So.
Mr. President, what an honor.
Thank you very much.
Yeah. Thank you for sitting down with me today. I think we'll get into some personal stuff, some fun stuff. And, um, yeah, it's, it's a, it's an honor we're here at a factory, uh, doing a rally. It's my first rally, and it's actually my first show on this podcast, so you're gonna be my first and last guest.
Oh wow, that's good. Well, we're gonna have to get good ratings.
We gotta get some good ratings.
We'd better.
You, you were flying in on Air Force One.
Right.
Is it true that you watched the Joshua fight on Air Force One?
I watched it. I watched you, and I thought you were very brave. He's a pretty big guy, you know, he's good. And he's legit, look, he's a legitimate fighter. And, uh, I thought you were great. You did yourself no harm.
No.
Other than your chin maybe.
Other than the jaw, which is, which is healing. How big is the TV on Air Force One? [Inaudible]
Good. It's good. It's good. The best you can have, I'll tell you, you know. They, they view it as cost as no object, right? But it was, it was good. I got to see that. I really watched it. We had a whole plane full of people watching you. And, uh, you know, if size mattered --
Yeah.
Then I said he's gonna be in trouble, and they say it matters.
I got into the ring with him and, um, I realized he was much bigger than I, than I thought.
You didn't see that, like, in the weigh-in or anything?
No. No, not at the weigh-in, not at the press con- -- and then I got in the ring. I just saw his size and I was just like, "Okay, this is gonna be a tough night."
So who do you fight next?
It's a good question. I think Francis Ngannou.
Would you ever fight him again? No.
No, I don't think so. I, I think I need to go stay at my weight class.
I think so, right?
Um, maybe doing some MMA. We're promoting fights now --
Right.
-- on Netflix. We got Ronda Rousey versus Gina Carano. Uh, maybe Usyk and MMA. Uh --
What? Very good.
Francis Ngannou, Ryan Garcia, maybe Tommy Fury. There's a lot of, who would you want to see me fight?
[Inaudible] Well, I, I, I, probably Khabib.
[Laughs]
I like Khabib.
I'm down. [Laughs]
You know? Uh, I think he's been just great when they say who was the best of those. Um, I mean, I've had a lot of fights. I've had, uh, Mike Tyson and a lot of them.
Yeah.
That was great.
Have you ever been in a fight? I heard a rumor about you, like, helping Kobe one time at a game. Is that a true story?
It was a long time ago, right? That was a --
Is this a true story?
Yeah. Well, it wasn't a fight. I was breaking up a fight.
Okay, okay. [Laughs]
Which sometimes is more dangerous than being in a fight, right? But, you know, I like Kobe. Kobe was having a, a hard time with somebody, and it worked out fine, but, but, uh, yeah, I broke it up. Probably not a smart thing to do. Historically, it's never good to break up fights.
Yeah. I, I try to deescalate situations a lot, but you're gonna be at UFC 250.
I will be. It's gonna be amazing at the White House. And Dana's a great guy. He's a good fan of yours, you know?
Yes. [Laughs]
But Dana, Dana's a good guy. The best. I mean, there's nobody like him. And, uh, he had the idea of doing, staging it right at the front door of the White House. We'll be right in the front door of the White House. And, uh, he's got a tremendous card. I don't even know if it's filled out, but I, I just saw it and it looks like it's gonna be, you know, all top, all top guys.
They all wanna fight at the White House, so it's gonna be in honor of the 250th year.
Yeah.
So it'll be great.
No, I'm excited. I'm excited to see Sean O'Malley. He's the homie.
Oh, yeah. Yeah.
Um, he's a, he's a great, great, great fighter. And I, that's what I wanted to ask. You went from boxing promotion, Apprentice, TV shows, and then eventually, you know, re- -- obviously real estate, and then eventually was like, "Okay, I'm gonna go into politics." How did that transition happen? Because, like, I see myself wanting to get more into this world.
I believe it's the biggest way to create impact and change in America.
Would you ever run for office?
I think so. That's, that's what I'm asking for some advice. Like, how did you make that transition and was it hard?
So, yeah, I don't know. I had to do it. You know, it's hard. A lot of people talk about it. You had to do it. And I had one shot left because you get to a certain age, you have a few years left, you got about 40 years to make the decision. But I had one shot, you know, the timing was good, but if I waited longer, it wouldn't have been good because of the clock, you know, the famous clock.
Yeah.
Father Time.
Yeah.
And so I had to make a decision, do I do it? And I made it, but I've been -- I was thinking about it for years. I used to talk about it, because I was well known. I was very well known. I was successful. Did well, loved real estate. Then we had The Apprentice. Mark Burnett was great. And we did, you know, I did lots of number one bestsellers.
My books were all bestsellers. And I see we have magazines. I was on this magazine so much. I'm looking at that picture.
[Laughs]
What are you doing to me? Show me that pic --
This is the coolest, uh, magazine cover of all time. [Laughs]
Yeah. Well, it's, it's like --
Did it, was it, like, hot on your ear? Could you feel the bullet?
You had that throbbing feeling.
[Laughs].
You knew, you knew there was something. It was a bloody mess. What happens is, well, you know this better than anybody. The ear bleeds more.
Yeah.
'Cause I said, "Why is there so much blood?" And the ear's a big bleeder having to do with cartilage. I didn't wanna go into it too much, but, uh, it was bloody as hell. So when I checked, I, I put my hand up, I said, you know, I brought it down, and it was loaded up.
[Laughs]
So I said, "That's either the biggest mosquito bite in history or I just got shot."
[Laughs]
And, uh, that was not a pleasant experience.
Yeah, my, like, adrenaline was pumping. I'm sure your adrenaline was pumping. Like, when my jaw was broken, I just couldn't really feel it that much.
Oh, so you knew that you had a broke- -- and you didn't --
No, no, my brother told me. He, I was talking to him and my teeth were like in the center of my mouth and he was like, "Yo, I think your jaw is broken." And then I, like, grabbed it and realized --
But when he was hitting you, you didn't feel the --
It was the last punch.
It was the last punch?
Yeah, the very last punch of the fight that did it. So that's when I went to the floor and was like, "Whoa."
Was that hard to recover from?
Yeah. It's still healing.
It's still healing?
Yeah. I'm not able to fight until later this year.
Will that heal perfectly, though, eventually?
Hopefully.
It won't be, it won't have last impact, right? I hope.
No, I, I think it'll be able to grow back stronger hopefully, so.
It's amazing because, you know, I've known a lot about fights. I had a lot of, I've hosted a lot of fights over the years and it was amazing when started doing this. I said, "it's not possible for," I call it a civilian, "for a civilian to beat a professional boxer," because I've seen, even if they were much older because, you know, they've been the best fighters and all and I just, at first I said, "Well, is this really happening?" Because, you know, you were beating guys, UFC guys who weren't retired that long.
Yeah.
And I just didn't think it was possible and then I realized, you know, you really are the real deal. The other, I mean, the one problem is this last guy was so big --
Yeah.
And talented. Didn't he win the Olympics, too?
Yeah, gold medalist.
You didn't need this.
No, I know. People, people said I was crazy.
Would you have done it again knowing how it worked out?
Yeah, I don't have any regrets on it. And I love a challenge and it, it motivated me to get better. And the experience of being in the ring with someone that good and someone that big, I think moving forward, the next people I fight, it's going to be, like, a little bit, a lot easier, actually. So I think it was, it was good experience.
But I think that's defying the odds, which is like what you've done as well. When everyone says, "You can't do it," do you have advice for younger people for going against the tide, going against the wind?
Well, the biggest victories are when you go against the wind, right, go against what everyone thinks can't be done. Those are the biggest victories. They're usually the most lucrative, too, even in business. When you hit it, it's a bigger hit. But like, I just said, "I'm going to do it." I was thinking about it for so long and sometimes people would say, like, "You ought to do it," or, "Don't talk about it." My wife actually said, "Do it or don't talk about it." I'd watch these guys, like, at debates.
I said, "I could kill him," I mean, "That guy's nothing like you. That guy's nothing." And I said, "I could, there's no way he could beat me in a debate." She said, "All right, so do it or don't do it, but don't talk about it."
Yeah.
And I actually said, I wasn't sure if I liked that too much, but she would actually say, our First Lady's now a movie star. So on top of everything else, she's now First Lady and a movie star.
I've seen the doc.
The number one movie, can you believe it? But she'd say, "Do it or don't do it. It's okay, but don't talk about it. And if you do it, you're going to win. You know that, don't you?" I said, "No." "If you do it, you're going to win, but do it or don't do it. It's okay. Either way is okay."
Yup.
So you have to do it. And like you, you have that little bug and it is a bug. Being a politician, it is a bug. I think there was nothing like, in history, when I won the first time. You know, that was the most unbelievable thing. And then coming back, some people would say it was bigger than the first time.
I got cheated in the second. I did great. Like somebody cheating at a fight and it's coming out. All that stuff is coming out now. But in a way, it made the second victory bigger, much bigger. It was just, you know, it's a great feeling. Winning is a good thing, you know, winning, and whether it's in politics, whether it's in fighting, winning is amazing.
Yup.
There's no feeling like winning.
Yup.
And most people don't think they can win. Most people, I actually think some people don't want to win. You understand that. They don't want to win.
Yeah, they want to be victimized and feel bad for themselves.
They want to be, they want to, there's this weird thing going on.
I would rather lose. That was what I was saying with Joshua was, I'd rather lose and get embarrassed, but the chance of me winning, it could be the greatest upset in sports.
Yeah, but you weren't embarrassed because --
No.
-- first of all, he was so much bigger.
Yeah.
Look, one thing I've seen in fighting, if somebody's four pounds heavier, it's a different weight class. And it's hard to beat somebody that's even a little bit heavier and you've, were with a guy that was 60, 70 pounds heavier, right? At least.
Yeah. No, exactly.
So it's, you did, I'm proud of you.
Thank you, man. This is my brand, which is all about winning, so it's funny you're saying that. Made in the USA. I know you're all about bringing jobs back to America.
That's good looking, though.
Thank you, man. Good W.
Goodbye MAGA. That's good.
Yeah. We're in Walmarts and really hitting, like, the heart of America, but Made in the USA and I know you want to bring more jobs. I think, uh, my generation, I think, is in a weird place with, like, going to school, getting jobs. AI is coming. Do you have any advice to my generation of people of where to go, where to look, what jobs manufacturing, how can they get more active and get more opportunities in front of them?
You know this better than anybody. I, oh, because I get this question a lot, what do you do?
Yeah.
You always have to find something you love doing, like. I tell people, their father wants them to go into business and he hates the business and, you know, the father's successful, they're pushing the son. You've got to do something you like or you're just not going to be successful at it, if you don't. With that being said, try and like something where there's a future.
Like, the hot thing right now is AI.
Yeah.
If you know the AI thing, you're gonna get an unbelievable, crazy job at ridiculous numbers, numbers you never thought of. That could cool off. Maybe it's gonna cool off, but right now. So if you like computers and all of that, uh, it's not a bad thing. Go into an indus- there are some industries, retailing's always tough.
There, there are some industries that are tough. If you love it, do it. But if you can love something where it, where it's got a lot of potential, uh, you're much better off doing that. I have friends that are really smart. They went into businesses that are very, very tough and they lost, I mean, they just, they work, they're smarter than other people I know, but they're in the wrong industry.
Yeah.
If they were in the right industry, they'd do much better. So try picking something that's got potential. And you have to love what you do.
Yeah. That's what I've always told people is, like, turn your hobby into your job. I mean, I, me and my brother were filming videos, uh, and look at, you know, where it's gotten to today and just chase that.
When did you know you were gonna be a fighter though? Wasn't that later?
It was later. I didn't start fighting till I was like 21. Basically these other YouTube kids started talking smack and sort of like you with the debates, I was like, "I can beat this kid up." [Laughs]
Yeah, right.
And so I just started training overnight to become a, a fighter. And I fell in love with it. And it actually became my top priority.
But, did you build up or were you always like a very strong guy?
I was a strong guy. I had athletic background, Ohio, Division one football, Division one wrestling, uh, played sports growing up. So I definitely had the athletic prowess. Uh, but at the time I was like on Disney Channel, so I hadn't been training for a long time. So it definitely took me a little bit to get back into it.
So your brother's a great guy too, and it's sort of similar. I mean, it's very unusual. And he's a good fighter.
Yeah.
Who's a better fighter, you or him?
I, I am, sir.
Huh?
I am, sir.
[Laughs].
He knows that too, but he's a better, he's a better WWE wrestler. But I think that --
Oh, is that true?
Yeah.
He's a better, really?
Yeah, he's a, he's incredible at WWE.
Wow, that's great.
I, he's my favorite. I think they need to make him the champion one day.
That's great.
Yeah, but if we fought, I think, uh, he knows what would happen. I love you, Logan, but --
You ever, do you ever fight him?
I, people want us to. I just don't think we really want to, but I think it would probably be --
It, it's hard to smash your brother.
Exactly. I just love him.
Typically, it's not, it hasn't worked out.
Move.
There've been some cases like that. Has it worked out?
Uh, yeah. I think it would be one of the biggest, the biggest fights out there. But --
So what is this show all about? Tell me. And I'm doing this out of respect for you because I'm the President of the United States and I'm sitting here with Jake and I'm saying, "You think Joe Biden would do this interview?"
No.
I don't think so. He wouldn't know where the hell he is.
[Laughs].
No, but I'm the President of the, and I'm doing the show.
Yeah.
And I'm only doing it for one reason because I respect you.
Thank you.
It's very interesting, right?
No. And, and I think that's such a big reason why you connected with the youth in, in the last election was going out there. You know, your team hasn't even told me what to say or any limits. Talk about anything and so --
See, that's because they're not doing their job.
And that's respect.
[Laughs].
That's really -- [Laughs]
I could say they're not doing their job.
[Laughs] But I think, you know, that was a massive reason on you, you connecting with the, with the youth. And I think I'm, I'm open to talking to anyone, you know. And I don't think the other side is really open to it. I don't, I don't know what the, the issue is. I think my brother tried to interview Kamala and you as well and they just, I think are scared of actually sitting down and, and chatting.
They would, not me.
No, you, you --
Your brother was great.
Yeah, you crushed it.
Joe Rogan was a great interview.
Yeah.
He did 300 million people.
Yeah.
And then she didn't want to do it, which, you know, I guess she should have. I don't know. You know, it's funny, it was, it was, I did him and I did some other guys who were really great guys. Barron, my son, Barron, I have a very tall son.
Yeah.
[Laughs] And he's a smart guy and he's a good kid. But he listens to you. First time I ever heard your name was through my son and he knew a lot of the, I don't know if you call him podcasters or influencers or whatever you want to call them, but he'd give me some names that were, that I never heard of. And they were very important to you, you know, because I won with youth.
I did great with youth.
Yeah.
Republicans, for whatever reason, don't do great with youth and I did unbelievably and did unbelievably in TikTok. And then, uh, Barron said, "Dad, you gotta do Joe Rogan." And we wanted to do it. We were talking about it for a long time, but not even this, about other things, not politics, even before politics for me. But we had a great talk.
It lasted for three and a half hours. And you call that long form, right?
Yeah.
That was a, and it was like a nice conversation with a great guy. He's like a great guy. And she should have done it, I guess, but she didn't do it. And we had a great election. This was a great election. And the country's doing unbelievably well. This country, I mean, we did this excursion, we had to do it, wipe out evil.
Sometimes you have evil. And for 47 years, they've been killing people, you know --
Yeah.
-- in the, in the most violent way. The, uh, roadside bombs all over the place, that was 95% of them are, are from Iran. Soleimani. That was the one, we took him out. We did a lot of things, the B2 bombers, and all of this whole thing that we're doing now is people have waited for 47 years for it to happen, so we have to do it right.
But our military has been unbelievable.
No, and I commend you for your, your bravery. And, um, I think so many Iranians do as well, and I was a bit shocked to, like, everyone else in the world was like, this is the greatest thing and I, I think what you're doing is phenomenal. And I th- -- I was shocked that so many activists, like, in America didn't like it, but meanwhile they were like, "Oh, well, we support women.
We want women to have all these rights." Meanwhile, you're liberating the women of Iran and then they have an issue with that. I thought that was very confusing.
We support gays, but they throw gays off the buildings.
Yeah.
Okay?
Yeah. Yeah.
We support this, I mean, the things they do and they're fighting. But I think I have tremendous support on this. This is something that's been incredible. I have my, the, the best poll numbers I've ever had now.
Yep.
And it's not because of this. I think we just, you know, the economy's great. It's an ex- -- little bit of a, we take a little winding road for a little while, but we have to wipe out the evil. It's an evil curse. They're evil people. And, uh, hey, we wiped out their Navy. We wiped out their Air Force. We wiped out everything there is to wipe out.
We wiped out their leadership twice. The second time they were meeting to pick which one of them would be the leader. They got wiped out. Now, they're looking for a third time. I don't know. The people say the son, but nobody knows where the son is. Uh, the military has been unbelievable. And, you know, I built the mili- -- my, I had a great first term and I built the military.
We had the best economy in history in my first term. We built the military in the first term. I didn't know I'd use it so much, but you look at, uh, Venezuela, which has worked out incredibly well.
Yeah.
That was a great military attack.
Was it strategic to go after Maduro first and secure the Venezuelan oil and then go after Iran?
So it j- -- no, it wasn't, time-wise, it wasn't. It was, with Iran, we knew we had to do something because they were gonna be attacking us. If we didn't attack them, they were gonna attack us, and we did it first. And by going first, we wiped out thousands of missiles that would've been shot. And, you know, you could shoot them down, but you need a lot of, a lot of very expensive weaponry to shoot them down.
Yeah.
We wiped out thousands and thousands of missiles by going early. And it, you know, it made a big difference. No, Venezuela was, it was the right time. They'd been after Maduro for a long time. Uh, they were sending drugs, I mean, they were sending drugs into our country. You've seen it.
Yeah.
They were sending, uh, the most violent prisoners. They emptied their prisons. They let them into our country. And it was just the right time. I mean, we, w- -- so it was at, had nothing to do with what -- It was an interesting question because people say, "Well, you did so well with Venezuela. Did that give you the, the spirit or the confidence to go and," nothing to do with it. " We had some negotiations where I would've preferred making a deal, I guess.
I don't know. Look, I, I wasn't that anxious to make a deal. That, it would have to be a really good deal. They had to get, the number one thing is they cannot have nuclear weapons, okay?
Yeah.
'Cause a nuclear weapon, they have a nuclear weapon. Bad things. They would have wiped Israel off the face of the planet. Our timing on that was incredible. If we didn't do the B2 attack, the B2 was the attack of the nuclear, uh, they would have had a nuclear weapon. If they had a nuclear weapon, they would have used it in the Middle East against Israel and other countries.
And you saw that recently when they're shooting all these missiles. We didn't know what was happening because we're saying, "Wait a minute. We're going after 'em, and they're shooting Saudi Arabia, and they're shooting Qatar, and they're shooting UAE, and they're shooting all these other countries," and nobody knew what was going on. You saw that --
Yeah, they're just wreaking havoc on everybody.
No, they made -- Well, they, they were trying to frighten them, but they --
Yeah.
But they, they didn't get frightened. It was the opposite. They fought back.
Yeah.
And they were on our side. But our military's done a great job.
Yeah. No, it's, it's been incredible to watch. Um, I, I have another question. They're wanting us to wrap up here, but I always ask people this question. I think it's super interesting. If you could come back in history and reincarnate and, like, be able to experience someone else's life, who would you come back in history as?
That's a very interesting question. Maybe Donald Trump.
[Laughs]. Yeah.
Right now. [Laughs] I think Donald Trump right now, my life is very exciting.
Yeah.
I have to be honest. I'm thinking about other lives.
[Laughs]
I think, I think my life is maybe more exciting. I don't know. Look, I've had a great time. I just, you know, I started off with a phrase, "Make America Great Again."
Yeah.
Our country was in trouble. We were doing badly. 2015, we had the open border, nothing like it was under Biden, but it was bad. A lot of people coming in. Bad people from jails, from mental institutions, gang members, murderers. We had 11,888 murderers come into our country. Got them out. We're getting most of them out.
We're getting, we're trying to get all of them out. They should have never been allowed in. But we had a bad border when I first came in. I, I won on the border twice. I won the first time, and other things, and business and other things, but I won the first time on the border, fixed it almost immediately, built almost a thousand miles of wall.
Then the second time, I say, "The border is back. I'm gonna win on the border the second time." But the second time, because we had a great border the first, you know, after I got it going, and then the second time, now we had, we've had nobody come into our country in the last nine months. I mean, like, literally, nobody, and that's given out by Democrats.
That's not by, we had millions of people pour into our count- -- you know --
Yeah.
-- the story. And they came in from jails. They get, they get, these are the, the, from all over the, all countries all over the world, the Congo. They came in from all over South America, so --
And are you guys targeting the, the bad actors --
Yeah.
-- specifically? Because I believe there's so many amazing people who have come to the country that are awesome immigrants.
Yeah.
And it's like, how are you guys, you know, deciphering between --
We're really looking for the bad ones --
Yeah.
-- more than anything else.
Yeah.
We gotta get the bad ones out. We have, I told you 11,888 murderers came, more than 50% murdered more than one person. And we have them, uh, either they're gone, some are so bad we don't wanna bring them back to a country.
Yeah.
You know, they came in from other countries, rough countries, and we put them in jail because we don't want them to come back. We don't want them ever back here. They're really dangerous. Washington DC was a very dangerous place. Now it's the safest city. It's the safest any city in the country. We took it from two to three murders a week.
Yeah.
To no murders a week, you know? We have, we did a good job. Our military did it. We put the military there, they did a great job. The National Guard. No, we're doing a good job and people like it. And I, I just, that's all I want. It's just, I just wanna be a president that's, uh, done a great job. We had to bring the country back.
So the term MAGA, Make America Great Again, it was such a great term. And that's what I've done because literally a year and a half ago, we had a country that was laughed at all over the world. You know that. They were laughing.
Yeah, we were just not respected.
Nobody respected us.
No one respected the leadership.
We had a country that was laughed at.
Yeah.
The king of Saudi Arabia told me, he said, "You know, a year and a half ago, your country was dead."
Yeah.
And now you have the hottest country anywhere in the world, and we do. And it's guys like you that make it hot.
Thank you. [Laughs]
It's guys like you, and his presidents like me --
We try, we try.
-- that have interviews with guys like you. But I think you're great. And congratulations to your fiance, I think, right?
Yes, fiance. She's the best.
And she just won a gold medal, I tell you, and I watched her win that gold medal and nobody had a chance.
Yeah.
[Laughs] They didn't have a chance.
Yeah.
That wasn't even fair, right?
No, she's, she's a legend. I'm so proud of her.
Oh, no.
It was the is greatest thing I've ever witnessed in person.
Well --
And to be a part of it.
She's a great, great person. Beautiful. You're not allowed to say beautiful.
[Laughs]
It's the end of your political career.
No, she is beautiful.
But you know what? She's beautiful.
Melania's beautiful as well.
Yeah, she is. She's doing great. She's doing a good job. [Laughs]
[Laughs] Look at us complimenting.
Yeah. Oh, it's nice. Nice, nice when you can do that, right?
Exactly. Exactly.
I just want to congratulate you. Great job.
Thank you, man.
You're a young guy, but you have done some incredible job.
Thank you.
And so different.
Yeah, man. I feel like I'm just hitting stride. I'm 29 and I look up to you and your American, you know, story, the American dream.
Yeah.
And that's what I want to do is inspire other kids. Kids who are watching this right now to chase their American dream because it's possible. I'm, you know, from a couple hours away from here, you know, coming back to Ohio to do this interview is --
Right.
-- just a dream come true.
Well, I love Ohio. It's been good to me. We won in a landslide.
Yeah.
We won everything practically in a landslide. [Laughs]
[Laughs] Florida crushed it.
It's good, Florida, Texas. All of them.
Yeah.
It's been, it's been a great time. I've had a great time and it's been a real experience, but much more important is to just take this country and bring it back and it's really back. It's really back.
Yeah. I feel it. No, and I think everyone else feels it as well. And I think the momentum's growing and --
Yep.
-- we really appreciate you.
Respect. They have to respect our country, right?
Yeah. Yep.
And to do that, they have to respect your leader.
Yep.
So I appreciate it.
I appreciate it.
You just take care. Say hello to your brother, okay?
I will.
Thank you, man.
Thank you, man. Thank you for sitting down.
Great honor.
Thank you, man.
Thank you.
Wanna just do a pic and then --
[Inaudible]
Cool.
That was a very good interview.
Oh yeah, the, thank you, man.
You know, for a guy, see?
I, I only had a day and a half to prepare, so --
Yes, it's, that's great.