Mr. President, thanks so much for joining us, truly appreciate it, 24 hours before your Alaska summit. What's your mindset?
Well, I'm going to go there and I'm representing a lot of people and especially people that are being killed unnecessarily, like 5,000 to 7,000 soldiers a week. They're not Americans, but they're lives, they're souls. And if I can stop something -- I've stopped six wars this year. This was going to be one of my easy ones, but it never works out that way.
This turns out to be probably the most difficult. I stopped one that was raging for 35 years, one that was raging in the Congo with Rwanda, you know that, for 31 years. And this one was -- is raging for three and a half years and I'm not happy about it. It's ridiculous and we're going to get it stopped. We're going to get it stopped.
I inherited this from Joe Biden, but we're going to get it stopped.
So Vladimir Putin just spoke and we -- I have the readout, if I could share it with you.
Go ahead.
Is he just said, the American administration, which as everyone knows, is making, in my opinion, quite energetic and sincere efforts to stop the hostilities, stop the crisis and reach agreements that are in the interest of all parties involved in this conflict in order to create long-term conditions of peace between our countries and in Europe and in the world as a whole.
If we reach agreements in the area of control of strategic offensive weapons at the next stage -- and then it's cut off. So he seems to be in the right mindset going in. How will you know if he's in the mindset for a ceasefire and a long-term end to the conflict?
Well, I think you'll know that in the first couple of minutes, but I think you already know that because he's coming to Alaska. He's coming to the USA. And I think you know that. I think that's a nice statement. I just heard it. You gave me a little breaking news. I appreciate it. But I think he wants to get it done.
I really feel he wanted the whole thing. I think if it weren't me, if it was somebody else, he would be not talking to anybody. He wasn't talking. You know, when I was -- previous to being elected -- unfortunately, the 2020 election where we did so well, it was very unfortunate, the result. But what happened is when I came in, I realized, I said this is a man that really wants the whole thing and I think he does want the whole thing, and I think he has wanted the whole thing.
But because of -- because of a certain relationship that he has with me running this country, he's -- he really -- I believe now he's convinced that he's going to make a deal. He's going to make a deal. I think he's going to, and we're going to find out. I'm going to know very quickly. We're going to go into the meeting.
We're going to see him. We're going to -- I won't do what Bush did, look him in the eye. I'm not going to do that. I'll look him right in the eye, but I feel a little bit differently than Bush. It didn't work out too well for Bush. Remember this, Brian, under Bush, they lost a lot of land. Under Obama, they lost a lot of land, Crimea.
Under Biden, they would have lost the whole thing, if he had won the president -- they would have lost the entire Ukraine, and they had the war started, and raging. It would have never -- it would have never started if I were president, not even a chance. And it didn't for four years. You know that.
Nobody ever even talked about it. But under Trump, you know what they got, nothing. They got nothing, except javelins, except javelins hitting their tanks and lots of other things. And remember this, I was the one that stopped Nord Stream 2. You know, they always like to say, oh, Trump won Putin, oh, Trump is working for Putin.
You know, these crooked people, which they just found out now is all -- they should -- they should be prosecuted, they're so dis -- you know, disgraceful. But they made up stories. As Putin knows, I'm the toughest one that he's ever had to deal with. He's never had to deal with any -- anybody like me.
Right.
And here's the other thing, Brian, they got nothing out of Trump. They got no land. They didn't do a Bush, they didn't do an Obama and they didn't do a Biden.
So the way I understand it, Mr. President, it's hard to find out exactly what's going on in Russia. By the way, they're made up, even the people of Russia don't know what's going on.
Right.
It looks like 45 percent of their economy is military-oriented. Their factories are so -- are so depleted. They're having North Koreans work the factories and do their fighting. Do you believe that by saying -- shrinking down from 50 to 10 days and just a handful of days, was that threat is the reason why Steve Witkoff heard from them that they wanted to meet?
Do you think that's the reason we're having this meeting in Alaska, because you are about to put on sanctions?
I think it -- everything has an impact. When I told India, and which essentially took them out of buying oil from Russia, that we're going to charge you because you're dealing with Russia and oil purchases -- India was the second largest and getting pretty close to China. China is the largest. And as you know, there was something in the works for that.
And then they called and they wanted to meet and we're going to see what the meeting means. But certainly, when you lose your second largest customer and you're probably going to lose your first largest customer, I think that probably has a role. I think he respects our country now. He didn't respect it under Biden.
He respected -- nobody respected us under Biden. But he respects our country now.
Right.
And we have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We had a country -- the markets raging. Look at the reports coming out. Everybody's moving back to the United States, car companies, AI companies. Everybody's moving back. They're all starting their factories now. They're all -- we've never had anything like this.
It's -- it is truly the golden age of America. But he respects our country now. He did not respect our country with Biden. Who did?
Right. I know you're a big athlete. You not only watch sports, you play sports. You always have to try to rethink what's going to happen. You have to picture, how is this going to happen, so you know how you act. So the one thing that some people have said is the incentive that could get his attention is economic incentives.
Are you walking in that room with economic incentives for Russia in order to stop the fighting?
Well, I'd rather not say because I don't want to play my hand in public, but whatever my hand is, economic incentives and disincentives maybe are more important in a way, but incentives economically. You know, Russia's got a tremendous potential. They have the largest piece of land, by far.
Right.
It's massive. It's got great wealth on it [Inaudible]
But all they do is oil. All they do is oil and gas. They can't even -- they can't even farm.
Well -- but that's OK. Oil and gas is a very profitable business.
Yeah.
You know that's better than I make shirts, t-shirts. You know, oil and gas, if you say that's all they do, that's -- if you're going to have one business, that's good. That's the business to have, and they have it.
[Inaudible]
So, you know, they have a lot of advantages going over most countries because -- because of the fact they have oil and gas at, you know, massive numbers, like we do. And yeah, economic -- economic sanctions are very powerful and economic incentives are very powerful, both.
Marc Thiessen, who I know you respect, from The Washington Post writes this --
I do. He's great.
Vladimir Putin's goal is to buy more time. To avoid that trap, all President Trump has to do is hold firm to his stated position that both sides need to agree on a ceasefire now. He will push for a partial or sectional ceasefire. That would be worse than no ceasefire because it would give Russia a military advantage.
Your thoughts on his conclusions.
Well, he's a very talented person and I think he's a real, you know, journalist, want to give you the highest -- I want to give him the highest accolades. I have a lot of respect for Mark. I read him. I'll talk to him every once in a while, and he has some good thoughts. And so, you know, I don't know that we're going to get an immediate ceasefire, but I think it's going to come.
See, I'm more interested in immediate peace deals, getting peace fast. And depending on what happens with my meeting, I'm going to be calling up President Zelenskyy and let's get him over to wherever we're going to meet. I don't know where we're going to have the second meeting, but we have an idea of three different locations, and we'll be including the possibility because it would be by far the easiest, of staying in Alaska.
You know, we have -- we have big flights of -- and he has the same thing. We have a lot of planes going when the head of Russia, the head of the United States, you know, etc., etc., go. So --
Wow. So Mr. President, did you tell Zelenskyy to be ready? Did you tell him to be ready to come, should you start making legitimate progress?
I don't want to talk about a second meeting even to him. I don't want to even indicate there might be a second meeting, maybe they will, maybe they won't. So I don't want to talk that. It's not --
OK.
It's not important enough. But it would be certainly convenient if we had a very good meeting, because I'm going to let them negotiate their deal. I'm not going to negotiate their deal. I'm going to let them negotiate their deal. So we're going to be calling President Zelenskyy, if it's a good meeting. If it's a bad meeting, I'm not calling anybody.
I'm going home. I'll call you, I'll do Fox and Friends some morning and we'll have a lot of fun. But if it's a good meeting, I'm going to call President Zelenskyy and the European leaders, who as you know, I have a very good relationship with. They agreed to pay five percent and nobody thought they'd even pay two percent.
They were -- they were paying two, but they weren't paying, a lot of them. So -- and they're paying five. They're very unified. I've never seen anything like it. Nobody can believe what we did. I saved NATO. I saved it the first time and made it very rich the second time. So, you know, it's quite a -- it's quite an achievement, I think.
Yeah. I know you were on with him for about an hour yesterday, but just on what you were saying, the way I understand it, Karoline Leavitt had joined Fox and Friends today and she said the format is, if I got it right, is you're going to meet and there's going to be a press conference after. Will you be shoulder to shoulder with Vladimir Putin again?
Last time was Helsinki.
We haven't. I thought we had a press conference last time. It was the fake news tried to make it bad, in particular, MSDNC. They tried to make it bad. These are very dishonest people, but it was a great news conference. You know? It was rated phenomenal and then about two or three or four hours later, they came up with this stupid scheme about me and Russia and what did we say at the meeting, and, you know, where do we get the tapes?
You know, the old story. But no, I thought we had a great meeting. And don't forget we were under a lot of pressure because we had the Russia hoax going on. So I told him, I said, you know, it's going to be very hard. And he told me too, he understood it's going to be very hard for us to make an economic deal, economic development deal of any kind because I have the Russia hoax going on, and anything I do with Russia --
That was 2017, right?
-- they say, oh, I'm owned by Putin. You know, which is not -- not even close, not even close.
So Mr. President, you're going to have a press conference today after the meeting, correct?
I'm going to have a press conference. I don't know if it's going to be a joint. We haven't even discussed it. I think it might be nice to have a joint and then separates. So something like that will happen. Or if the meeting doesn't end well, I'll just have a press conference and head out. I'll head back to Washington.
So yeah, if it's not positive, you might -- you might head back. Is there any situation --
No, if it's not positive, I will head back.
Oh, I know that. I mean, you'll just head right back, you won't have the press conference. I know you're coming back. But --
No, I would say I'll have a press conference in either event.
OK.
If it's negative, I'll have a press conference to say that the war is going to go on and these people are horribly going to continue to shoot each other and kill each other and I think it's a disgrace, and I'll head back to Washington. Or I'll have a press conference that's positive. You know, in doing six wars, I mean six wars, think of it and I obliterated and now the term obliterated can be used because the Atomic Energy Commission, everybody said total obliteration.
These pilots did a phenomenal job. CNN and their fake reporter tried to -- who's just a scammer. CNN tried to say that, well, maybe the hit wasn't quite as good.
Right.
Maybe it wasn't obliteration. Maybe -- you know, anything to hurt people, anything to demean. And in this case, they were demeaning the incredible people that flew in an airplane for 36 hours back and forth, and did one of the most perfect attacks in the history of our country. No, it was a total obliteration.
No, no, I hear you. So I just think it's very interesting and I don't want to dwell too much on it. But the whole Russia situation with Hillary Clinton comes up with -- to try to make it seem like you colluded with Russia in order to win an election. You're saying that hurt US Russian relations because Putin, with all of his terrible track record -- that's my view, not yours, perhaps, but that's in my words.
With his terrible track record and with his horrible invasion that he did and what he does to his neighbors, he actually didn't infiltrate the election besides hacking John Podesta's emails. And you're saying it hurt US relations throughout your four years.
They don't even know about John Podesta's emails. They had a couple of hackers who spent, in some cases, $50, $49.95, $101 and $103.
Right.
That's what they have. That's what -- and these were hackers. These were people probably in Russia that took ads. They took ads for like -- this was the -- it had nothing to do with, frankly, Russia, had nothing to do with me. No, they created a story. I remember when I saw -- I saw it on one of the networks.
They were saying -- after Hillary lost. This was going to be just a quick, one-day, two-day excuse for why she lost and the fake news picked it up and went with it. They do the same thing with the Epstein crap. They do the same exact thing. It's the exact same thing, anything they can do to demean.
Right.
So what happens is they pick it up. And I remember it, one of the people -- I won't even mention who now because it could be that he's got problems and I'm not going to get involved in that. But got up and said, well, Russia was the reason we lost. And that was the first time I said, Russia? I'm listening to this, I'm saying -- this is like the day after the election, shortly after the election.
I said, what's that all about? But I didn't think much about it. You know, I figured it was an excuse, which it was. But what happened is the fake news picked it up and made it a two-year ordeal.
Right.
And then it turned out with the Mueller report, think of this, 18 different people we had, 18 different people on that Mueller. Every one was an anti-Trump. Every single one of them was a negative Trumper. And you know what, they ruled --
Gotcha.
-- that I did absolutely nothing wrong.
Right.
So in one way -- I was very impressed by that, actually, if you want to know the truth. I had somebody of the 18 -- I had somebody in there who was an angel because it's almost impossible for that. They could have ruled whatever they wanted to do. They could have made up a story like they do so often. And, you know, guys like Wiseman and some of these real scum -- they're real scum --
Right.
-- they were so involved in that. He wrote a book about how -- and he was on the -- I think he was one of the guys on the commission [Inaudible]
Well, he was -- they said he was the brain behind Robert Mueller, who lost his fastball, sadly. I think he's doing some physical problems. Just real quick on that. Melania, the First Lady, Melania Trump is suing Hunter Biden for $1 billion because he said that Jeffrey Epstein introduced you to each other and she's suing Hunter for $1 billion.
Is that the right thing to do?
Well, I said, go forward. You know, I've done pretty well on these lawsuits lately and I said, go forward with it. Jeffrey Epstein had nothing to do with Melania and introducing, but they do that to demean. They make up stories.
Gotcha.
I mean, I could tell you exactly how it was, and it was another person, actually. I did meet through another person, but it wasn't Jeffrey Epstein. Yeah. I told her, let's go ahead and do it. I let her use my lawyers. She was very upset about it.
Right. So let's talk about -- there's so much going on. And my last question to this real quick, is there any scenario where Donald Trump will look at this meeting in Alaska and say, this was not worth it, I failed?
Yeah, 25 percent, 25 percent chance.
And you would say -- you would say that if he just says, hey, I'm going to just -- I'm going to stay with --
Sure, I wasted all the time and energy and went over there and we didn't come out with -- in a short period of time, not from this meeting. This meeting sets up the second meeting. The second meeting is going to be very, very important because that's going to be a meeting where they uh make a deal. And I don't want to use the word, divvy things up, but you know, to a certain extent, it's not a bad term.
OK? But there will be a give and take as to boundaries lands, etc., etc. The second meeting is going to be very, very important.
Right.
This meeting sets up -- it's like a chess game. This meeting sets up the second meeting, but there is a 25 percent chance that this meeting will not be a successful meeting, in which case, I will run the country. And we have made America great again already in six months [Inaudible]
And you'll hit them with consequences, right? You'll hit them with more sanctions. The Senate sanctions go front and center if he disrespects --
I would.
Yeah?
Oh, sure, if it's not solved. Look, again, we didn't lose any soldiers. We didn't lose anybody. But this was a war -- if I didn't get in here, this could have been World War III, I'm telling you. Biden had no idea. He had no clue what was happening.
Right.
This was getting so bad. And at a minimum, I've calmed it way down. I think you'd agree with that, way, way down. But they're still losing thousands of soldiers a week and we have to --
Right.
-- we have to get that taken care of.
So in Washington, D.C., you did something substantial, and that is put the National Guard in, federalized troops, got rid of the sanctuary city status. And for 30 days, you're trying to bring some semblance of order, extreme order to Washington D.C.
Right.
I want you to hear what the mayor said about what you're doing. This is Mayor Muriel Bowser. And here's what she said, cut two.
[Begin audio clip]
[Audio clip] We all need to -- to do what we can in our space, in our lane, to protect our city and to protect our autonomy and get to the other side of this guy, make sure we elect the Democratic House so that we have a backstop to this authoritarian push.
[End audio clip]
She's not welcoming the additional law enforcement.
Well, she actually is, but she doesn't want to say it, OK? Because crime in Washington D.C. is totally out of control, worse than ever. And as you know, they fired, or something happened to the person that does the stats because they wanted him -- him, in this case, I think, to do stats which were much better in terms of crime.
And they were changing crimes to, you know, this kind of a crime that kind of a crime doesn't get counted anymore and all that. So it --
So you don't believe those stats?
It's actually, worse. It's worse now than ever before. You know that. Anybody that lives here knows that. I have never had so many calls thanking me. I tell you.
Right.
And I look at those streets and those streets are safe, and they're going to be very safe in a week or so. Look what I did at the border. I had millions of people coming in the year before. Think of it, millions and millions of people. And within -- without legislation -- you know, Biden said we have to get legislation changed.
You didn't need any of that. It was just an excuse for incompetence. And the last three months -- the last three months, Brian, we had zero people. It was a zero, zero and zero. Even I find that hard to believe, but it's like -- you know, it's like, somebody did it. And I hear the people that do it are the same people that were doing the BLS and all the other different things that they do with the fake reports.
But you know what, they gave it a zero, I'll take it. But essentially, it's very close to zero or it's zero for 90 days now. Nobody believes it's -- even the Republicans can't -- I'm getting calls from Senators and Congressmen and women and they're saying, that's amazing. But that is, frankly, I believe it's more difficult than what we have here.
But we have, inherently, some very, very dangerous people living in Washington D.C., and we got to get them out.
And it was your DOGE worker, your 19-year-old Elon Musk protege --
Oh, boy.
-- that got beat within an inch of his life, was that the turning point for you?
Yeah, he's lucky to live --
Is that when you said, I can't wait anymore?
No. No. I was going to do this before that, but this made me do it faster.
Got it.
When that happened to this young man, who's a wonderful young guy, when that happened -- and, you know, they hit him with like 10 guys all at one time. He got hit so fast he didn't know what happened. You know, he showed great bravery. He got the girl -- his girlfriend in the car, and lock the door, lock the door.
You know, they were under -- because he saw them coming. He said, what the hell, look at that. It was a pack and they were coming. I don't mean a political pack. It may have been a political pack too, who knows? You know, you never know.
Teenagers.
Nowadays, you never know, but it was a pack -- and they call it a pack. So they were violent -- they were violent kids and frankly, he couldn't believe he woke up alive.
Mr. President, do you think that putting these troops in there and these -- this Democratic mayor is not necessarily embracing, at least publicly, and what you did in Los Angeles, despite that the governor didn't want it and the mayor didn't want it, you sent in backups Marines and National Guard, do you think that's -- that might force Democratic cities to crack down on crime so you don't have to?
Yeah, the good politicians, the smart ones, the sane people will and the other ones will go out of their way to try and show them that I'm wrong on crime. Look, this is another, you know, they call them 80/20s. I think it's 100 to nothing. But they're going to have to handle it the way they want. I'm there to help.
But if I see a city going bad -- I said it last time. Last time, I went right by every perfect little edict and rule and I'd let the governors run their stuff and they'd run it into the ground. I had that wacko in Minnesota. You saw what happened in Minneapolis. And if I didn't send in the troops, you wouldn't have Minnesota.
You wouldn't have Minneapolis standing today. You saw how bad it was. But I sent in the troops very late because he wouldn't do it. He wasn't -- he was -- the whole city was burning down. That was a wacko that ran for -- ran for vice president [Inaudible]
Governor Waltz.
Yeah, he was a real beauty. But -- but again, I said, if I ever do this again -- this is what I was thinking about it, I said, I'm going to act before the fact. I'm not going to act after the fact. And, you know, you see what they did to Portland. You see -- it's not going to happen this time, not going to happen.
Now, Gavin Newsom wouldn't have a Los Angeles then. You know, we have the Olympics coming. That was a part of my thinking there too. We have the Olympics coming. He just lost 25,000 houses -- houses to fires that shouldn't have happened. It was only because he didn't allow water to come into that part of Los Angeles, or frankly, into California, because he cut off the water.
They send it out to the Pacific Ocean, but I overrode him. After the fires, I overrode him and they have water coming down. They should be allowing more and we're going to go into that next.
Wow.
But Gavin Newsom, if he would have allowed the water, you wouldn't have had a fire. But -- but I said, if I don't send people in, you're not going to have a city for the Olympics. We have the Olympics coming.
And the World Cup.
[Inaudible] you already have 25,000 houses and they -- and by the way, they're not able to get the permits for them. You know, the federal government, with Lee Zeldin, who's fantastic. The federal government got all the permits and gave them all the permits necessary. They can build their houses. But the state and the city are not getting them the permits after that [Inaudible]
And, you know, I know that for a fact because I know people out there. Only one percent of the permits has been given. It's an embarrassment and they're getting away with it, which is sickening. I want to talk about California.
You know what they want to do, they want to build low income housing. They want to take away some of the sites that are owned by people and build low income housing --
You can't do.
-- and destroy the whole beauty of that area. I was there right after the fire, very closely to immediately after the fire, as soon as I felt it was -- you know, it was the right time, but immediately. And I met the people, many of them -- and they were all standing in front of their sites. There were literally ashes.
The steel was wrapped up in balls. It was -- so it was like a blowtorch because of the winds. And I went there and I saw every person on two or three streets I went to, every family was in front of their house with a yellow cord, you can't go on it. And they said, we want to start immediately, sir. I said, why don't you start?
They won't let us. I gave them the federal permits almost immediately. That's the hardest permit to get, by the way, and they still don't have their permits, Brian [Inaudible]
And you told -- and you told Mayor Bass, let them do it, and she said she would. She wants them to be safe. He goes, they know how to be safe. It was -- to me, it was one of your finest moments because she didn't do anything. You were great.
She said -- remember that [Inaudible] she said -- she said, we'll get them over a two year period. Do you remember that?
Yep.
I said, two years, you mean two days? She said, no, two years.
Mr. President, I lost all my stuff there in a fire in Malibu in the 90s and they still hadn't rebuilt it seven years later. But I want to talk about Gavin Newsom.
Wow. They're incompetent.
Yeah.
They have an incompetent governor. He's an incompetent governor, and the mayor is grossly incompetent. And that worries me because we have the Olympics going there.
Well, you know, Gavin Newsom is taking you on. He thinks that's his best path to being the next President of the United States, in my view. And he posted on X. He gave you a warning, instead of Governor Abbott, saying that you -- if you allow Governor Abbott to go through with his gerrymander, he's going to do that in California.
He posted this, I guess trying to take the Trump approach, Donald Taco Trump, as many call him, missed the deadline. California will not draw -- will now draw new, more beautiful maps. They will be historic and they will end the Trump presidency. The Dems will take back the House in the midterms. What's your take on Gavin's warning that you missed?
Well, Gavin is an incompetent governor. The state has gone to hell. You see what's happened to Los Angeles. And if I didn't send the troops in, you probably wouldn't have much of a Los Angeles standing right now. Those troops did a hell of a job. And you know who loved it, the sheriff and the police. Now, after about a week or so, then the sheriff started to say, well, maybe we can -- the sheriff -- take a look at the sheriff's statement the first day or two.
They asked him, do you need the troops, he said, absolutely, we can't do this by ourselves. Now, he changed his tone about a -- two weeks later because we had already taken care of the problem.
But what about the gerrymandering? Do you worry that Democrats are going to counter your gerrymandering when you go into Indiana?
Well, they're going to try that anyway.
Yeah.
They've done that far before we did.
OK.
Take a look at Illinois with that slob of a governor they have up there, total incompetent. Take a look at that. Take a look at Illinois, what happened. Look, you have -- you have places that look like snakes. They're going back and forth, you know, hit a little Democrat area here, hit one there, hit one there.
So are you going to encourage Florida to do it? Are you going to encourage Florida to redistrict --
I watched Ron. I watched Ron. I thought it was fantastic. He's going to find a couple of areas where he can do it, why not? They're doing it. But not only are they doing it, they've done it. They may be petered out. I don't know. But they've done it. And you just take a look at some of those states, it's ridiculous.
I mean, you have -- you know, normally, you'd like to see a nice rectangle or a nice square, right? They have things that go throughout the whole area. They look like rattlesnakes. [Inaudible]
I know it's -- it's -- it's incredible, but I want to talk, if we can, just a little bit about China. Big story out today that China is about to overtake America in the electric car and really outstrip Tesla. They probably took a lot of the technology. Your thoughts about losing the electric car business to China.
Does that worry you?
I don't like losing any business to China. We're leading in AI. We're leading in so much. They know it. We're way ahead of them in terms of chips. We have Jensen and all these guys that are phenomenal. We're way ahead of them. Now the Blackwell is coming out. It's -- it's so advanced that they won't catch it for years.
No, we're leading them. The electric car is different. See, I don't -- you know, do I care? Yeah, I don't like it, but I am a believer that somebody should buy all cars. You should -- if you want to buy a gasoline powered car -- you know, we have more -- we have more oil and gas than any other country and I say, if you want to buy something where we have under the ground -- you know, the batteries, China has that, but we have oil and gas.
And a lot of people want -- look, it seems to be so far like a seven or 10 percent market.
Right.
China has gone all out. If they catch us -- I don't know. You know, they're not coming into here. You know, I have tariffs so they can't come to [Inaudible]
They can't come in with that brand-new car. I want to go back to immigration, if I can. Mr. President [Inaudible]
You understand that.
Yeah.
I don't want them destroying our automobile business. Somebody else would let them in and in about six months, we wouldn't have an automobile business in this country.
I know. It's going to cost like $21,000, and Europe is trying to keep them out too. Mr. President, as you know, you've sealed the border in a way that I don't think anyone thought was possible, but because of that you have an interesting situation. You have people here for generations that, of course, you're not -- they're not going to get citizenship, but they've been working on farms.
A lot of farmers voted for you. They work in hospitality. A lot of hospitality workers voted for you. They work in meatpacking areas. Do you have a plan -- and I know some Republicans are going to get upset by this, but do you have a plan to give them long-term work visas, not citizenship, to not hurt the people -- not hurt our economy?
So as you know, I won the election with the farmers by like 88 percent. I won the election with the people that want strong borders by probably 100 percent, I would imagine, right? I mean, how could you vote for somebody that wants open borders and never call the Border Patrol, that never went to the site.
You know, the border czar never even went to the border. So I must have gotten, I don't know what it is, but let's assume it's like 130 percent. So I won the border. I won everything. And to be honest, I love all those people. They have a little bit different thing in life. The farmers want to have people that can work very hard in the fields and the other people don't want to have anybody from outside of our country.
And I am working on a plan that I think is going to make everybody very happy. We have to take care of our farmers. We love our farmers. But we also have to take care of people that want total security and safety in our country. We're going to take care of both.
Do you think within three months you'll have an answer to the hospitality workers, meat packers and farmers? Because I think they make up --
I do.
So within three months?
Yep. I do.
OK.
I think people are going to be happy.
All right.
I want to make -- look, they're all great. They love our country. That group of people -- the Democrats don't love our country. I think they hate our country. They're crazy. They've gone crazy. You know, we have something coming up in Congress in the not so distant future. If -- and, you know, the Democrats are totally against stopping crime.
They're against stopping crime. Think of it, how do you win an election when you're against stopping crime? But they -- they would rather say Trump is a dictator. And that's their new thing, that I'm a dictator because I'm stopping crime. You will watch, Washington D.C. will become the safest capital anywhere in the world within a short period of time.
And we'll keep it safe too, but we have to get rid of the murderers, thugs. And, you know, many of them, not all of them, some are self-grown and home grown, but you know what, many home-growners, you -- you take a look at the people and many of them happen to come from Venezuela and the Congo --
Right.
-- and lots of places all over the world they come from. And -- but we also have people that were born here and they turned out to be real thugs. We're taking care of them. We're taking care of all of them. The capital of the United States of America, Washington D.C. will be the safest place in this country in a very short period of time.
And I think the cleanest. And I think that -- don't diminish that, because when things are clean and they --
And the cleanest and most beautiful. I don't -- it's -- and -- and the Kennedy Center, I want -- it's such a mess. That will be so beautiful in a short period of time. You'll watch. That's what I do in life.
I just got to ask you about Jimmy Lai. He's a self-made billionaire, Hong Kong friend of the West. And he was taken -- when Hong Kong was taken by the Chinese government, he's been jailed, closing arguments today. His son joined me and I did not know you know -- you knew Sebastian, Sebastian Lai. Here's
Great young man.
Yeah. Here's what he said. Cut three.
[Begin audio clip]
[Audio clip] Does President Trump know him?
[Audio clip] We've been incredibly grateful that the president mentioned that 100 percent, he will free my father. He mentioned it in a radio show with Hugh Hewitt. And it's given our family a lot of hope, because at this point it is about freeing him, but it's about saving his life. I don't know how much longer he has.
[End audio clip]
So your thoughts, because, you're going to be meeting President Xi and he could do that just by one finger.
Yeah. I didn't say, 100 percent I'd save him. I said, 100 percent I'm going to be bringing it up, and I've already brought it up. And I'm going to do everything I can to save him. I'm going to do everything. You know, he's -- he's a respected guy. He's a good guy. I mean, you can also understand President Xi would not be exactly thrilled by doing it. It was -- you know, it was a very nasty period of time in the history of China.
I mean, it was a very nasty period of time. With all of that being said, his name is uh already entered the circle of things that we're talking about, and we'll see what we can do. I really like the son a lot. I love that he's fighting so hard for his father. And his father is, you know, not a young guy.
He's -- you know, how much longer is he going to live? And I hear he's doing OK health-wise, not great, and we're going to do everything we can.
Yeah. Lastly, Mr. President, I never thought that you would start dominating American culture. I always thought you were a dollar and cents and foreign policy guy. But among the people that think you are, a New York Times reporter is bringing it up, how much better that your -- this term -- this term is functioning than the last one, and obviously, Joe Biden's. And also, Chuck Todd came out and said you're dominating like no President since FDR.
And that includes education, because in education --
Right.
-- Brown, Columbia, George Washington University, UCLA, all of these universities are straightening up and paying a price. Why did the -- changing the culture matter to you, or does it, now that you're back?
It matters a lot. The culture of a country matters so much. That's the sad thing about Ukraine. If you look at what's happened to their cities, they've been decimated. Those magnificent spires have all been -- almost all of them have been knocked to the ground.
Yep.
They're in smithereens. And, you know, it's so sad. No, culture matters so much. One thing on education that we're doing that you didn't mention and it's true, these woke, crazy colleges are paying a very big price and you haven't heard anything yet when you hear some of these -- these settlements that we're doing, but they're paying a big price.
But what we're really doing with education, which I think is almost as important, maybe more important, is we're sending it back to the states. And the states are accepting it really gracefully and beautifully. And they want it. They desperately want it. We have 40 states where education would be as good as any place there were.
We have 10 where it won't be so good because it's like -- you know, like a guy like Gavin Newsom, he's not going to run good education, but -- because he doesn't know how. He's -- you know, he's just got a mouth. But a place like Los Angeles is going to be tough. But all of -- you go to Iowa, you go to Indiana, you go to all these places, Nebraska, every one of these places, they're going to have -- Florida is going to be phenomenal.
We're sending education back to their -- to the States, and we're getting it out of Washington, D.C. and the bureaucrats. You know, you have people that are involved with like Florida, from Washington. They've never even been there and they're running education in Florida.
Right.
We're sending it back so that Ron can run it, so that all the governors can run it, and they're going to do a great job. Now, 10 states are not going to do it, but they're the same -- like, a guy like Pritzker won't do a good job with education. He probably doesn't even want it back. But Pritzker won't do a good job.
Newsom won't do a good job. You know, the various -- the same places that run badly will do a bad job, but 90 percent of the country is going to do a phenomenal job. We're sending education back to the states where the parents are involved, they love their children; where the teachers are involved, they love the children.
And it's not going to be run by bureaucrats in Washington D.C. that are destroying -- I mean, we have -- we have the most -- we have the worst education almost in the world for a top 40 country. You know, we're like 38, 39 and 40 out of 40 in education. So obviously, we're doing something wrong. That won't happen for long.
When that -- when education goes back to these well-run states, it'll run as well as the various -- like Denmark, Austria. You know, you have -- you have some countries that have like, great education. Interestingly, China does very well with education, so you can't blame it on size, but they do very well with education.
And lastly, on behalf of Massapequa, you and Linda McMahon helping keep the Chiefs' name.
Yeah.
So that means a lot.
We're trying. I love -- I have a lot of friends in Massapequa, including you. But I love Massapequa. I've heard that name for years, OK? And they have a -- you know, they have a championship team. They always have a great team. I know --
In everything.
I know young people that played on that team and, you know, great people. And they played -- we got to get the name back to the Chiefs. And you know what, they're demeaning the Indians by taking over. It's actually the opposite of what they think. They're demeaning.
They are.
That's a place -- and that town is sort of based around that whole football thing that they have going there. So we're going to -- we're working hard. You know, it's a state problem, not a federal problem. So we have to interject, and we've done that, into the state. But the state is fighting us very hard, but I think we'll be successful with it.
You're always successful. Mr. President, thanks so much.
I am. I am. I [Inaudible]
Best of luck in -- best of luck in Alaska and I look forward to seeing you walking on that military base and greeting Vladimir Putin.
And we'll do the best we can, and I think we'll have a good result in the end.
All right. Go get him. Thanks so much, Mr. President.
Thank you very much, Brian.
Appreciate it.
Very good. Thank you.