a message served for his fellow Democrats after, uh, this shutdown deal.
[Begin video clip]
[Video clip] Sounds like some of my colleagues and friends in the United States Senate, some of my Democratic colleagues, just decided that we're playing by the old set of rules, not the new set of rules. It may have rolled over a little bit. Right now, we've gotta hold the line because I think America will become unrecognizable in a year or two unless we fight back.
[End video clip]
He wants to fight, uh, harder and he thinks the Democrats aren't fighting hard enough against you and of course the Republicans, Gavin Newsom.
What the -- I mean, I knew Gavin for four years. I got along great with him, but he's gone radical left. And you know, he's building a train system from San Francisco to LA that's got about a 2000 or 3000% cost overrun. And it's the worst thing I've ever, I've never seen anything like it. I've seen cost overruns, I've never seen anything like that.
If you take a look at what he's done. So they lost 25,000 houses. Do you know they haven't issued one building permit yet. These people are trying to rebuild the houses.
Malibu. Mm-hmm.
But he did something, he did something even worse than that. He's now taking a big section of Palisades or some area and he's gonna build low-income housing where they used to have luxury housing. He's gonna put low-income housing in. His fire stuff is out of control. The forests are burning down all over the place.
And honestly, I always liked him, but he's a horrible governor. He's a horrible governor. If he ran the country like that, we would have an absolutely gonzo country. This country would be gone. The fact is, if I weren't president, if Kamala got in, uh, you wouldn't have, not only wouldn't you have $20 trillion coming in, you, you would have money leaving and your welfare system -- Take a look at some of the welfare things that we're talking about.
They've doubled, tripled and quadrupled since I left office.
SNAP benefits have, have -- Very high.
Well, SNAP has gone from like $7 billion to many times $7 billion. And you know, people keep talking about SNAP, but SNAP is supposed to be if you're down and out. You really, really have -- That's what the purpose of it. People are getting, they walk in and they get it automatically now. So the number is many times what it should be. Uh, it's disgraceful.
Can we, can we change that?
You wouldn't have been able -- I'll tell you what, this country would've been busted, 100% busted within five months into a new administration.
Can we, can we --
If I didn't win.
Can we reform SNAP?
Yeah.
And these benefits --
Yeah, I think we can reform them. I think, by sure.
-- So they're used for the people who really need them?
It's meant for people -- And you know, what it does is it really puts the comp- -- the country at jeopardy. People that need it have to get it. I'm all for it. But people that are able-bodied can do a job. They leave their job because they figure they can pick this up. It's easier. That's not the, the purpose of it.
So knives are out it looks like for Chuck Schumer.
Really?
Uh, Ro Khanna's already calling for him to be replaced. Um, what message do you have for Schumer tonight?
Well, I think he made a mistake in going too far. Uh, he --
Going too far how?
You know. I, well, he just went too far. He thought he could break the Republicans and the Republicans broke him. But he did think that -- We have, look, we have good policy. They have bad policy. And there's something, I don't know if it's Trump derangement or are they just crazed? They're like crazed lunatics.
But you know, we have just great policy. We have good people. They have some good people too. I know a lot of Democrats, they're not all crazy. They're not all. But you have some that are absolutely terrible. I look at this Crockett. This is a low, very low IQ person. And I look at somebody that comes from Somalia who, where they don't have anything.
They don't have police, they don't have military, they don't have anything. All they have is crime. And she comes in and tells us how to run our country. The Constitution says this, the Constitution. The whole thing is crazy. Uh, I feel badly because I've known Chuck Schumer. I knew him when he was a, uh, person --
Congressman.
-- Who loved Israel. And now he's a Palestinian. He's become a Palestinian. And it's amazing. I've never seen a politician change so much. Also, he's, he doesn't have, you know, he was a pretty talented guy. He's lost his talent.
Uh, Chicago Mayor, your dear friend Brandon Johnson, is calling on the United Nations to investigate what he calls the abusive immigration crackdowns in the city by your, um, uh, ICE officers and so forth. The UN and Chicago, what is your message to him?
Well, look, number one, he's got a 4% approval rating. You have, uh, people in Chicago, beautiful black women wearing a MAGA hat, red MAGA hat. "Please come Mr. Trump, uh, President." They, they call me president, they call me mister, they can call me whatever they want. "Please come, President Trump, please come to -- " They're begging us to come.
[Commercial break]
Michelle Obama had something to say about the ballroom and the new ballroom. During an event to promote her new book, she said, "When we talk about the East Wing, it's the heart of the work. And to denigrate it, to tear it down, to pretend like it doesn't matter, it's a reflection of how you think of that role." Why is she wrong?
Well, first of all, the East Wing was a, uh, beautiful little tiny structure that was built many years ago that was renovated and expanded, and disbanded, and columns ripped out. And it had nothing to do with the original building. Uh, it was a poor, sad site and I could have built the ballroom around it, but it would not have been -- We're building one of the greatest ballrooms in the world.
By the way, zero money spent by the government. Zero. The East Wing is being spent by private donors and it's a $250, $300 million building. It's gonna be the most beautiful anywhere in the world. It'll be a large, beautiful -- You know, they had a, an event the other day, they could held, with tables, they could hold 79 people.
Now, if you have President Xi from China, where if you have some big state event, we have no place to have it. You know what they did?
That's just regular people.
They put --
Just regular people invited.
And Ob- -- Obama wouldn't mind this. Mrs. Obama, obviously, wouldn't mind. They would put a tent on the lawn. It was a low section, because that's the only section you have. So it was a low section. If it rained, you were sitting in six inches of water. It was a disaster. We're gonna have the best ballroom anywhere in the world.
And I built a lot of them, you know that. You know a lot of them. This will be one of the greatest ballrooms in the world.
There was a report that Melania didn't love this idea. Is that, is that true?
Well, she, she loved her little tiny office and that, but you know what? In about -- She's very smart. In about one day, she think, if you would ask her now she says it's great. But just so you understand, the East Wing sounds good, right? It sounds good. But the East Wing, that building was renovated 20 times, including adding a floor to the top, which was terrible.
It was at a common brick, little tiny windows. It looked like hell. It had nothing to do with the original building. And I didn't wanna sacrifice a great ballroom for an okay ballroom by leaving it right smack in the middle.
In October, you were asked about ending wars and you talked about that and you said, "I don't think there's anything that's gonna get me into heaven. I think I'm not maybe e- -- e- -- heaven bound." A lot of Christians were sort of sad to hear that, because Christ came to forgive our sins, if you believe that as Christians and they open heaven to all of us. So don't you believe that?
So the other day, the New York Times did a story and took that statement totally literally. When I made that statement, I was being funny, sarcastic. You know, it's bad for a politician to be sarcastic. I said, "I'm never gonna make it to heaven." A big audience. "I don't think I can make it. I don't think I qualify." You know, et cetera.
I was kidding. I was having fun. I don't know if I will or not, I don't know. But The Times did a story, a little guy named Peter Baker. Peter Baker, who is the sycophant to Obama. You know, he wrote the Obama book like Obama was a good president. He was one of the worst. Biden was the worst. Obama was top three or four.
But, but think of this. I make this statement and The Times as the front page, "Donald Trump is now questioning his life and his this, and his that." I said to a group of people, a large group, I said, "I don't know if I'm gonna make it. I'm not so sure."
Mm-hmm.
But I'm gonna fight to ma- -- You know, et cetera, et cetera.
Yeah.
I was having fun and they made it like serious. The thing I thought I learned, but I forgot about it I guess when I made this little, is you can't be sarcastic as a politician or have fun, but I, I don't regret it. I don't regret it.
[This ended the first part of the interview that aired on November 10, 2025 on Fox News' The Ingraham Angle. The following was a brief clip Laura Ingraham released on social media of her tour of the Oval Office.]
You know the one thing with gold?
Why not silver?
You can't, uh, you can't imitate gold, real gold. There's no paint that imitates gold.
So these aren't like from Home Depot or something?
No, this is not Home Depot stuff. This is --
No, not stuff you buy from --
This is not Home Depot.
[Part 2 of the interview aired on November 11, 2025. It begins here.]
Are you going ahead and, and suing the BBC?
Well, I guess I have to. You know, why not? Because, uh, they, they defrauded the public and they've admitted it. And their top echelon, you know, uh, this is --
The Director General and the CEO both resigned.
This is within one of our great allies, you know. This is our, supposedly our great ally, BBC. The government has a chunk of that one, I guess. But, uh, that's a pretty sad event. They actually changed my January 6th speech, which was a beautiful speech, which was a very calming speech, and they made it sound radical and they actually changed it. What they did was rather incredible.
They're showing me the results later on, the results of what they did, how they butchered it up. But it was very dishonest and the head man quit, and a lot of the other people quit.
We're actually gonna play it right now.
We're gonna walk down to the Capitol and I'll be there with you, and we fight. We fight like hell. And if you don't fight like hell, you're not gonna have a country anymore. And after this, we're gonna walk down and I'll be there with you. We're gonna walk down. We're gonna walk down, anyone you want, but I think right here, we're gonna walk down to the Capitol and we're gonna cheer on our brave senators and congressmen and women.
And we're probably not gonna be cheering so much for some of them.
But tonight, you are saying to our viewers that you will go forward and file a defamation, uh, lawsuit against the BBC?
Well, I think I have an obligation to do it, because you can't get people, you can't allow people to do that. I couldn't allow 60 Minutes. You know, we settled that one for a lot, for many millions of dollars, and I couldn't have allowed that to take place. They changed the answer that Kamala gave. They took out the entire answer, and they put another answer in. The first answer was election defying.
The second answer was not good, but it wasn't a disaster, and they actually did that. They never did it with me.
Which Democrats should Republicans be most worried about going forward in 2028 perhaps?
Well, I wouldn't wanna say, 'cause that gives that person an immediate boost. It's like when they say, "Are you going to attack Venezuela? Are you going to attack this one? Are you going to attack --"
Yeah.
They say, "I'm not gonna tell you whether or not I am."
Yeah.
So I don't wanna really give you, but I, I think there's, we are doing phenomenally well. This is the greatest economy we've ever had. They're talking points. All costs are high cost. Sorry, by the way, the only thing is beef. Beef --
Coffee.
-- is a little high because the ranchers are doing great. Coffee. Coffee, we're gonna lower some tariffs. We're gonna have some coffee come in. Um, we're gonna take care of all this stuff very quickly, very easily. It's surgical, it's beautiful to watch, but our costs are way lower. Now, Walmart came out with a statement that they do every year for many, many decades, and they said that a Thanksgiving meal cost 25% less this Thanksgiving coming up. Think of that, than it did last Thanksgiving under sleepy Joe Biden.
That's a 25% reduction. I think that's right. And if you remember when I first came in, the first two days, I had a news conference, eggs, they were hitting me with eggs. Eggs had quadrupled in price, and they're screaming at me. I said, "I just got here. I didn't know about eggs." And Brooke Rollins, our agricultural commissioner, did a, secretary did a great job.
And now, eggs are what they were. We got eggs down. We get it all down. But our prices is much, are much lower. Their line is prices, affordability. That's the new word, affordability. It's much less expensive under Trump. And you'll, and I haven't been here long. Nine months is not a long time. But look at what I've done to energy, look at the price of gasoline going from 4.50 to 2.50 or 2.70, it's gonna be $2 gasoline.
People want affordable. And it's a --
Well, the economy is my thing, and we have the greatest economy in history.
Are Republicans not selling it enough?
Yes.
Or --
The Republicans don't talk about it.
Uh, so they need to do a better job --
Yeah.
-- on Capitol Hill of, of telling it.
The, the Democrats --
Okay.
-- give false talk. And the Republicans are --
Yeah.
And I say it all the time, Republicans have to talk about the fact that prices are down and of --
Don't, uh, they can --
The Walmart thing is very important. When Walmart says a Thanksgiving meal cost 25% less under Trump than under Biden, that, I mean, to me that's better than any --
So Republicans need to spend more time talking about how great the country is and less time complaining about the Democrats?
We have potentially the greatest economy in the history of our country. We have, again, uh, Biden did, in just a short period of time, Biden couldn't raise anything. He, no investment. I think investment went out of our country. I'm now at almost $18 trillion in nine months. That's the biggest in the history of the world.
China's never done it, never done anywhere near that. And all that money is coming in. It's investment. It's building auto plants, it's building AI plants.
And so that's where --
Well, by the way, we're leading --
Yeah.
-- China by a lot on AI. We have potentially the greatest eco- -- already, it is, but we have, when these things open up, there's never gonna be a country like what we have right now.
And does that mean --
The Republicans have to talk about it, Laura.
And does that mean the H-1B visa thing will not be a big priority for your administration? 'Cause if you wanna raise wages for American workers, you can't flood the country with, with tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of foreign workers.
Look, I agree, but you also do have to bring in talent. When a country took --
Well, we have plenty of talented people here.
No, no you don't. No, you don't.
We don't have talented people here?
Laura, you're being na- -- no, you don't have, you don't have certain talents. And you have to, people have to learn. You can't take people off an unemploy- -- uh, like an unemployment line and say, "I'm gonna put you into a factory. We're gonna make missiles. Or I'm gonna put you --"
How do we ever do it before --
Well, lemme just --
-- when you and I were growing up --
I'll give you an example. In Georgia, they raided because they wanted illegal immigrants out. They had people from, from South Korea that made batteries --
Hyundai.
-- all their lives. You know, making batteries are very complicated. It's not a easy thing. A very dangerous, a lot of explosions, a lot of problems. They had like 500 or 600 people, early stages, to make batteries and to teach people how to do it.
Mm-hmm.
Well, they wanted them to get out of the country. You're gonna need that, Laura. I mean, I know you and I disagree on this. You can't just say, "Uh, a country's --"
Well --
-- coming in, gonna invest $10 billion to build a plant and gonna take --
Yeah.
-- people off an unemployment line who haven't worked in five years --
All right.
-- and they're gonna start making their missiles. It doesn't work that way.
Well --
[Commercial break]
The new ballroom will go from here to there, and you'll see a proper number of people, and the White House will finally have, after 150 years, the ballroom that they wanted.
Wow.
You know what? They've waited 150 years and the public is paying for nothing. The, the public is paying for absolutely nothing where it's all being done by donors all the way over there. It'll be beautiful. One of the most beautiful in the world. Come on. Okay. You know, a lot of people don't know that. They don't say that there's no cost.
That is, that's some room over there.
That's unbelievable.
Now, I'm gonna show you. So this is the presidential walk of fame.
Now, whose idea was this?
My idea. Everything is my idea.
Everything's your idea. Okay.
Yeah, sadly. Um --
Who's that guy?
That's Barack Hussein Obama.
Okay.
This is, uh, Biden right here.
Wait a second. The profile --
The worst president.
The profile of Biden is a little --
So he's the worst president in the history of our country, and Barack Hussein Obama is top five. Meaning, bad.
Are you gonna replace that with his actual photo?
No, I don't think so. Look at the faces on these people. Those are serious faces, right?
Oh, oh, for sure.
Every one of them is a tough cookie.
Do you think these will stay up --
Uh --
-- after you've left office?
Well, I, I think they should. Uh, on the bottom here, this isn't what, what, yeah, they're being made. We have a plaque that goes of, uh, that describes in a couple of hundred words.
In detail? Mm-hmm.
Important, right?
Yep, very important.
And, uh, they're beautiful, beautiful bronze plaques. Goes up under each picture describing.
Hmm.
Look at the scene over here, fellas. Look, how beautiful is that? Come on over here, take a look.
This is the new Rose Garden, but the --
And now, you can have news, and that's the same stone as the White House. So now, you can have news conferences. You can, you know, nobody could stand in the mud.
Where did you get the stone?
Uh, different places.
Different places?
Yeah.
Hmm. Why was it in --
But I'll show you, I'll show you, uh, something. This is the equivalent of what I do with the ballroom. I built many ballrooms --
Oh.
-- and many buildings, and that's my greatest strength, actually. I might as well do this. So this room was in terrible shape. This was done by Jackie Kennedy. Uh, Jackie Kennedy Onassis, then Jackie Kennedy, I hope. And she took this area. It's called the Palm Court. And here we had one by one, little tiles were all broken, cheap out of a box.
Mm-hmm.
The walls weren't good. Uh, we took it, I restored it. I put in new chandeliers. They had lanterns that were terrible.
I remember this room.
Yeah. It was a nothing room.
Yeah.
It was an embarrassment right then.
There were seat, there was a seat, a be- -- bench right underneath there.
Correct.
Yeah.
To come to the Oval Office, you had to go through this room. It was an embarrassment. Okay?
Mm-hmm.
And I took it down and rebuilt it. Same as she had it, but at a much higher level. And take a look at the floor. Take a look at the marble. So this is called --
It is, it is really pretty.
-- statue with a marble. But look at, look at the book ending. Look at, look at the book match. Look how it matches.
That's tough to do.
Yeah, it's very tough. You don't get it. If it's an eighth of an inch off, it's no good.
Is that brass, the brass?
That's a brass, two brass strips.
Mm-hmm.
But even if you look at the air conditioner vent, it's bookmatched.
Oh, yeah.
Look at that. Who can do that? I can do that 'cause I know that, you know, it's even available that you could do that.
Mm-hmm.
Very few people can do it. So you take a vent that's supposed to be a piece of aluminum or steel, and the marble man said, I said, "You think you could bookmatch a vent?" "A vent," he said, "yeah, look at the other one over there, book match." But look at the quality of that job.
Where do, where do you think you developed the attention to architectural detail? Like at what age did you start realizing that's what you could do?
Well, I was always, yeah, I was involved with my father and building and all this stuff, and my father was a builder. So as a little boy, I'd be sitting there playing with blocks, I guess. And my father would be on the phone, "Oh, dah, dah," you know, and I'd be listening, I guess. And you know, you listen.
I had a father who was very good as, at building. He was very good at building things, and so am I. I build better than anybody else. Nobody can build like me.
But was his --
You can ask Steve Witkoff, who is the best builder? He would tell you.
Did your dad have the same attention to the specific details that you did?
Well, he built low, moderate, and composite --
Yeah, so it was a different type of build.
-- so he didn't have to do a floor like this.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, he'd do a floor out of tile, linoleum, at the time they used to call it.
Mm-hmm.
And it would be a different kind of a thing. But he had a tremendous attention to quality. In other words, if it's gonna be even, you know, a regular floor, it would be exactly, even exactly straight. It would fit perfectly. But when you look at that, look at that job, nobody's ever seen that work.
It's impos- -- do, do any of your kids have that same delicate attention to detail that you have? Because that's, that's, kind of, you can't really teach that.
I think they do. I think Eric is very good. Don, in a very different way as good. Ivanka is, you know.
Mm-hmm.
Uh, Tiffany is very smart. She's been, she was a great student. Always a great student. They're all great students. Actually, they're all great students. And I think Baron's gonna be, uh, tremendous at that. Yeah, he's very meticulous.
Is he here?
He is. He's here.
Oh.
He's right upstairs. Wanna see him?
Studying. Yeah. I'd love to see him.
He's doing a good job. He's tall.
A lot of people think --
He's a tall one.
A lot of people think he could be the next Trump president.
I don't know. I think --
Or even before. A lot of people are wondering who, which child would be the best --
-- you know, in a certain way, they all could. Take a look at this, fellas. You wanna see detail. So, like the sign, most people would just do a sign, they'd paint it on the wall. So that's half inch thick bronze carved by a very talented person, and it's brass, it's pure brass. It's half inch thick brass, and you can't just do that, that's, you know, you look at that, that's quality, right?
And then we start with George Washington, and we go down to Trump.
Mm-hmm, Mm-hmm.
Pretty cool, right?
Where your speakers 'cause I heard this --
All here.
They're in the bushes?
Yep. They're all, yep, they're all here, so you don't see them.
When did you decide you want, you were a frustrated DJ. How long ago was that?
Well, I, I don't do that much, but, but I think having good sound is important.
Mm-hmm.
'Cause we do now news conferences on this space.
Mm-hmm.
You know, as you know, you were probably a victim to it.
You're falling.
You stand in the grass, your high heels would be ruined. The women are, you know, walking out without, so I had to make it a hard surface. So I made it the same color as the White House itself, which worked out great.
Mm-hmm.
We just, we just moved the tables. This over here was actually taken out of the East Wing.
Oh, is that right?
This was done by the, this was carved --
Oh, yeah, that was Borglum.
-- by the carver who did Mount Rushmore.
Yep. Beautiful.
And this was taken from the East Wing. We took all the good stuff.
Okay.
[An additional segment aired on November 12, 2025.]
Is the old executive office building color going to be changed? I've heard rumor of that.
I may. Well, I'll show you a picture of it before, uh, and after and you'll make a determination.
Okay.
Okay, you did hear that.
I, I heard --
That's amazing.
I heard it maybe, I worked in the OEOB during the Reagan administration [Laughs].
So, you know, it was always considered --
Grayish, in color.
-- an ugly building.
I kind of like it.
And it's actually one of the most beautiful buildings ever built.
Yeah, I kind of like it.
[Edit in interview]
Look at that. How beautiful that is. With a coat of paint.
So is it just painting?
It's all painting. Most of it's painting.
So what is it now? Just natural?
It's cleaning and pointing and painting. It needs other work too. Look at that how beautiful that is.
But you're not worried it's like a big white blob? That's --
No. No.
No.
What it does is it brings out all the details.
See you're a builder. I'm not. I have no aesthetic sense.
No, it really, it brings out the details. Do you understand, Raymond?
I do.
Suck up.
When that building was built --
Suck up.
People considered it a really ugly building. And I looked at it, and some other people, it was one of the most beautiful buildings ever built. When you see that, well, look at, look at this, Raymond. Oh, there it, this it is. Look, There it is before.
There it is.
It sort of has an Addams Family aesthetic, I have to say. So you're cleaning up the Addams Family aesthetic.
No, it's highlighting, you know, each window is surrounded by columns. There's never been anything like this.
Oh, look at that. You know, you don't see those in the other, before you...
You don't even see the columns.
My office was on the other side a long time ago.
Maybe that's what gave it the attitude.
It's called, you know what it's called? They use graystone. Gray. Gray is for funerals.
Ahh, yeah.
But it's called graystone. Look at it now, how beautiful that is.
Gorgeous.
When is that planned for?
I don't even know if I'm going to do it yet. I mean, I'm getting costs from, I'm getting bids right now from painters, and we'll see. It'll be a great addition to Washington.