Mr. President, welcome back to the Hugh Hewitt Show. Thank you for spending time with me, today.
Well, thank you.
I've just finished reading Matt Continetti review of your speech at the University of Alabama. It sounds like it was a big success and Continetti, who I think is at least as influential as any other conservative out there, loved it. Did you -- did you expect that?
He's a great guy, by the way, and it was -- we had a good time, amazing people, amazing crowd and amazing people.
I would recommend to everyone, they get the free press assessment of that. I wanted to start light because I was so surprised when Commissioner Roger Goodell of the NFL showed up in the Oval. You know, he's not really very popular with a lot of your base and you really rehabbed him pretty quickly. Did he offer you to, uh, to make the announcement of the first selection in 2027, something he normally does?
I think he did, actually, and they're going to have a -- I think it's '26, actually the' 26 draft' 2026, and it's going to be, uh, exciting. It's great for Washington DC. We need it a little bit and we're focusing.
It's going to be wild. And a million people there, it's a great big party.
The city, by the way, the city is really, uh, a lot safer today than it was three months ago, before we started here. But it's -- so it's going to be exciting having the NFL do that.
So you rehabbed him, pretty quickly. Now I want to know because I'm a Browns fan, season ticket holder. Why did you intervene on behalf of Shedeur Sanders during the draft?
Uh, I watched a couple of games or pieces of games, uh, and a number of things. His father's, a big Trump fan and I like people that are Trump fans, like you like them when they're Hugh Hewitt fans, right? His father said great things about me over the years, really, really nice and number one. Number two, genetics.
Do you believe in genetics? And so do I. He has -- he has good genes for a football player and I watched him play a little bit. And to me, you know, what do I know, but I picked talent and I thought he was a very talented quarterback. I really thought he was good. I like his gene pool and I liked his talent.
And I really think that he's going to do well. I think he -- I don't know, I just felt they treated him very badly, you want to know.
It's very humbling. Do you think it's good to be humbled at a young age or is that -- is that harsh?
I don't think it's good. I think if it -- if it happens you have to handle it, but I don't think it's good. I was surprised, you know, he was -- people were saying he was going to be the number one pick and he ends up in the, what, fourth round or something.
Fifth round, yeah, fifth round.
It's uh, no, I don't think it's good. But, uh, but sometimes you have to do it. He'll handle it. He's a, you know, going to Cleveland and stuff because it's very cold and, you know, it's -- I wouldn't say it's an ideal throwing, uh.
Best answer in the world, Mr. President, best fans in the world.
So, yeah, they have great fans, we love them. No, we love them.
Let's get to the -- to the serious.
It's a hard place to throw a football, but it's --
-- Oh, gosh, yeah, December, and you have great fans. Let's get to the serious stuff. Last time I talked to you, you were the president elect, and we talked about General Secretary XI being very, very tough. You're very-clear eyed about him. And you told me you're going to try and get Jimmy Lai out. Secretary Rubio has told me he's going to try and get Jimmy Lai out.
That would be a really great start to any kind of thaw. Any progress to report on Mr. Lai?
Well, we haven't started yet because we're meeting actually for, you know, we've been talking back and forth. Look, they want to make a deal so badly; that I can tell you. But we've been talking, and it's not a question of like pride. Somebody said, oh, who made the call, who made the call? It doesn't matter.
I will tell you, you would have been happy if you -- if I gave you the answer to that, but it doesn't matter. The conversation matters, not, you know, how it got set up. But I think talking about Jimmy Lai is a very good idea. We'll put it down and we'll put it down as part of the negotiation.
All right, that's terrific. Now I want to talk to you about your executive order from April 9th, restoring America's maritime dominance. I thought that's the best of the executive orders other than closing the border which you got done, and no one seems to remember you got that done in a week. Um, the Columbia class submarines are behind by about 18 months.
Have you talked to Secretary Phelan about that, about catching up?
Oh, I have and he's very good, he's tough, he's a great business guy. You know, I've known him and I put him in there because he's got great toughness and, you know, it is behind. It's the greatest submarine ever built. It's the most lethal weapon ever built, by far. It's not even a contest. And they're behind.
They've always done a great job, that particular group, you know that. And they've always been great, but they're behind and, usually, they're not behind. So we have a lot of them are behind. Boeing is behind, a lot of them are behind.
So, when it comes down to brass tacks time, do you -- do you tell Phelan, fire the bunch or hire a new bunch because you don't want it to be like President Obama's library. You were talking about that, yesterday. We've got to get those ships in the water.
By the way, his library is a total disaster. You know that, it's like it stopped, I guess. And they didn't want to use construction workers; can you believe it? They didn't. That's what you got. You got a building that's probably never going to get built. I don't know, I don't know what they're going to do with it. It's a mess.
But in this case, we have a company that the submarine, you know, the submarines, and they are the greatest submarines in the world. One thing, we are way advanced on submarines is the greatest in the world and they're behind a little bit and maybe a lot. But maybe it's not going to matter that much, as long as they get them done and quickly.
Also, I'm looking at costs. You know, I just got here, remember. Don't forget, I'm the one that complained about the aircraft carrier -- carrier, the Gerald Ford. And I complained about a lot -- a lot of aspects about the, uh, you know, the elevators being run by magnets, as opposed to hydraulic. I campaign -- campaigned about.
And it was part of my campaign. Uh, we talked about the catapults, you know, what throws the planes out. I said, why not --
-- The Ford-class are behind, too, the next two Ford-class are behind schedule. It's a mess.
Yeah, no, it's a mess, and I'm not a big fan of the Ford-class. I don't like the tower being in the back, OK. You know, the tower on an aircraft carrier, you look at the Roosevelt and the various aircraft carriers. I like it in the middle where it's the widest. I like it hanging over the side. You know, the hardest thing to do is land a plane.
If you're a pilot, even a great pilot has a hard time if they have it all -- a little bit of the claustrophobia thing going. Uh, and when you move the tower to the back, it makes it that much harder to land a plane. I don't -- I don't like a lot of aspects of it and I let -- I let it be known, but they decided.
One of the things you told the kids in Alabama, in Alabama, you told the kids don't lose your momentum, and I think we're losing our momentum on the fleet. It really does seem to be slowing, slowing, slowing. Can you juice it?
Well, I'm going to juice it a lot and we were getting ready to really start that. We had an election that was very unfortunate. Think of what would have happened. You wouldn't have had, the least of which is inflation, but you wouldn't have had the border, 21 million people coming in, many, many, many criminals from all over the world.
You wouldn't have had Russia, Ukraine. You wouldn't have had October 7th with Israel. You wouldn't have had the most embarrassing moment in the history of our country. You wouldn't have had a thing called Afghanistan. What a disaster. And I don't mean getting out; getting out was good. They should have kept Bagram, which they didn't keep.
You know who's occupying Bagram right now, China?
China.
China is occupying Bagram. And the reason to keep it wasn't Afghanistan, it was because it was one hour away from where they make their nuclear missiles, China. That would have been a big, and that was a big one.
That's -- it would not that I don't think I've heard anyone argue you're wrong on that. It would not have happened. You would have had Mike Pompeo and Robert O'Brien and you -- you would have figured that out.
You would have been very happy with what we did. I was all set, we were getting out, but we were getting out with dignity and pride and strength, not the way we got out there. That was what, we lost 13 soldiers and, you know, the thing nobody ever talks about it, you do, but nobody talks about them. Is the 42 people that were so horrifically injured.
And then if you add it all up, you probably lost 600 people, you know, on both sides, a lot of people.
A lot of Afghans died, a lot of them died and.
A lot of people died.
A lot of controversy, but you mentioned 1007, so I want to go to Iran. It's the most important thing I'm going to ask you about, today. The first question is, have they stopped trying to kill you and Mike Pompeo and a whole bunch of people, because I don't know how you negotiate with someone who's trying to kill you.
Yeah, well, I don't want to be foolish enough to answer the question because you can never really answer a question like that. But, uh, let's, uh, let's just assume, and I put out the strongest of orders. And this is not about me, this is about any president. If anybody does it, they're going to be hit harder than anybody's ever been hit in the history of our country.
You can't do that. You can't do that period, but you can't do that to presidents.
Good, good. Now last night I was on Sean Hannity and Sean asked me what I thought about your Iran statements. And I said the one thing that President Trump has done, I think every day since he got back is, is tell Iran they have a choice, they can turn over the centrifuges and the uranium or they can get bombed.
Uh, is that as explicit as you've made it to them, either/or?
Yeah, it's very simple and I'd much rather make a deal, you know, a really verified deal. We want total verification. We can do that. We have some very brilliant people up at MIT and various other places. We could do that very, very solidly. But, uh, I would much prefer a strong verified deal where we actually blow them up, but, uh, blow them up or -- or just de-nuke them.
But the other -- there are only two alternatives there, blow them up nicely or blow them up viciously.
And yeah, there's no half measure, that's what I wrote for the Washington Examiner.
You've got to get them out, can't do it, can't do it.
Let me turn to politics, Mr. President, because I've seen you talk about Trump Derangement Syndrome and do so with humor, but it's getting worse. In fact, I've got the new issue of The Atlantic right here and the cover is, "It's Later than you Think," Anne Applebaum, David Brooks, Aziz hug and George Packer fighting autocracy.
Dominoes -- this is silly, it's stupid, but it's there. What is it about you that deranges them so much?
Well, I win. You know, they were losing for so long. They're losers, the names you mentioned and, uh, and many others, most others. But, uh, I win and when I win, it drives people crazy, and I win a lot. And I -- you know, they have a hat that was made that Trump was right about everything. If you look -- if you go back, I don't think you could find anything I was wrong about.
Uh, right about China, right about trade. You know, we had China making $1 trillion, think of it, $1 trillion under Biden, $1 trillion; more, actually, six --
-- You have the measure of XI.
Six billion dollars a day, we were losing on trade.
You have the measure of Chairman Xi. Do you think -- I know you can sit down with him. I know you're very respectful in public and in private. I know it's a tough negotiation. Do we get along with them for the next four years, or is it going to be toe to toe for four years straight?
I can tell you that depends on if they're going to treat us fairly. They, like every other country practically that you can name, including our so-called friends, ripped us off on trade. And -- and on the military, you know. Until I came along, NATO was bust. NATO wasn't going to be able to make it and, you know, I said we're paying almost 100 percent of this thing, and they treat us badly on trade.
So we save them on military and they kill us on trade, mostly the same countries with the European Union. I said, can you imagine. But I can't tell you that. I mean it's -- we'll see how it goes. We have a big meeting on Saturday in Switzerland with some of the guys going over there. Scott and some other guys, very good guys.
Very impressive, by the way, the Secretary of the Treasury, very impressive.
We want to have fair trade deals.
So I want to -- I want to go back to the political establishment. You broke it, you broke their system, you broke their credentialing. Can they ever reassemble that? Are they ever going to put Humpty Dumpty back together again, where you got to go through this gate and then that gate. I mean, you came from -- from the sideline in sort of at the 50 and won.
Can they ever put it back together again?
So, I use a phrase over the last few months because I've been watching them very closely, they've lost their confidence. Uh guys, like David Brooks, who are supposed to be like Republicans, they're not Republicans, they're bad guys. The other character that's writing, uh, for the New York Times, they call him the Republican.
He's not a Republican; he's just a flunky for the New York Times. And these people have lost their confidence because they lose all the time. And we have a movement, the likes of which nobody's ever seen. You know it better than anybody. You cover it as well as anybody.
It's a realignment.
The MAGA movement, it's Make America Great Again, it's very simple.
It's a realignment, but realignment sometimes fail. Richard Nixon had a realignment going in 1972, it all fell apart. Can you keep this one going? It usually means moving to the center, not moving to the right. If you want to realign, you got to take the center and hold it. Can you do that?
Well, I think so. I've never seen spirit like we have. You know, you mentioned the speech in Alabama and the place was packed with big, you know, big arena. They've never had a crowd like that and -- and it was, you know, University of Alabama, incredible people, by the way, the whole place -- everybody was beautiful.
It was like the most wonderful looking arena, both the arena itself and the people. And now we have -- we have a great -- we have a great country. We have some people that are sick, frankly. They have -- they have just -- I don't know, there's something wrong with them. And you talk about Trump Derangement Syndrome.
It probably makes them even crazier.
Oh, it does, but you won seven swing states.
And they've lost their confidence, totally.
You won seven swing states. Can another Republican pull that off? Because seven for seven is the inside straight on seven card poker. It's just not done.
Yeah, won all seven. Yeah, it was -- I felt I was going to win all seven, you know, I campaigned in all seven. Every arena was packed. We were doing great, everywhere. That was, you know, we ran that that last three month period, you know, you figure 90 days, but that last three to four month period, it was a flawless campaign.
We were just running flawlessly. And then they put her in. He was losing by 30 points and they put her in. We didn't know, was she good? Was she bad? Nobody knew too much about her. Most people didn't know the name, Harris, right? You know, they knew Kamala, they didn't know Harris. But she got up and she turned out to be a total disaster for them.
But I'm telling you, they're just -- uh, if you look at their -- their -- hey, we have a big bench. We have a beautiful bench with a lot of very talented people. Look at the people they have. They have somebody named Crockett, and somebody was telling me she's the future of the party and I figured, oh, this would be good.
I look forward to watching her and I watched her. She's a low IQ person, very low.
AOC is the future of the party and she has charisma. Do you think she can win? Do you think she's going to be their nominee in '28?
Well, I think she -- I think you're right about the charisma. I don't know about her speaking ability. I don't know about her debating ability. I don't know how she is, you know, in an interview because you rarely see her being interviewed, rarely. And that's a bad thing because usually, that means something.
You know, it's like Kamala, they didn't want to interview.
You spent an hour with Kristen Welker, this weekend. And I was listening to a podcast, today, of the National Review editors. And there they -- no one doubts your availability. Joe Biden never spoke to anyone on any side of the aisle. He just -- he was hidden away. Do you think he was competent for more than a year or two years?
No. Well, I don't think he was competent, 40 years ago. He was a very average guy. Uh, look at his look at his credentials, academically, look at his look at, you know, look at his whole life. He was a glad hander, you know, hale and hardy. He had a good personality. I mean, he had a sort of a good look, Other than the hair was weak, you know, hair was very weak, but the look was pretty good.
He was a hale and hardy and well met guy, but he was not a smart guy. But he was a vicious guy. You know, you saw that here. He knew enough to know to go after his opponent; he went after his political opponent.
And when you came out on the stage for debate, when you did that, did -- did you know, immediately, he had lost it, I mean, he had lost the capacity to actually debate. At one point you said, and it probably ended his campaign, I don't know what he said. I don't think he knows what he said either and it' -- it crushed him right there.
But did you realize it at the time?
Well, when that -- when I gave that answer just before that, you know, the answer was in reference to the way he was acting and talking. I was sort of saying that's sort of a strange thing going on here. He also was very white. I mean they had the whitest makeup. I could say this, whoever his makeup artist is, don't use him again.
And they had a very big makeup person and maybe they wanted to set records by trying to make somebody the -- he was the whitest. So when I walked on, I looked across because I didn't see him before. I didn't meet him before the debate and I walked on and for whatever reason, they put him on first. Normally the -- if you're the president, you go on, you know, you go on second like a fighter.
You know, they put the champion in the ring second; they put the challenger in first. And so I was very honored by that, actually. But I went into the arena, so to speak, and I looked at him and I said, man, is he, is something wrong. And I think it was more makeup than anything else.
Well, makeup got Richard Nixon in 1960. Yeah, makeup killed Nixon in the Kennedy-Nixon debate. Let me ask you, I want to go back to Israel. You've had Prime Minister Netanyahu to the White House twice, and I'm very happy to see that because in this country, anti-Semitism is taking off. How do we -- how do we crush that?
And how do we make sure it doesn't get into the Republican Party?
Well, I think I'm crushing it more than anybody ever, and I think nobody's been better to Israel as a president than me, by a factor of about 20. In fact, I could say maybe nobody's ever been better than me on Israel. And I am shocked to see what I'm seeing because if you look back at the old days of the Holocaust, you're seeing the same kind of thing happening now as you saw many, many years ago.
And you would have thought that that could never happen, right? Wouldn't you think, I mean, that that's not something. If you go back a few years, you would say that could, you know, it's never -- when I was growing up, uh, and, you know, as a young guy, uh, I would say, without question, the most powerful lobby, the most powerful, without question, was Israel, in terms of the Congress, in terms of the Senate and the House.
The most powerful, the most powerful lobby was -- if you ever said anything bad about Israel, your political career was over. Today, and the Senate's hanging pretty tough. But the -- the House is, you look at some of these, uh, people, including AOC plus three and all of these different people that are now, I mean, look at Schumer.
He's become a Palestinian. I think he's a Palestinian, actually. You should give him the garb. But I can't believe that Schumer -- of all the people, you look at the guy, I think he's a wreck, first of all. I don't know what the hell happened to him, but he's being beat up pretty good. You know, when I wrote him the little note, thank you very much for your this and that.
That was not meant as a wise guy, no, that was meant, sincerely. I appreciated that he did what I consider to be the right thing, you know, with his vote and, a couple of weeks ago. And they got a hold of that letter and they just creamed him on that letter.
Well, the left is out of its mind.
The real question is, is he going to be challenged by AOC? Is he going to be challenged by somebody else? Because I think he's pretty weakened, right now. He looks -- he looks like hell.
I think she can be their nominee for president if she wants. I don't know, maybe Josh Shapiro can beat her. I don't think so. I think she's unstoppable because of her charisma and because of the left wing sort of lurch of the Democratic Party.
I just don't know about her speaking ability and I don't know about her, uh, her, you know, she still has to answer questions, and I haven't seen that yet. She goes on very rarely. You don't see it. And if, you know, Kamala was a disaster with answering questions. Before that, she was doing all right. And then when she started opening her mouth, she started losing rapidly, really rapidly.
So, I don't know. And I don't know about, you know, I don't know about her speaking ability. You have to be able to speak in front of large crowds. Uh, her voice is a little different. I don't say it's bad, but it's a little squeaky. And it's a squeaky voice. I'm not sure that sells, you know, but we'll see.
We'll see. Now let me -- let me go back to the anti-Israel.
You never know, right, you know the expression, you never know.
Well, never say never. I believe I'm quoting you, never say never.
Never say never, that's true.
Let me ask you about Harvard, my alma mater. I hope you pulled their tax exempt status. I want it pulled. It's -- they don't deserve it and it's -- by the way, it's not illegal for the audience. It's not illegal for the president to request that review. He cannot order an audit, but he can certainly ask for tax exempt status to be reviewed.
Are you -- are you going to push that for every university where the anti-Semitism gets out of control?
I think so, yes, we're going to look for that and where we find them, sometimes it's out of control, but you don't see it, you know, it's not so obvious. With Harvard, it was very obvious. You look at it, totally anti-Semitic. And you look at that where they had 3 percent conservatives and, you know, the rest of them were mostly radical left.
A couple of things I put in. I had to put this in. I said, you hired at a tremendous salary, Lori Lightfoot, right, the mayor of Chicago, one of the worst in history. And then you hired the worst mayor in the history of New York, by far, a man who started the downfall of New York, de Blasio, Bill de Blasio, a total disaster.
And they hired these two people. They don't hire a Rudy Giuliani or somebody that could actually, you know, who was actually a great mayor. And, uh, but think of it, they hired these two people, paid them a fortune and they're talking about, uh, municipal management. It's --
I want you to keep the pressure on because it's gone off the rails, like the left. Uh, I want to wrap up, Mr. President, because you've been very generous with your time. Your team is always very generous. Uh, let me ask you, will you issue a veto threat on funding that involves NPR, PBS or CPB, because we've got to get out of that business.
I will do everything we can to make sure they're not funded. They're horrible. I watched them just because I have to watch the enemy, sometimes; I don't watch them often. I watch MSDNC, sometimes. I hate it, I hate watching it, but I feel I have an obligation. They are so bad and so corrupt, they're a disgrace.
This guy, Brian Roberts that runs that company, he should be -- they should look into the whole thing because first of all, CNN and MS -- I call it DNC, Democratic National Committee. The -- the -- those things are political arms. That should be, you know, that should really be campaign finance violations and at the highest level.
They don't say anything good about, and me in particular, but any Republican. And they are so dishonest. You could do, you could come up with a cure to the worst disease known to man or woman, and they would say, uh, he did a terrible thing. They are just horrible people.
I don't want him to get any more of my money. I worked for PBS for ten years. They were bad back then, in '92 to 2002.
They were bad and they've gotten worse and they're worse, probably, than they ever were, yeah.
Two last question, 2028 convention.
We're going to try -- and you know what, they may get the funding, they may get the funding from lunatics on the left. These are lunatics, these are sick people, but the government should not be providing funding.
Amen. Now 2028 Republican Convention, you get to pick the city. Do you want to go back to Cleveland where it all began because you had a good convention in Cleveland?
Well, we do actually have -- I never -- I haven't really been giving it a lot of thought, but I will get to pick the city. That's true -- that's true.
Keep -- keep in mind that --
-- I'll get to pick a lot of things, OK, if you want to, but I get to pick the city.
Are you going to participate in the GOP 2026 primaries? You're going to pick favorites for like the Ohio governor's race, Dave Yost and Vivek, and there are Senate races all over the place. Are you going to get involved?
Well, I am -- I've already endorsed Vivek. I mean, I will be very much involved because we have to win, very important that we win and we should win. There's a -- an amazing anomaly. It doesn't -- it doesn't make sense to me actually that if you're president, you sort of almost always lose in the midterms.
Now if you lose, if you look, it's crazy. I think we're having a great presidency. I think we had a great hundred days. You know, the people that are legit, uh, say this was an amazing hundred days, the things that we've done. We've practically gotten rid of woke. I mean, it's -- it's virtually -- I mean, people are there -- if they believe in that nonsense, they're afraid to do it. But so many different things we've done.
The most impressive thing, Mr. President, the most impressive thing. The Democrats said they could not close the border unless you passed a bill, and you close it in a month. And I don't know how it happened, but I think I'll be waving that flag in every election from now until I retire because you did it in a month, and I'm grateful for that.
I hope you will achieve immigration reform, regularize the people who are here who are good people.
We'll be looking at that, Hugh, we'll be looking. No, but we did a great job, and I'll tell you, Tom Homan was great. Christie was great. We have -- we have a lot of good people, great people in this administration, and we've accomplished a lot. And you know, it's uh, it's 100 days, not very long. We have a long way to go. We have almost four years --
-- You got to get that tax bill, we got to get the tax bill.
We're going to completely turn this country around, so fast. Aay it again.
We got to get the tax bill done.
It's a big thing, the big -- the one big, beautiful deal, that's what we want, and it'll be the largest tax cut in history. Now, the alternative is you'll have a 68 percent jump if the Democrats get their way. Now who's going to vote for that? But you have a 68 point -- if -- taxes will go up like at a level never seen before if they don't. I think there's a lot of pressure on Republicans.
There's a lot of pressure because we don't need grandstanders.
No, we don't. Last, very last question, Mr. President. Um, there's a rumor going around that on the movie business side, Tom Cruise called you up and tried to lobby you. True or false?
No, it's false. He did call me up, but he called me up for another reason, very nice innocent reason. He's sort of the last of our great movie stars, if you think about it, you know, he's a nice guy. He couldn't have been nicer. I don't believe I ever spoke to him, but others have -- Jon Voight has, Jon Voight, I love Jon Voight.
Great man.
And he has and others have, also. And I love the idea, the concept of -- of the tariff. If you make your movie in another country, you know, they make them all over the world now and they don't make them here. And if you make your movie in another country and you want to sell it here, that's OK, you have to pay a tariff.
I don't know how you make it work, but that would kill Canada because Canada makes a lot of movies up there, a lot of movies.
They took a big chunk of our movie. They took a lot of our businesses, but they're all going to come back.
Do you believe the Prime Minister -- bonus question. Prime Minister Carney said he was going to step up on NATO. If he does, that will be a great thing. I'm not really sure I believe that Canada is going to step up on NATO.
Uh, uh, well, they have started paying more, but we basically defend Canada. We lose -- we subsidize Canada to the tune of $200 billion a year. And I say why? Why are we doing that? Because we want to make our cars; they make a lot of cars. We're going to take that business back and you do that with tariffs.
Uh, lumber, we have all the lumber in the world. I've already, uh, D, I've taken care of the environmental situation. You know, we've -- we've opened up forest areas that were ridiculously closed, but we have as much lumber as anybody, almost in the world. We have more energy than anybody in the world. We don't need their energy.
We don't need their lumber. We don't need their steel, their aluminum. We don't need anything they have. With that being said, I had a very good meeting with him, yesterday.
Well, they're very nice people. We want to get along with them, but I hope they pay their NATO share. Mr. President, thank you for the extra time. Thank your staff for me. They're always great to work with and I look forward to checking in with you again, soon.
Thank you very much, Hugh. Great honor, thanks. Bye, bye.
Thank you, Mr. President.