Interview: Miranda Devine Interviews Donald Trump for Her Pod Force One Podcast - June 2, 2026

Thank you, Mr. President, for joining Pod Force One again. We're in the Roosevelt Room; Teddy Roosevelt's portrait is above your head.

Right.

Tell me, is he your one of your favorite presidents, and why?

Well, he was a good one, had a lot of energy, loved the outdoors. He was very good for the parks, the national parks, and lots of other things and he was a very good president. Now, he inherited a lot of money for the country because of tariffs. We had McKinley -- William McKinley who made the country very rich.

And as you know, he left office unexpectedly. You know how he left office, right? He was assassinated, and --

Roosevelt also was shot.

He was shot too, hit him hard in the wallet, right by his heart. And then he wanted to finish the speech, and maybe he did finish the speech, yeah. Do, he was -- no, but he was a very good president.

And he staged fights on the White House lawn, just like you, UFC.

Did you get a copy of the -- did you see what's being built there, too?

I have, yes. It's wonderful.

Do you have shots of it?

We will, yeah.

You have to, it's incredible. I tell you what's happening, the UFC is having a big fight on June 14th and it's going to be a great event; everybody wants to come.

Teddy Roosevelt actually fought himself. Are you planning to get into the cage?

Oh, wow. We'll have to think about that. It sounds like not a good idea.

[Laughter] I don't think the First Lady would be thrilled, or the Secret Service.

It'll be very exciting, June 14th.

And you're flying out to the G7 that night.

I then -- right after that, I leave for the G7. So, I'm an active president.

You are.

As opposed to some of our other presidents.

How are you going, because there's an enormous amount of stress on you since the last time I talked to you? You have every problem in the world weighing down on you and you've been very active with Maduro, with Iran, trying to sort Ukraine out, the economy, energy. How are you managing to bear all of that?

Well, one thing is working out well -- you know, Venezuela was a big success. Iran's a big success. Wait until you see. That'll be a very big success, it's already -- we've essentially defeated the military. We'll see what happens. We're going to -- we're working on a deal and if that happens, fine. If it doesn't happen, that's OK too, we'll do it the other way.

But the economy is unbelievable. We have -- we just hit another stock market high today, all-time high, 71 times. In the short period that I've been here for the second term, 71 times we've been at a new high. And whether we like it or not, that is a big indicator of where we had people, 401(k)s are all high.

They're all setting records.

What about people who don't have 401(k)s and they're worried about gas or groceries? We hear about that a lot.

I inherited very high prices. When I came in, I inherited the highest inflation in the history of our country. Biden had like 9, 10 percent inflation and I inherited that. And we have it way down. And then I said, I did have to say we have to do something about Iran because, regardless of how well we're doing, we can't let them have a nuclear weapon.

And they've already agreed they're not going to have a nuclear weapon.

Have they?

Oh, yeah, they've agreed to that. I mean, now they can change their mind but that's -- that was one of the things they had to agree. They've agreed to that, that was the big thing.

How do you know the people you're talking to there are actually the people making the decisions?

So, we had various levels of people, and the first set is gone, the second set is gone, part of the third set is gone. And the people where we're dealing with, we know they're the people that are leading the country right now.

Is it the gay Ayatollah?

He's involved, absolutely.

Really?

Yeah, I think they have -- they have a lot of respect for him.

So, is he -- he's compos mentis, he's not sick in hospital in a coma, as we've been told?

Well, I don't know. I haven't had the privilege of meeting him.

Right.

But I'm not hearing he's doing great. You're doing better.

Right.

That way he's not -- if you believe the stories, he's missing a lot of different parts.

So, who's making the decisions?

Well, they say he is giving approval because that's the way it is, has been for a long, long time, his father and then him. I guess it's a succession. But we seem to be getting along quite well.

Would you like to meet him or meet any of the Iranians in person?

I've never thought of it, actually. It's a very good question, I'll think of it. Yeah, I'd like to meet him. I'd like to meet everybody. I'd like to meet him; we probably will meet at some point, depending on how it all works out.

And how do you see the economy, Iran by, say, Labor Day, September 7th? Where's our country going to be?

I think we're going to be in very good shape. We're in good shape right now. We have the blockade, which is amazing. Our Navy is great, our military -- we have the strongest military in the world. I built the military in my first term, and I'm using it during my second term. I didn't think I'd be using it this much, but we had a big success in Venezuela.

That was over in one day. We have a great relationship with the people in Venezuela. The oil companies are moving in now with us, and that's been tremendous -- that's been a tremendous success, even from the economic standpoint, the oil standpoint. But that was essentially much less than a one-day war and a great success.

And we're having a very great success in Iran militarily.

So, you think the blockade will still be in place by Labor Day?

I don't know. I mean, I think it could be, but I think it's unlikely. I think that we'll have it -- I think this will resolve itself fairly quickly.

The media is almost universally saying Iran's got you in a corner, that the Hormuz Strait is a big problem, that's their trump card. What do you say to them?

Well, they know that it's fake news, just fake news. And most people, I mean, the professionals, the ones that aren't just jaded and sick, you know? They're mentally ill or Trump derangement syndrome. Let's put it this way; Iran has no Navy, they have no Air Force, they have very few soldiers, they have no leadership.

The leadership, I mean, the original leadership is wiped out as I said, the second leadership is wiped out, some of the third leadership is wiped out. Their economy is crashing; they have 250 percent inflation. They have -- everything that you can have that's bad they have. And then if you read The New York Times, you think they're doing fantastically.

It's amazing. Now, our country, on the other hand, has the best stock market we've ever had. We have, with the exception of the oil, for a short period of time because of the war -- I mean, you know, other than that, we have very little inflation, the country is doing fantastically. We're leading the world.

We have $18 trillion being invested in the country in just 11 months, whereas the past administration, Sleepy Joe, had less than -- he had less than $1 trillion and we have $18 trillion, which is a record for any country anywhere in the world. The record was $3 trillion, and we have $18 trillion coming into our country.

That's 11 months.

And when will that be felt by people in gas prices?

It's being felt now. Well, you see it in construction jobs because factories are being built all over the country, auto plants, every -- it's being built. We have more auto plants under construction now than we had during our prime in terms of prime automobiles.

In your first term that was, I think, one of the hallmarks was that people's wages, especially working people's wages were rising much faster than inflation. Do you see that?

It's happening now.

Right.

Oh, we don't have very much inflation. Look, if you take away just the price of gasoline, the energy, we have very little inflation, we're doing very well, other than this. So, but that's a big puller, energy and gasoline and all that's a big factor.

People feel it.

So, it's a very important thing -- item, and that'll start coming down very rapidly as soon as this ends. When it ends, but what we will have is we'll have a situation where Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. And that's really more important than all of it. We want low gas -- you know, I had a I had it down to $1.85 a gallon.

Think of it, $1.85 in Iowa. I was in Iowa just before the war started, and I had it down to $1.85 a gallon in various parts of the country, and it'll be back there again at some point in the probably not too distant future. I think as soon as it ends, it's going to come -- it's already -- by the way, it's already way down, you know that.

I mean, I saw it the other day, it's $98 a barrel. So, everyone said it's going to be $300 or $400 a barrel, it's $98 a barrel. But that's not a big price to pay if you look at the possibility of them having a nuclear weapon, it's not a very big price to pay.

And are your tactics where you say something and then change it and then do a peace deal and then break the ceasefire or whatever -- is that all about trying to keep the Iranians off balance? Are you sort of messaging to them?

No.

Because people at home, sometimes I hear that they feel anxious and confused.

They get confused? That's good. That's good. If they're confused, then the Iranians are confused too. But no, it's just the way I am. It changes. I mean, I could leave here, I could give you an answer and then, in 20 minutes, go into the Oval Office and say, how are things going? And I realize my answer is now incorrect, OK? I could come back and say, Miranda, do me a favor, let's change the old answer because it's incorrect.

But I figure --

Is that part of the art of the deal?

No, it changes. Facts change. And this thing -- some things quick, this is rapidly changing. We've dealt with Iran for 47 years and they've killed many of our people. And they killed many people all over the world. The state sponsor of terror, number one in the world. And it's rapidly evolving and it's evolving good.

It's going to be very good. They're not going to have a nuclear weapon, and lots of other good things are going to happen. And we're going to have something that -- I say we did a little excursion down to the beautiful country of Iran, or, as they say, the Islamic Republic of Iran. And we did that little excursion knowing that -- hey, I just hit the highest stock market price in history and very little inflation.

And I said, gentlemen and ladies, we're going to now have to make an excursion because we can't let them have a nuclear weapon and that's what we've done.

Do you wish you waited --

But as soon as we --

Until after the midterms?

I could have, but I -- no, because this is too important. If I did that, they would have had a nuclear weapon. So, they would have had a nuclear weapon two weeks after the B-2 bombers struck. So, if I did that, they would have had a nuclear weapon. It would be wonderful to say, oh, let's wait till after November.

But no, this is too important.

Has it set you back, you think, in terms of how Republicans will do in the midterms?

Well, I don't know. I mean, everybody I endorse wins. I mean everybody, you saw that, right, last week? Every single person I endorse wins, so I don't know about that. But again, this is a very important moment in history; we can't let this happen, what was going on 47 years. This should have been done for 47 years.

This should have been done for a lot of presidents and other people -- other countries should have done this.

[Commercial break]

Now Axios reported that you had a phone call with Bibi Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of Israel, in which you were angry with him. You said, are you effing crazy? What are you effing doing? I helped you stay out of jail. Is that true? Did you speak to him in those terms?

I did, I wouldn't say angry I was a little bit perturbed at his constantly fighting with Lebanon, you know. At some point I said, Bibi, we've got to stop this, we've got to stop it. But I have a very good relationship, we've done well, done well together, he says we could never have done it, but everybody knows that.

We could have never done it without the United States. But we've worked very well together. I like Bibi a lot, and I've worked very well with him. We had a -- you know, I'm a wartime president, he's a wartime prime minister, very important part of the world and I think we've done very well. We've gotten along very well together.

What do you say to people who claim that Bibi Netanyahu tricked you into going into Iran?

Well, they're just, you know, the enemy. They're just the Democrats, D-U-M. These are Dumocrats, these are people that don't know what they're doing. They want men playing in women's sports, and they want open borders so the world can pour into our country. And they want transgender for everybody, surgery, and they want transgender mutilation of our children.

No, these are just words, you know, that's all they do. That's all they're good for is words like -- I heard that the other day for the first time. I said he tricked me? I mean, I'm the one that started it because, again, I don't want to bore anybody, but I started because we can't let them have a nuclear weapon.

Now that pertains to Israel, because they probably would have been the first one to get hit. There would be no Israel. Tell you what, if there wasn't me, there would be no Israel right now. And it started off was when I terminated the horrible Barack Hussein Obama, the Iran nuclear deal that he penned, and that would have given Iran a nuclear -- that was a road to a nuclear weapon and I terminated it, which was lucky I did.

And then I stopped it a second time with the B-2 bombers flying in and bombing the hell out of them. They would have had a nuclear weapon. If I didn't do that attack, which, you know, somebody -- very few people would have done it. If I didn't do that attack, Iran would have had a nuclear weapon and they would have used it almost immediately.

Yeah. And speaking of Barack Obama, there's a senior intelligence official that worked under Obama who's now come forward to the inspector general and said that he's analyzed that dirty 51 letter that falsely claimed Hunter Biden's laptop was Russian disinformation. And he said that was a deliberate, concerted deception operation by the CIA to stop you winning the election.

Well, you wrote a good book about it, maybe the best, and I always appreciated it. That's one of the reasons I'm doing this interview, because I shouldn't be here right now, I'm supposed to be someplace else. But I'm doing it because it's you.

Thank you.

You wrote really a great book. It was a whole fake -- the whole thing was a fake. And they were trying to say that his laptop, you called it the laptop from hell, and you said you got the term from me.

You called it that, yeah.

And I never asked you for 10 percent or 25 percent. I should have said, give me 10, because that book was a big success.

Yeah, it was.

And you called it the laptop from hell. It was, it was a great term, you have to say. But think if they didn't have that laptop. Think if he didn't give it to the repair shop or if he picked it up. You know, the guy kept calling him, pick it up, pick it up. After 10, 15 phone calls, he opens it up and he sees what's in there and he couldn't believe it.

But polls show that you would have won the election if people had known about it, and it was censored and the dirty 51 letter, those CIA former directors, they rigged the election. And I mean, is the Department of Justice looking into --

Well, I won't get into that.

OK.

But they're looking into plenty of things. No, the election was rigged 100 percent. No, the only thing I can say is that I think we're probably having a better term than if it was the second term. I won it three times, but I think it's a more important term than it would have been if I did it the other way.

A lot of damage done to the country by Joe Biden.

That's right. The one thing is that we wouldn't have had 25 million people pouring into our country. That's a big thing. And we wouldn't have had the war with Russia and Ukraine either. That's a big thing. So many people have died. And they're losing 25,000 people a month. That wouldn't have happened. And he was the worst president, had no idea what he was doing.

He should have never been president. He lost the election in a landslide and, you know, we have a very corrupt election process. When you think of it, the Democrats fight because they don't want to have, like, proof of citizenship. Think of it. Who wouldn't have proof? They fight, they hire law firms, the biggest law firms, the most powerful law firms in the world, so that they can not have -- not have proof of citizenship.

They fight because of voter ID, voter identification. They don't want voter identification. By the way, Democrat people do you know. If you interview Democrats, not politicians, Democrats, they want voter identification. They fight because of the ballots; they have mail-in ballots. We're the only country in the world that has mail-in ballots.

No other country does it anymore. They've done it, used to have a lot, and they realized it was totally corrupt.

So, why won't the Senate --

We have a very corrupt election process.

Why can't the Senate just pass the SAVE America Act for voter ID?

They should do that. They should do that; they don't have the votes.

Can you put it into reconciliation?

They don't have one Democrat vote. I'll give you an example. The Senate or the House doesn't have one Democrat vote saying we want voter ID, we want proof of citizenship, and we don't want votes being mailed all over the place and coming back touching 15 different hands, right? We want to have no mail-in ballots.

Now, France had no mail-in ballots this last election, and it was very nice. But they used to have vote by mail. They called it vote by mail, and they found it was very corrupt. It's going to be corrupt, 100 percent corrupt, it has to be -- touches all over the place. You know, in California, they mail out 38 -- I think 38 million ballots and some people get three, four or five ballots.

Republicans get oftentimes none. They have to call in, where's my ballot? Where's my ballot, last minute?

Do you have a plan to get it through? I mean, you have the Republican majority in the Senate.

Well, I do, but they don't -- well, we have a majority, but we have a few Republicans that, believe it or not, like Lisa Murkowski and Rand Paul and --

Are against voter ID?

Would you -- why don't you call them up and say why they're against this? Why would a Republican, why would a Democrat -- you have to understand, the Democrats are like 86 percent in favor of it, it's only the leadership because they want to cheat. The only reason you would not want it is cheating. But we have a few Republicans that are -- nobody can explain it, they're against it, and so I --

Do you think Mitch McConnell is --

Mitch McConnell is against it.

Yeah. Do you think he has personal animus towards you? And he's --

Probably, even though I was the best thing that ever happened to him, I did the judges. Without me, he wouldn't have any judges. I guess he does, yeah. Look, without me, he wouldn't have been elected. It was my endorsement that got him elected. He was losing by a lot, I endorsed him, and he won the election quite easily along with everyone else.

So, you saw that the other night. I think it was 112 and zero, 138 and zero. But it's been a very interesting period of time. But you do have to ask that question. Why would you have three or four Republicans not in favor of voter ID, proof of citizenship and no mail-in ballots? And you can have mail-in ballots if you're in the military, because I don't want to make it sound so harsh.

It's really very popular. If you go away on vacation, like you'd like to visit your country, OK, which is a very nice country, although they've gone a little bit sour, I don't know what's up.

That's true.

I don't know what's going on with them.

I know. They'll come back; they've got a labor government.

Well, they have to come back. We've sort of lost them. Why wouldn't somebody want to have voter ID or proof of citizenship?

Well, surely -- could you -- Larry Kudlow's idea, put SAVE America Act into their reconciliation bill.

Well, we're going to eventually do it, but they have to do it. I say you have to do it, fellas, because people are not happy about it.

And there's a plan to override the parliamentarian who's so powerful.

Well, the parliamentarian shouldn't be there.

No, but if she is.

The parliamentarian -- I don't care, she shouldn't be. If she is, she shouldn't be.

JD Vance can overrule her.

John Thune has the right to change a parliamentarian. So, the parliamentarian was put there, I think, by Barack Hussein Obama.

2012, yeah.

So, immediately I know she's no good, OK, she's no good. She rules against us and they don't change her and they can.

So, do you talk to Thune about this?

I do, I do, I say, why don't you do it?

What does he say?

I'd rather not say, because I have a very good relationship with him, and I'm going to try as long as I can to keep it that way.

Yeah, yeah. Now the Democrats have got a huge problem. Graham Platner in Maine is one example, that terrible Senate candidate.

Well, he's a major sleazebag. I mean, you look at him, I can't imagine. But yet he's up in the polls against Susan Collins. But she's always down in the polls and she survives.

But they have James Talarico in Texas. They have Tim Walz.

I think he's one of the worst. Actually, I think Talarico is worse, you want to know, of the two of them I think Talarico is probably worse. Talarico is better than Jasmine Crockett, no relation to Davy Crockett. Do you know Davy Crockett?

Yes, the raccoon hat.

King of the wild frontier. But Jasmine Crockett, I thought, was her. I think she's a better candidate than him.

Oh, she's better?

So, I think she would have been better and she's, you know, grossly incompetence. She's a low IQ person. There are a lot of low IQ people. But, oh, he's horrible, Talarico is horrible with the six genders, with the mask a couple of months ago. He's wearing a mask, vegan in Texas doesn't work, he's heavy vegan.

God is two genders.

Now he's going no, no, let's have a barbecue. Did you hear the other day? He said, we're going to have a barbecue.

Why can't the Democrats find a normal red blooded white male? They have all these frauds, Tim Walz?

Anybody? They don't have the or what. If they could find anybody that -- you know, we have like 350 million people. Of course, nobody has any idea because they poured in so -- but, you know, during Biden, they poured in here like 25 million people. But we have 325 to 350 million people, and you would think that we would have some great ones.

We do have great ones, but they don't seem to be chosen by the Democrats. And of course, the Republicans is one of the finest intellects in the history of our country. You know, it's the cream to the top. But I'm amazed, including Republicans, but especially the Democrats.

They don't appeal to men.

Well, look at the -- yeah, they're not appealing to anybody. We had Kamala, Kamala was a disaster, the border czar. She was the border czar; she was the queen of the border. She never called; she never went there and she never made one phone call. I know all the border guys, you know, the Border Patrol, they're great.

ICE, Border Patrol, they're very -- they're patriots. They're great.

A lot of them are veterans.

They spoke to me a lot. I call them all the time, how are we doing on the border today? So, now the border is sealed, we have nobody coming in, nobody. We actually had for the last 11 months zero people coming because they don't even try. They don't come up. They don't go into the caravan; they don't come up. But look, our country is the hottest country in the world.

So, we had numerous people, leaders, but in particular -- so, I was with the king of Saudi Arabia. He said, you know, and at that time this was seven or eight months ago. But he said, essentially a year and a half ago, you were a dead country. Now you're the hottest country in the world. We're the hottest country in the world.

We have the strongest military in the world, everybody knows it. You saw that with Venezuela. You see that with Iran. I mean, their Navy is wiped out, their Air Force is all gone. After three days, their military was virtually wiped out. Now I have to make a determination, do we sign a deal, or do we do it the other way, and the other way is not nice.

What will the other way achieve though?

Certainty it would be over. There wouldn't be any bullshit. There wouldn't be any talking. There wouldn't be any delays. There wouldn't be -- but you know, I'd rather do it the nice way from a humanitarian standpoint.

Can you do it just with bombing, the other way?

Yeah, you don't have to -- we don't need boots on the ground, no. Well, we did it, we wiped out much of their military with just bombing, we didn't put anybody on the ground. You don't want to do that, you're so far away. You don't want to do that if you can avoid it. But it's been an amazing period of time.

No, we have -- think of it, a year ago, year and a half ago, we had a dead country. It was a dead country; it was a laughingstock all over the world. We had a president who couldn't climb up a flight of stairs, he was an incompetent man.

Jill Biden said this morning that he would have beaten you, Joe Biden, last year in that election.

There was never a candidate that was down as much as he was. He was down by so much and his debate performance. By the way, he choked. They were saying, why did he do so badly? I got no credit for the debate. They said Trump was great, but they didn't say Trump made him choke. He choked -- just like a golfer that can't sink a three-footer, like, stands over it -- you know, he's choking, a baseball player, a basketball -- Joe choked.

Now, I wouldn't say he was in the greatest condition to start off with.

Do you believe Jill Biden? Do you believe Jill Biden when she says she thought that he was having a stroke?

No, I don't believe it, no. He was he wasn't at the top of his game. But you have to understand, if you go back 35 years ago, he was not considered a smart person, he was never a smart person. He was a horrible president. Obama was a horrible president. Barack Hussein Obama, he was a great divider, a horrible president.

And there haven't been too many good ones over the last period of time, to be honest with you. But Obama was an absolutely horrible divider, and that played into this whole nightmare that we had with Biden, who couldn't do anything right. The whole world was laughing at us. We can never let -- think of what happened.

Number one, Russia Ukraine wouldn't have happened. And number two, we wouldn't have people pouring into our country from jails and from drug dealers --

Terrorists.

And from mental institutions, and terrorists, and from -- I mean, literally, they emptied out jails, the jail populations, the whole jail was emptied into our country, and many of them were -- we had 11,888 murderers, most of whom committed more than one murder -- allowed into our country. And we can never forget what the Dumocrats -- and they are dumb -- what the Dumocrats -- and that's my name for them.

You changed the U for the E, and nobody knows that dumb has a B, so you just put it. But the Democrats, what they've done to this country and you can never forget it.

Jill Biden was also -- in her book she's written about your wife, the First Lady, Melania Trump, she claims that she was kind of cold to her on Inauguration Day when they shared a cab. She's quite rude about her, says that she rejected her offers to have cups of tea, etc. What do you think the First Lady would make of that?

Well, I don't know. I mean, I didn't see the book, I don't think I'll be reading the book. I think the debate was very interesting though, because the man was -- he was a bad debater anyway, but he certainly wasn't on his game that night. But I think I put him off his game, I think, you know. So, I have a friend who was in a big golf tournament and he played great.

And his primary competitor didn't play great, and they always blamed it on the other primary competitor. He said, but nobody ever talks about the fact that I played great. Well, I mean, I had a great debate, and I think that contributed to Joe not doing well because Joe was all right. People saw him before the debate and he was fine.

I wouldn't say he was Winston Churchill, but he was fine, he was all right.

He went to a Waffle House that night.

Yeah. I mean, so she said he had a stroke, but why would she bring him to a Waffle House if he had a stroke?

Would your wife have allowed you to go off to a Waffle House if she thought you were having a stroke?

Even in good times she wouldn't -- you know, although I would actually, it's not so bad. But no, it was an amazing evening, actually. I walked in, he was very white, did you notice the makeup or something? They hired a very expensive makeup artist who really liked white powder, then he was on the white side.

Because I walked in and, for some reason, they introduced him. So, it's like a boxing match; you always introduce the champion, the one that's higher rated than you? Well, he was the president, I wasn't. I thought I was going to be, but I wasn't. And they introduced -- I was waiting to go first and they introduced him first, which was very unusual.

And when I went up, I looked at him and I said, he's so white, that was the big thing. I said, what happened to him. But it was not a good debate performance, but I think I did well. I think maybe I was a contributing factor to the fact that he didn't debate well, I don't know.

You spooked him.

I don't know. I mean, something happened. Something happened strange.

And you've just --

But it was a great thing, because we got rid of him, and he was way down in the polls, and we got somebody else.

And you got rid of Kamala.

And then we had Kamala. So, I'm the only person that's ever beaten two people. This could only happen to me. So, I have one guy and I'm killing him. It's like a fighter, you're killing a guy and they take him out and they put another fighter. So, what happened? This is a fresh fighter and then they put Kamala there.

She wasn't too good. She wasn't the best either.

And for 2028, the Democrats, who knows who they're going to field, they don't have a great candidate. But you have a cornucopia of talent.

We have a lot of talent.

And you've talked about JD and Marco Rubio, and I think you like sort of pitting them against each other.

They're both very talented. They're both great. Well, I like them both and I like them together -- you know, it'd be great. I don't know how you'd beat them if they're together, that would be a great team. JD and Marco would be a great team. I don't know, they have to agree to it, right? We haven't -- we still have -- you know we have a long time left.

We have more than two and a half years, substantially more than two and a half years. So.

Marco's a lot older. Would you --

Well, not a lot older, but he's older.

14 years.

They're both young guys. I mean, they're both very talented; they get along really well. I mean, I watch them all the time. I study them as they're with each other. I find it very interesting. It' sort of like politics. But I would think that JD and Marco as a team would be very hard to beat. I mean, compare that to these low IQ people that we have on the other side?

You know, Gavin Newscum is an example. He said he's a stupid person. He said he's stupid. He said that he's -- look, I'm not going to knock dyslexia because people have it, but it's not ideal if you're president.

Why boast about it?

Well, listen to this, he can't read a speech. He said he can't read a speech; he cannot do it. I think it was the worst interview by a professional politician I've ever seen. He said he's a stupid person, but he said he's smarter than the people in the room. So, now they're going after it because it happened to be a black audience.

It was the most incredible thing. He's smarter -- he said he's stupid, but he's smarter than the people in the room. I'll be honest there's something wrong with him. That was the worst interview I've ever seen given by a professional politician. He's a professional politician, and he said he's just not a very capable person.

In fact, I thought he was trying to get out of the race when he did that interview. That interview should be played over and over again, whoever runs against him, if he's going to run, I'm not sure. I think that interview actually knocked him out of the race because they said he had terrible boards. They said -- he just said, and he said, I cannot read a speech, I'm incapable of reading a speech.

I never heard that before. Sometimes you're better off reading a speech but he said he's incapable of reading a speech. I thought he was actually looking to get out of the race and I think he's not, because I think he's still running. Anybody -- by the way, anybody that runs against him, just get that interview and play it.

Yes, it's a good idea. And I was interested when you talked about how you studied Marco Rubio and JD Vance as they interact. What is their interaction and how do they relate?

It's good. I study to see if they like each other. I just find it interesting, you know, it's life, it's big-time stuff.

Do you do that with everyone in the cabinet?

I do it with everybody.

Do you?

Outside of the cabinet, too? I study everything; I'm a studier.

Why?

Because it's interesting, human -- the human thing, the human equation. So, I watch them together; they get along great, they have a good relationship. They're sort of similar in a lot of ways, but they're very talented. And I think the two of them running together as a team would be very unbeatable.

Now you've just announced Bill Pulte, who's your housing finance director, as the new Tulsi Gabbard, the new director of National Intelligence. Do you think -- Tulsi Gabbard did a great job of declassifying --

She did.

Information that told us a lot about the deep state coup plot against you.

It told us they're corrupt; it told us that the election was rigged, the last election was.

COVID.

And it talked about COVID, but it talked about the rigging of the election. The election was rigged; the 2020 election was rigged, sure as you're sitting there. You are sitting there, yes?

Yeah.

But as sure as you're sitting there, it talked about how the election -- and just aspects of it. No, it's a terrible thing when a country like us can have a rigged -- we're worse than some third-world countries when it comes to elections, and that's why we have to pass the SAVE America Act. And what that is, is very simple.

It's really you say Save America, it's just a term. But it's voter ID, right? It's proof of citizenship, and you don't have mail-in ballots. You don't send the ballots all over the place and maybe get them back.

It's a big priority.

Well, no, think of it, think of it. People get seven ballots, some of the Democrats; and Republicans, for whatever reason, tend to get none. You know, they cheat very well. If they didn't cheat, you wouldn't have them in. They do one thing that is good, they stick together. They can have the worst policy, think of it, men in women's sports, open borders so the rest of the world can pour into your country and destroy your country.

Again, the transgender mutilation of your children where they can take your children and have a boy made into a girl and this is wonderful, they say. So, their policies are no good.

That's why they have to rig it.

Well, they have to -- no, they couldn't win otherwise. If they didn't cheat, they could not win because their policies are so bad.

So, Bill Pulte, why did you choose him and is he going to accelerate this declassification? And what can be -- like something has to be done, you can't just expose it. So, is the DOJ?

Yeah, he's a very talented guy. Todd's doing a very good job at DOJ.

Will he be attorney general or have you decided?

I think he will, yeah.

You haven't got someone else in mind? Not Ron DeSantis?

No. I wanted to see how he's received, you know, we put him as acting and he's done a very good job. But I've known him a long time.

Someone mentioned Ron DeSantis might be in the mix to be attorney general.

No, Ron's very good. Ron's very good. People have thought of different names; there are some big names. No, I had never thought, Ron never talked about it. He's a governor doing a good job. But Ron's good, he's a friend of mine, he just named an airport after me. They named the Palm Beach International Airport the President Donald J. Trump International Airport.

Well, you use it all the time, yeah.

So, that's a great honor. There are a lot of great people. The Republican Party, we have great people.

So, are you happy with the pace of what the Department of Justice is doing? There's so much trying to find that Antifa.

Well, much more so now than at the beginning. They are -- yeah, there's a lot of things going on right now.

There's a lot of problems inside.

Look, we had a rigged election. We can't have a rigged election. You know, we can be nice about it, we can be politically correct, or I don't want to say. I used to say that a year and a half ago, the election was rigged and the cameras would literally turn off. And the anchor would say, sir, you're not allowed to say that, you're not -- now, nobody ever turns off the camera because it's been proven to be rigged.

Look at what happened in Georgia. Look at all the stuff that we found out. It was a rigged election. Biden lost in a landslide and it's -- to think that this could happen. No, because of that, we have Russia Ukraine. That would have never happened with me. Because of that, we had open border with 25 million, in many cases, criminal, not all.

And fentanyl deaths.

Everything. He was the worst president, and we were laughed at all over the world as a country. We're not laughed at anymore. We have the hottest country anywhere in the world, maybe the most successful country anywhere in the world.

So, someone has to be punished, though, for that. So, how do you do that? You don't have to punish them all.

Yeah, I know. I'd rather not get into it, but let's see what happens.

Are you confident something will happen?

I don't want to talk about it, but let's see what happens. The election was rigged. We know who rigged the election, we know everything now. You know, we have information that nobody thought was possible. But when you get to office, all of a sudden people start giving you things. It was a great -- I'll tell you, 2024 was a great election.

That was a lot, we had a lot of rigging going on there too, because, you know what? I won in a landslide. But there were areas that were just rigged. I could see it. In other words, rigged against me.

Yeah, of course, of course. The anti-weaponization fund, have you dropped that?

No, a court ruled against it. But just so you understand, these are people that have been decimated. These are people that lost their lives over nonsense where the FBI said go in, go in; police, go in, go in. And they were supposed to serve five years, 10 years in jail. People committed suicide. People were treated -- there's never been anything like this, what happened to those people.

And these were many great people. And I gave them pardons, I'm very proud to have given them pardons, and I think they should be reimbursed for a crooked government. The government was crooked. This was the Biden group. And it's not Biden, Biden was too gone. Biden was a stupid person. He was stupid 30 years ago, long before anybody talked about him.

And corrupt.

He's also the worst thing to ever happen to old people, because I know people that are 95 years old that are 100 percent sharp. Gary Player, the great golfer, he's 90. He's 100 percent. He's the same guy I've known for 35 years. I know people in their 90s. I know people in their late --

You just had your health thing and you're 14 years younger cardiac health and cognitive health.

Yeah, they said I'm very healthy. I do physicals because I just want -- I think I have an obligation to do it, but I just came out with very, very good results. And I took a test, a cognitive test, and I got 100 percent on it. As the expression goes, I aced it. And the doctors told me it's very, very few people can ace that, it's actually a tough test.

Once you get past the first half of the question, those questions get difficult.

Is it memory? What is it that -- have you got a good memory?

I have a great memory. Look, so far, so good. I hope I'm going to keep it that way. If I don't, you'll be the first to know. You'll say this interview, this isn't the same Trump, I think he's lost it.

Well, Scott Pelley interviewed Joe Biden in '23 just after he did that Robert Hur interview where Robert Hur said that Joe Biden couldn't be charged because he was an elderly man with a poor memory. And Scott Pelley covered up, apparently, the edits.

I think Scott Pelley has got his own problems, he's terrible. Look, Scott Pelley is a stiff and he's afraid. And he's part of this gang of crooked, stupid people that don't care about our country. I watched that interview, that interview was a joke. But I watch him on CNN. How about CNN where Anderson Cooper or George Stephanopoulos who gave me $16 million because he lied about me -- he gave me 16 million bucks.

It was nice, he did. He said the wrong thing, and we said, take it back, and he wouldn't take it back. And so, he was forced to pay $16 million. But I watched George Stephanopoulos, who is a tough little cookie, and I watched an interview -- I've watched all these guys for years, right. And I watched George Stephanopoulos give the softest interview that he's ever given.

After the Afghan disaster.

The worst, yeah, and I was looking forward to it because he can be a very tough interviewer. And I said, this will be interesting, let's see if Biden can get through this. And it's like he's giving him the answers. It's like -- it's a rigged system, it's crazy. And, you know, the crazy part is why. Wouldn't you want to have borders?

Wouldn't you want to have good education, low interest rates, a strong military, no crime? We don't want crime. These people are crazy; there's something wrong with them. And they do suffer from Trump Derangement Syndrome. There's something -- I've gotten into their brain and --

Because you're effective.

Yeah, because I'm doing a good job. Look, we have the lowest crime numbers we've had in 125 years, despite the fact that we've taken in people from Sleepy Joe Biden's horrible administration. Now, he had some of the worst people in his Oval Office, mean, vicious, radical left, smart, smart.

Smart and stupid -- Anthony Blinken.

Stupid -- in many ways, stupid, brilliant and dumb, they had a combination of both and lack of common sense maybe. But they wanted open borders; they wanted men playing in women's sports, as an example. It's such a great example because who would want that? I had the quarterback of the New York Giants, young, handsome kid the other day.

He introduced me and people criticize him -- the radical left, stupid people, they criticized him and he just sold $4 million worth of shirts. His shirt, Jackson, his shirt is through the roof, it's the hottest shirt there is.

He's a great kid.

Oh, he's a great kid, handsome kid, he's introduced me, and I didn't think of it. It was a beautiful little introduction.

Yeah.

And he's a very -- I think he's got a chance to be a really good quarterback, too. But he's a very young guy and he went through hell. They're going after him, the radical left lunatics.

Well, like your concert.

And here's what he got out of it. He's got the number one selling shirt in the world right now.

Yeah. The concert that you were going to do.

Yeah, do you know what I did with that?

All those musicians have fallen yeah, they're cowards.

People like -- no, it's not that, they get some free publicity. Look, they're not really cowards, but I've never even heard of these people. I've never heard of any of them. They're boring, I don't even want them. And when I heard a couple of them canceled out I said, cancel the whole thing, I don't want to -- we're going to do a rally.

Yeah.

And a rally nobody's ever gotten crowds like I get at a rally. I had 118,000 people at one, I have 25,000 -- 25,000 is like a small crowd.

And your music's great.

And the only reason I only have 25,000 is because we have the basketball arenas and --

Right.

Like at Madison Square Garden, I went to Madison Square Garden, Jim Dolan is the owner, he's a good guy too. And he said he's never, ever had a crowd like it. So, the place was packed and the crowds went down to the Hudson River and down past Fifth Avenue.

I was there; it was incredible.

They could have sold that out, Miranda, 10 different times. He said, I've never seen anything like it. So, we're going to have a rally. I told -- I don't want the -- I don't even know who they are, I don't know their music, I don't want to know their music. But no, a couple of them said, we don't want anything that's partisan.

I said, that's OK, go someplace else. And we're not looking to be partisan; we're celebrating the country. But we're going to do a rally -- a great, beautiful rally to 250, 250 years and it's going to be great. And I think we'll get much bigger crowds. I mean, I'm not looking to work, you know, I've got myself a good job.

That's right. I thought you'd be a bit busy.

But I do get the largest rallies in the history of politics by maybe 10 times.

Your legacy, what do you hope people think of you?

I would like my legacy to be a good guy and all of those things, so we don't have to waste a lot of time with it, but that I took our country, and I made it great again. This country was going down the tubes. We were a laughingstock all over the world. I took this country, and today you have the hottest country anywhere in the world, the most successful country anywhere in the world.

And everybody, even President Xi, I was with him in China, he looks up to us. We had a great visit, but he has great respect for what I did. He said, you've done it so fast, I've never seen anything like it. I've taken something that was in deep trouble, and I've made us the hottest country anywhere in the world.

Fantastic. Thank you so much, President Trump.

Thank you.