[Maria Bartiromo recorded a sit-down interview with Donald Trump at the White House on March 6, 2025. The full interview, with some breaks, aired on March 9, 2025. The following transcript was provided by Fox News and has been cross-checked and confirmed. Transcript and video courtesy and copyright Fox News and Sunday Morning Futures.]
President Trump welcomed us to the Roosevelt Room in the White House and took a moment to look ahead to the impact on America.
We have had a great almost six weeks now. And I hope we can continue to go like that. We're at a very rapid pace. We have to make up for a lot of lost time. And the country was very poorly run for four years. You know better than anybody. Nobody covered it better than you, frankly. It's an honor to be with so many great people.
We have really great people working with us.
You said America is back. Momentum is back. Our pride and spirit are back and we're just getting started.
Right.
What do you specifically want America to look like in four years, when you're done?
Well, I want a dynamic country, where the private enterprise carries the day, not the government. And I want a strong country militarily. We need that nowadays. You can see that probably better than ever before. So I rebuilt our military. A lot of it was given away to Afghanistan. But it was a lot, but a very small portion, in all fairness, but when you think about the billions and billions of dollars that was just handed over.
But I rebuilt it. We're going to be rebuilding it again, because we need that. We always need that. But we're doing a series of incentives, tax incentives and other things. The tax bill, I think, is going to be very important. Democrats will fight us all the way. One thing I learned the other night, again, I could say, because I -- it's my fifth such speech.
And at the beginning, I said -- I didn't know it was going to be as pertinent as it turned out to be -- that, no matter what I do, this group of people in front of us -- I could come up with a cure to the worst disease that the world has ever seen. I gave other examples. I said, no matter what I do, they're going to sit there angry, insolent.
You just see it. I mean, you see it. You can feel it. No matter what I say, no matter what I do, no matter who it is, they won't stand, they won't applaud, they won't clap. They will just sit there with sour faces. And that's what they did. And it was interesting. I said I wonder if I should put this in, but it worked out to be true.
And I think by putting it in, I showed that it was true. And it's sad, because we're doing great things in this country. This country's really got a chance to be pretty quickly great again. I think -- I think the country's got a big light over it right now. And I have been told this by even other foreign leaders.
We had Modi. We had everywhere. We had from France to India to about 12 that want to come in. They all want to be here. Every one of them wants to be here. We had the prime minister of the United Kingdom who was here, and he couldn't believe. He said the difference in terms of the feeling about the United States is very different.
It feels that we're back, we're respected again. We are respected again. And, in a way, we're back. And it's only been a few weeks.
And you spoke to the president of Mexico today.
I did.
I want to talk about tariffs.
Yes.
Because, even as you're seeing this optimism and excitement, there's some nervousness over your tariffs. Markets have been selling off. They're not sure how to view it. Why did you roll back or put a pause into some of the tariffs until April 2?
Because I wanted to help Mexico, and Canada, to a certain extent. We're a big, big country. And they do a lot of their business with us, whereas, in our case, it's much less significant. We do very little with Canada by comparison. And I wanted to help the American carmakers until April 2. April 2, it becomes all reciprocal.
What they charge us, we charge them. It's a big deal, but what they charge us, we charge them. But this is short-term. And I felt that, for the good of the American carmakers and the MCA, you know what -- the USMCA, what -- that's Mexico, Canada. I thought it would be a fair thing to do. And so I gave them a little bit of a break for this short period of time.
But I asked you about this before, and I know you told me when I asked you. I said, you did use MCA. You put this together.
Yes.
And yet then you come back and you change it up with these tariffs, and you said to me at that time, I did it because I can. I put an amendment in there, and I said, in six years, I can change it. But I think CEOs want to see predictability. They say, look, I have to speak with shareholders. I have got to make plans for CapEx spending.
I can't if it's 20 percent one day and then it's off for a month and it's 25 percent.
Yes.
So can you give us a sense of whether or not we are going to get clarity for the business community?
Well, I think so. But the tariffs could go up as time goes by, and they may go up. And I don't know if it's predictability. I think --
So that's not clarity.
No, I think that they say that. You know, it sounds good to say. But, for years, the globalists, the big globalists have been ripping off the United States. They have been taking money away from the United States. And all we're doing is getting some of it back. And we're going to treat our country fairly.
This country has been ripped off from every nation in the world, every company outside in the world. We have been ripped off at levels never seen before. And all we're going to do is get it back. We're going to get a lot of it back. We're not going to let people take advantage of us anymore. You know, we're the United States.
I believe that, if Kamala had won, meaning that whole ideology, Kamala and Biden and Obama, that whole group of people, if they had won, I don't think we would have had a country any longer. I think this was the most -- somebody said it the other day, the most consequential election in 129 years. If they would have won, I don't think we would have had a country.
Not only did we win. We won every swing state. I remember I was watching your show just before the election. You were talking about, I think he's going to win four or five. We won all seven. And we won the popular vote by millions of votes. We won the number of counties by 2,500 to 500, 2,750 to 500. And it's amazing.
The map is all red. Yes.
Which is why I was surprised at the Democrats' behavior the other night, because you delivered among the most diverse, expanded audience, Republicans, Democrats, independents.
Yes.
So does -- is it just the Democrat leadership that does not see that?
There's something wrong with them. There's just something -- I can't even believe it. They lost an election in a landslide. They were talking about men playing in women's sports. When I looked the other night, I made a speech. The Republicans were going wild, and the Democrats were having their little signs up, their little signs, their little tiny signs.
And I said, it's unbelievable. They don't get it. They don't get it now. And I think they're going to end up being a minor party if they keep going like this, because people don't want to hear about these stupid ideas that they have, transgender for everybody. And, again, the men in women's sports, what is that, a 90-to-10 deal?
I don't even know who the 10 would be. But they're -- and they're fighting for it. And I try and say to myself, because you always like to understand where your opponent is, whether it's in business or anything else, is there something I don't understand? But we don't understand it. You look at their theories on tax, all my life, I have watched politicians.
I have always liked it. I have watched it. I have participated, but from the standpoint of a donor. But I participated. And all my life, I have watched politicians. We will cut your taxes. We will cut your taxes. These people say, we're going to raise your taxes. This is the only time. It's never said. I have never heard it. They say it even if they don't mean it. We will cut your taxes.
These people say that we're going to give you the biggest tax increase you have ever had. And that's what they're running on. And I tell Republicans, take that night, because that was a great night. You got record ratings. You saw that, the highest rated speech, like, ever of its kind. Take that night and run your midterms on it and show us, I'm talking about some young child with cancer with some young, beautiful girl like Laken Riley, who was killed, and they don't get up. And they don't salute the mother, who's there devastated, Nungaray.
They don't get up, and they don't salute the mother whose child was devastated, I mean, brutally killed. The young boy with cancer that wants to be a cop, and they don't get up and salute that child. They not only don't get up. They're angry. And the only thing that happened that was interesting really about it was that, when I mentioned Ukraine and people being killed, they started clapping.
And that clap was led by Pocahontas.
I saw what you said.
Yes.
And I want to ask you about Ukraine and the blowup the other day with Zelenskyy. Let me stay on the economy for a moment, because there are rising worries about a slowdown. You have got the Atlanta Federal Reserve saying we're going to have a contraction in the first quarter. Look, I know that you inherited a mess, and you said that the other night.
I have only been here for --
But are you expecting a recession this year?
I hate to predict things like that. There is a period of transition, because what we're doing is very big. We're bringing wealth back to America. That's a big thing. And there are always periods of -- it takes a little time. It takes a little time. But I don't -- I think it should be great for us. I mean, I think it should be great.
It's going to be great ultimately for the farmer. Don't forget I made the deal with China on farmers where they had to buy $50 billion worth of product, $50 billion, from 15 to 50. And it was great.
Did they follow up and do it?
They did it when I was president. What happened is, when Biden was president, they didn't buy any longer.
It stopped.
Yes, because there was nobody to call him. I used to call President Xi. I said, you got to do me a favor. You got to live up to that agreement. And he was great. He did.
Before you came into the Oval Office the first time, you were a very successful businessman, very successful real estate executive. And a lot of people said, oh, this is the business president. This is it. He's watching the stock market. He knows all about -- he doesn't want the market to go down. And now we have got tariffs, and the market has been going down.
Well, not much, I mean, in all fairness, not much.
You said, look, we're going to have a disruption, but we're OK with that. Is that what you meant? The stock market going down was the disruption?
There will be a little disruption.
What other disruption were you alluding to?
Look, what I have to do is build a strong country. You can't really watch the stock market. If you look at China, they have a 100-year perspective. We have a quarter. We go by quarters.
That's true.
And you can't go by that. You have to do what's right. What we're doing is, we're building a tremendous foundation for the future, tremendous foundation. Everything's been taken away. We don't make ships anymore. We don't -- you just saw one of the biggest shipbuilders in the world, one of the biggest shipping people in the whole world.
In the Oval Office with you.
In the Oval Office. He's announcing a $20 billion investment in the United States, which he would have never done except for this. But look at this. Honda, Toyota, they're all coming in. You take a look at what's happening. The chipmaker, the greatest chipmaker, Mr. Wei, the biggest in the world, by far, is going to spend $200 billion on making a massive plant to make chips.
So that's your message, build it here?
Build it here, there's no tariff.
Yes. The public companies want to make sure that we have clarity. After April 2, when those reciprocal tariffs go in, is that it? Are you going to change anything after that? Will we have clarity?
You will have a lot, but we may go up with some tariffs. It depends. We may go up. I don't think we will go down, but we may go up. And -- but you're going to have -- they have plenty of clarity. They just use it. That's like almost a sound bite. They always say that: We want clarity. Look, our country's been ripped off for many decades, for many, many decades, and we're not going to be ripped off anymore.
On the tariffs, what are the automakers going to do for a month? I mean, you say you wanted to help American automakers.
Yes, I did.
You spoke with the three.
It's a transition period.
OK.
And it's a transition into April. And, after that, I'm not doing this. I mean, I told them, I said, look, I'm going to do it this one time, but, after that, I'm not doing it. They called me and they wanted help doing this little transition period, and I gave it to them.
[Commercial Break]
Let me go back to what happened in the Oval Office the other day. I call it a smackdown of Zelenskyy. It looked really rough. But, then again, at the end of the day, you may have your deal back. So was that all the art of the deal, or what specifically ticked you off?
Well, he was able to -- it was like taking candy from a baby, what he did. He's a smart guy. And he's a tough guy. And he took money out of this country under Biden like candy from a baby, it was so easy, with that same attitude. And I just don't think he's grateful. We gave him, in my opinion, $350 billion.
Europe is in for $100 billion. We gave him $350 billion. And he's talking about the fact that they have fought and they have -- there's a bravery, because somebody has to use the weapons. But without those weapons -- don't forget, I was the one that gave him the Javelins that was able to knock down all the types.
Obama gave nothing. Look, if I were president, that would have never happened. You wouldn't have had Russia going into Ukraine. You wouldn't have had -- the whole situation with Hamas and October 7 would have never happened, because Iran was broke. They had no money. They weren't giving it to Hamas or Hezbollah or anybody else.
You would have never had the worst evacuation anyone's ever seen, which is Afghanistan, which was the most embarrassing day in the history of our country. And you know what else you wouldn't have had? You wouldn't have had inflation. We had record-setting inflation under Biden. It was a killer.
You may get it again.
And it's one of the reasons I won the election.
But you may get it again with these tariffs, right?
You may get it.
I mean, one CEO said to me: "My input costs have already started to go up."
Well --
I'm going to have to raise prices.
In the meantime, guess what? Interest rates are down for the last three, four days at good levels. I mean, when you add interest rates, you're talking about it's gone down. We have been -- I have been saying, let's get interest rates down. Nobody ever gets rich when the interest rates are high, because people can't borrow money.
Interest rates are going down. You know what else is going down? What have I been trying to get down?
Oil.
Energy. Energy is going down. I would love to see energy go down. Energy is really what caused it. They screwed up my energy. I had the most energy, and they screwed it up. Then they went back to it. It was going through the roof. They went back to some drilling. But it was gone. It was hopeless. It was lost.
But energy has gone down and interest rates have gone out -- over the last week. That's a big thing. I love that.
Do you expect Zelenskyy to come back? Do you expect to do that rare earth minerals deal?
Yes, I think so. I think it'll happen.
Are you sure there's the content that you think there is there? Because some people were questioning if in fact there is the titanium and the lithium, all those battery, the rare earth minerals. Do you think it is rich with those things?
Well, I do. I do. I mean, I have had it checked. I have had it checked.
[Crosstalk]
OK.
It's very valuable. But, with all that being said, Biden should have never put up $350 billion. He should have equalized with Europe. All he had to do is say, you have got to stay even with us. They're in for 100. We're in for 350. How does that -- and we have an ocean in between us, right? We're not in the danger that they are.
They are in much greater danger, if you call it danger. He should have never done that. The other thing with Europe that bothers me? They have given Russia more money by far for buying their oil than they put into Ukraine. So they're paying all this money to Russia. And we're in there for $350 billion. Biden should have never done that.
I spoke with the president of Poland the other day. President Duda has great respect for you.
Yes.
And I said to him, what if the U.S. walks away and stays away? Here's what he said.
[Begin video clip]
[Video Clip] Without the United States, do you believe that Europe is capable of offering meaningful security to Ukraine?
[Video Clip] [Via Translator] I would like to believe it, but experience to date shows that this has not been the case. The entire history so far of the last three years of the war shows that, without American support, Ukraine will not survive.
[End video clip]
Are you comfortable with that, the fact that you walked away and Ukraine may not survive?
Well, it may not survive anyway. But we have some weaknesses with Russia. You know, it takes two. Look, it was not going to happen, that war, and it happened. So now we're stuck with this mess. Think of what he stuck me with, open borders, where we have 21 million people came into our country, many of whom should not be here.
Many are criminals. Many, many are criminals, many murderers, murderers, drug dealers, drug lords. We got that. We have the whole mess with Israel on October 7. We have all of the ramifications from the worst and dumbest withdrawal in history.
Both Ukraine and Israel were both attacked by aggressors. Is America treating both countries similarly? Are they treating the aggressors similarly?
I think so. Look, they're very --
Are you favoring one or the other?
They're very different places, OK, very, very different. You're talking about different levels of power. You're talking about different parts of the world. The Middle East has been under attack forever. It's been -- you look. When wasn't it under attack? And then we came along and did the Abraham Accords, which was unheard of.
Have you been as tough on Russia as you have been on Hamas? I mean, what do you want to say to critics?
Well, I have been much tougher, because I haven't done to Hamas. That's been Israel that has to do to Hamas. But Israel does tell me what's going on. I think I have been very tough to Russia, tougher than anybody's ever been to Russia, if you think about it. First of all, we had the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax, which was a very bad thing.
Could have led to a war. And that was started by Schiff and all these lowlifes.
I know.
They're total lowlifes. And it was a fake deal, the 51 intelligence agencies. It was -- I took all their passes away. They can't participate anymore. These guys know it came from Hunter Biden's laptop from hell, which came from his bathroom and/or his bedroom, OK? Not a pretty sight. But this was a Hunter Biden thing.
They said it was from Russia. No, I have been very tough. Remember this. I'm the one that stopped the Russian pipeline, Nord Stream 2. I stopped it. Biden came in and he approved it. I'm the one that put sanctions on Russia. I'm the one that gave the Javelins against Russia. No, I have been very tough. But I got along well with Putin.
And because I got along well, oh, they say, oh, he's so -- nobody's ever been -- Putin would be the first to say it. Nobody's been tougher than Trump. And Biden hasn't been tough. Biden's done nothing. He was a weak, pathetic man.
So is there anything else you want to say to the critics who say you chose a side in the Ukraine-Russia story, and that's Russia? Because you called Zelenskyy a dictator and you had the fight.
Nobody has been tougher on Russia than Donald Trump, nobody. And they know that. They know that. Just look at the things I just told you. The pipeline, I stopped it. The biggest job they have ever done was the pipeline, Nord Stream 2. Nobody ever heard of it until I came along. They were building it happily.
They were going to supply Germany and everybody else all over Europe. And what did I do? I stopped it. The biggest economic job they have ever had, I stopped it. Biden got in. On the second day, he approved it. He said, let it go forward. It was totally stopped. Just that one thing alone tells you everything.
No, I was tough. At the same time, I got along with Putin. I got along with Kim Jong-un. I got along with President Xi. But nobody was tougher, like, on China than I was.
And then there are reports now that Russia says it will help the United States negotiate a nuclear deal with Iran. What kind of a deal with Iran do you want to do? You said they cannot have a nuclear weapon.
Yes. Well, there are two ways Iran can be handled, militarily or you make a deal. I would prefer to make a deal, because I'm not looking to hurt Iran. They're great people. I know so many Iranians from this country.
Well, not the leadership.
No, not their leadership.
The people.
No, they're very evil people. No, but the people of Iran are great people. But they had a tough regime, and they'd meet and they'd be shot in the streets. I mean, it was a tough deal. But I would rather negotiate a deal. I'm not sure that everybody agrees with me, but we can make a deal that would be just as good as if you won militarily.
But the time is happening now. The time is coming up. Something's going to happen one way or the other. I hope that Iran -- and I have written him a letter saying, I hope you're going to negotiate, because, if we have to go in militarily, it's going to be a terrible thing for them.
You wrote a letter to the -- Khamenei, the leader?
Yes.
When did you send the letter?
Yesterday.
And you said, you better negotiate or we want you to negotiate?
No, I didn't say, you better.
OK.
I said, I hope you're going to negotiate, because it's going to be a lot better for Iran. And I think they want to get that letter. The other alternative is, we have to do something, because you can't let them have a nuclear weapon.
You said you wanted to do the Golden Dome. You have got a lot of ideas for America.
Yes.
But then, earlier, you said you wanted to cut a trillion dollars in defense spending, right?
I didn't say I was going to --
You're not going to --
I never said --
So, I mean, which is it? Are you cutting defense spending or are you building us up?
I said I was going -- I never said defense spending.
OK, because I think you were talking about denuclearization.
Correct.
And that's where the cutting of the spending came in.
Correct. Oh, OK. I never said cut. No, it -- not in these days. I'd love to cut defense spending, but not now, because you have China,. You have Russia. You have a lot of problems out there.
Yes, I'm glad to hear you say that, yes.
No.
In fact, it's --
No, what I have said is, we spend a lot of money on nuclear missiles, nuclear weapons. The level of destruction is beyond anything you can even imagine. It's just bad that everybody has to spend all this money on something that, if it's used, it's probably the end of the world.
Wow. I don't know what to say to that.
No, it's true.
I mean --
[Crosstalk]
When I listen to the -- when I listen to these climate lunatics and they talk about global warming and they say the ocean is going to rise one-eighth of an inch in the next 300 years, and nobody ever talks about nuclear weapons or some of the other things, but the nuclear weapons in particular right now.
And they talk about the climate, and they talk about the dangers of the climate, but they don't talk about the dangers of a nuclear weapon, which could happen tomorrow. They say, in 300 years -- I watched Biden for years say the existential threat. He loved the term existential threat is --
Well --
Our greatest existential threat is from the climate. And I said, no --
Well --
-- the greatest is sitting in shelves in various countries called nuclear weapons that are big monsters that can blow your heads off for miles and miles and miles. And they never mention that.
[Commercial Break]
The president told me about his next conquest, the Panama Canal, after news this week that an American company, BlackRock, will acquire two ports operating around the Panama Canal from Hong Kong-based C.K. Hutchison for $23 billion.
China essentially had it. It was a China-based company. I'd much rather deal with BlackRock than a China-based company. And BlackRock is fine. I knew they were doing that. I was totally OK with it.
And when you go through the Panama Canal, give us a sense of how China has dominated.
It makes it easier. You got to understand, Jimmy Carter, the Carter administration gave the Panama Canal for $1, gave the Panama Canal to Panama for no reason. They had a little demonstration of a few people. And he did give it. It's the most expensive thing we have ever built in the history of our country, relatively, in other words, if you bring it up in today's dollars.
And we lost 38,000 people to the mosquito and to snakes. Snakes are vicious. They had a very vicious snake. If you got bit, you were in big trouble --
Wow.
-- but mostly to mosquitoes, malaria. And we built this incredible thing, the eighth wonder of the world, right? You know, it connects two oceans, and one ocean is substantially higher than the other. Nobody knows that. That's why you have the locks, and the most incredible thing. And it's -- it does great.
And we shouldn't have given it. We should have never given it. But we didn't give it to China. We gave it to Panama. And now Panama has gone out and essentially given it, ceded it to China. And until they ripped all the signs down about a week ago, when they saw that I was serious about this, most of the signs were written in Chinese.
They were all Chinese all over the place. That wasn't the deal. We're taking the Panama Canal back.
So you're coming up -- the Congress is doing this reconciliation package.
Yes.
When you look at where the spending is, 76 percent of the spending going to the mandatory programs, don't you have to really cut into those mandatory programs in order to really make a dent? You say you're going to balance the budget.
Yes, you don't have to --
I mean, you can't balance the budget just by DOGE cuts, right?
We're going to have growth like you have never seen before.
Oh, that's true. Yes, you said that.
We have -- we're going to have growth. I'm not going to touch Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid. Now, we're going to get fraud out of there. You see where I talk about it all the time? We have people 250 years old and all, tremendous fraud. But that has nothing to do with that. We're going to get the fraud out, and everybody wants us to get the fraud out, and, therefore, you will make it better.
But we're going to have tremendous growth. When you look at all of the car companies that are now coming into the United States -- and they have been announcing, like, on a daily basis. They're going to build their plants, and they're going to create tremendous numbers of jobs, and so many other things. And I'm doing something else that I think is very exciting.
Maybe I'm wrong, a gold card. For $5 million, you buy a path to citizenship in this country. We will see. I believe that Apple and all these companies that can't get people to come out of college and come, because they get thrown out. Think of it. You graduate number one at the Wharton School of Finance or Harvard or Stanford, and you get thrown out of their country.
You can't stay more than one day. And they want to hire these people, but they can't. They have complained to me about it. Now they can buy a gold card, and they can take -- and -- that gold card and make it a part of their deal to get these top students. No different than an athlete, like a bonus.
Yes.
It's a signing bonus. And you're going to have a lot of people buy that. You're going to have a lot of companies buying gold cards. So, for $5 million -- now, it's a lot of money when you add it up if we sell a lot of them.
Yes.
If we don't, it's nothing ventured, nothing lost. But I think it's going to be very successful. You can't get a green card. A green card -- this would be a green card on steroids. This would be much better than a green card.
How do you know the Chinese are not going to take advantage of it and exploit it? Didn't they do that with student visas?
They may. They may. But they don't have to do that. They can do it in other ways.
Look, the Democrats say that Elon Musk and DOGE are overstepping their bounds. You're right. What Elon Musk and DOGE has been able to uncover is unbelievable. Half of us did not even realize.
And stop there.
It's --
Because, look -- stop there. What he -- you just said, what he's done is unbelievable. Now, you could then add some, well, but what about the -- he's found hundreds of billions of dollars worth of fake contracts. And I read them, just a tiny portion of them, the other night, transgender surgery on mice, hundreds of -- I mean, the money they're spending on all of this stuff.
The whole thing's a scam. And you will find ultimately that the money that they sent comes back to a lot of the people that made those deals, OK? You're going to find that. What he's also done is made people realize how many people should be cut, because, normally, you go in and you say, all right, cut 4 percent of your work force.
He said cut 50 percent, 60 percent, 70 percent. That's a big thing. No, he's done a great job.
On the --
And he's paying a price for it.
He said he had death threats.
I mean, he didn't need this. He's paying a price for it, I guess. I don't know.
Yes.
He's -- he actually is a real patriot. This is something that's really not good for him. And yet he's doing it. But he's opened a lot of eyes.
On the reconciliation package and the tax extensions, you have got your New York and California lawmakers, they want the SALT deduction lifted.
Yes.
It's at a limit of $10,000. Are you going to double it?
I'd love to see something happen on SALT. I'm the one that made the deal. Ronald Reagan tried like -- like you have no idea to get what I got. I got ANWR and I got SALT. He couldn't get ANWR and he couldn't get SALT. I got SALT. But nobody knew how strong it would be. I'd like to see them give back some of that.
Now, the reason -- there are two reasons. But the reason that people don't like it is because they don't have it. But everybody has it because it's a deduction. But I'd like to see a good portion of SALT be hit back. I'd like to see that. I also think it would have a big impact on the election, because I think you would have a lot of congressmen get elected that maybe wouldn't get elected without it.
So is it -- a double is the right -- is that right, to go to $20,000? Or is that..
Well, they're at 10 or so, and maybe they're trying to get it to 20, but I think that would be very good, yes.
Look, I think the Federal Reserve is stonewalling your DOGE efforts, OK? I heard the other day that Jay Powell is trying to lobby the White House to not fill the position of vice chairman and bank supervisor. He said, look, I will just meld that into my own role. This is a presidential pick, an appointment.
Sure. Yes.
Are you going to appoint a vice chairman and bank supervisor at the Federal Reserve?
Well, I haven't heard he's trying to do that, but the answer is, yes, I will be picking somebody fairly soon.
[Commercial Break]
Why do you want to go to Mars so much? And do you believe that the next war could happen in space, because that's where the satellites are?
Well, I'm the creator of Space Force. This was before I knew Elon, but I thought it was very important. It's turned out to be very important. We were getting killed by Russia and by China, and now we're leading, really leading big in space. And I think, from a defensive standpoint, that's true. No, there's a lot of interest in going to Mars.
Is it number one on my hit list? No, it's not really, but it is something that would be -- it would be a great achievement. It would be a great thing if we could do it.
China wants to get there first.
In fact, did you notice the other night, at my speech, when I said, "And we will go to Mars"?
Yes.
It got one of the biggest applause of the night. I was shocked. It got one of the biggest applause of the night. So there seems to be a big interest in it. And one of the things I have to do is, I have to get those two astronauts down. It's very important, as we discussed. I have to get them down. They're up there for a long time.
And Biden didn't want to do so. I don't know what happened. You would think he'd want to get them down. But we will get them down.
Mr. President, I just saw you sign executive orders for law firms. One of the law firms was Perkins Coie or -- yes, that was the law firm that had the Steele dossier.
Yes, they had the Steele dossier. They had a lot of other things. And we have a lot of law firms that we're going to be going after, because they were very dishonest people. They were very, very dishonest. I could go point after point after point, and it was so bad for our country. And we have a lot of law firms that we're going after.
Can you tell us anything about the Education Department that you're going to dismantle?
We want to bring the schools back to the states, because we have the worst -- literally, we have the worst Education Department and education in the world. We're ranked at the bottom of the list, and yet we're number one when it comes to cost per pupil. We want to not only have school choice, which is important, but we want to bring it back to the states, so the states can run the schools.
And they will be every bit as good as the top educational departments anywhere in the world.
So you feel good about the states governing education issues and --
I do. Not all of them.
Rather than the federal government?
You can go back to the states. But I can tell you, 40 states will have great -- and then same ones that we have problems with everything else, they probably won't do as well, but we will help them.
My thanks to President Donald J. Trump for his time and for his leadership.