Interview: Donald Trump Calls In for a Live Interview on Fox News' Fox & Friends - July 28, 2026

On this Tuesday morning, we are joined by phone with our president, president of the United States, Donald J. Trump. Mr. President, thank you so much for coming on. We know that you're meeting with Netanyahu and with Zelenskyy this morning. We flew -- we saw them flying in yesterday. They're here because of Lindsey Graham's funeral.

And Lindsey was your friend. He's a critical piece of our country for many reasons, but mainly for his relationship with world leaders. How are you feeling about losing your friend? And where do we go from here?

Well, he was a great guy. He was a great politician, actually. People don't understand, he really was; he was able to bring people together. If I needed a Democrat, he could usually produce that Democrat if I had to have him in an emergency. He was a great politician and a great gentleman and I got along.

You know, we started off a little bit on the rough side because he was campaigning in 2016 for the presidency, and we started a little bit rough. But then it got closer and closer, and it really ended up being a great friendship. And it's very hard. He's like, he really became like a member of the family in a sense.

And he was just somebody that was very special. You don't have people like that; you don't see them often.

Yeah and, Mr. President, I know that after that rough patch where you were at loggerheads with each other trying to become the next president, you eventually started patching things up by going golfing. Do you have a story to tell us a little bit about what it was like when it was just the two of you driving around a golf course alone?

Well, he loved golf; he just loved it. He worked hard at it and there was something, it was really a passion of his. And he was getting better, getting better all the time. But he was --

Were you teaching him? Were you teaching him how to play golf?

Let me put it this way, he loved it but he wasn't born to be a golfer, OK? He was born to be a politician, but not a golfer. But he loved it and it was great and we'd talk about mostly politics and talk about things they're doing. And a very, very powerful force when he got behind something.

And I know he thought golfing with you -- it was the most intriguing, fun thing that he could ever do. And he would also mix the perfect things he loved so much and that was work and fun and being with somebody with great influence like yourself. And I know that on the top of his mind was the war in Iran.

I know you're going to be talking about that today with Benjamin -- the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. And you're going to be -- we hear that you're talking right now with leaders on Iran, but Iran has come out publicly and said, we're not talking to the US. We're going to pause this.

Well, they just came out and said we are talking a little while ago, because it always bothered me that --

So, could you tell me who were you talking to, Mr. President?

For some reason -- for some reason, we can be in the midst of a beautiful discussion, and they'll come out and say, we're not talking or we didn't discuss nuclear. Well, that's all we discussed because they'll never have a nuclear weapon, they understand that. And we have had some very good talks. And very interesting with Lindsey.

He was very much a hawk, as you would say, on a run. And over the last few weeks, I would say that he became like, if you could make a deal, it's better than -- better making a deal in this case than just destroying the rest of the country. We've destroyed most of it, frankly. But he was somebody that said, it's a good time to make a deal.

Nice time to make a deal.

What does a good deal look like?

No, I wouldn't say necessarily he feels that way about Ukraine. Ukraine he's a very militant about. I mean, Lindsey liked war, to be honest with you, OK? I said you're a nice guy, how come you like war so much? He was a guy that liked war. I jokingly say, and there's nothing funny about it, but he's never seen a war that he didn't like.

He was very much into that and, you know, for good reason he felt that way, some other people feel that way. But he was very much -- very strong on the military. And I built a great military and he helped me. We built it during my first term and we use it now, but I built a great, great military.

His sister Darlene was interviewed recently; you probably saw that with Sean Hannity. And she said he didn't love war, he loved peace, and he loved the end of war, but sometimes war is necessary. You say that Iran will not have a nuclear weapon. There are reports now that Netanyahu is going to talk to you about ongoing excavation at Pickax Mountain, construction vehicles entering and exiting tunnels, paving new access roads.

Satellite imagery, and intel indicates that Iran is actively constructing and fortifying Pickax Mountain. How will we respond?

Well, I don't need Bibi to tell me that. Bibi is telling me that because he wants me to stay involved. I mean, I don't necessarily -- we have the finest because of Space Force. We have the greatest cameras in the world focused on -- we know exactly what's going on. But no, I heard Bibi announce that. I said why don't you just tell it to me? Why do you have to announce it to the world?

I know exactly what's going on at Pickax, it's not a big problem. We took out their nuclear sites, and we'll have to take out Pickax if we don't make a deal. If we don't make a deal, we'll take it out very easily.

Right.

So, Mr. President, Netanyahu, as you said, you know exactly what he's going to say -- Mr. President, we've got to keep this war going. At the same time, I know that there are Republican officials in Washington, DC, who have an eye on November and they're going, Mr. President, you've got to wrap it up. So, you've got two different messages -- wrap it up, keep going.

Wrap it up, keep going.

Well, I have a third message, because I have many Republicans that want me to keep going and go do it -- I mean, we pounded the hell out of them. They have no Navy; they have no Air Force. Their army has been badly, really badly mortified. So many others -- you know, you look at their defense, their air defense, it's gone.

All of their radar is gone. Most of their weaponry is gone. Most of their manufacturing is gone. And you look and -- but I have some Republicans said, well, why don't we hit them harder? So, you know, it's like at some point. So, I have -- you have a lot of competing factions. You have a group of people that want it to be obliterated in the truest sense of the word.

Then you have a group that says, this is actually a good time to make a deal for them. If they don't make a deal, then I go back and I finish the job. But that's going to take them forever to rebuild. Already it will take many years to ever -- to rebuild. And if I go back and finish up the job, as some people would like, with the bridges, with the -- very easy, I could take out most of their bridges in less than an hour, less than an hour.

But you know, it takes them 10 years to build a bridge. Bridges take the longest and power plants are second. I can knock out the power plants. Within one day, all of their power plants would be gone. And I let them know that, you know, with negotiations. I say look, people want me to do that. I think I get almost the same thing out of it as doing it. But the problem is they'll never be able to -- you know, I think about 91 million people without power, without bridges where they have to live.

And it's a very, very delicate balance. So, I think we have a very strong position right now. They know I'm going to do that if they don't make a deal, the bridges are going to be gone. But literally in less than -- I would say, in two hours most of the bridges, the major bridges will all be gone and the power plants in one day.

And, you know, if I can avoid doing that, I'd like to do that. The hardest thing to build is a power plant; the longest thing to build is a bridge. It takes a long time to rebuild and build bridges. And see, that's what I used to do for a living, construction. It takes years to build these things and, you know, you knock them out in one hour and it takes many years -- it really decimates a country.

So, those are the two big things and then there's always the desalinization plants and who am I hurting there? I'm hurting the people. So, I'm not looking to do that. I just want very simply -- they cannot have a nuclear weapon, very simple. And they've agreed to that essentially, we have to get them to make it formal, but they've agreed to it.

How do you feel about --

And why wouldn't they? Tell me, why wouldn't they.

Well, look, no one can figure out the Iranians, it's been 50 years. So, Pickax --

Well, 50 years, you're right about that. And for 50 years, other presidents should have done this job, and they never did anything. Obama actually paid them billions of dollars, the opposite. He thought he could bribe his way into friendship, and they went out and tried to develop nuclear missiles and nuclear weapons from it. So, for 50 years, other presidents -- every single president should have done something -- or other countries you could say too, not just the United States.

It's always the United States. But for 50 years, other presidents -- you know, they kept saying 47, 47, it's really 50 because they've been saying 47 years for three years. But for 50 years, other presidents should have done this job, it would have been a lot easier. They would have been less competent. Well, now, when I took out General Soleimani my first term, that set them back because I think they would have fought in a different manner.

I'll tell you what, if he were around, maybe he would have had the nuclear. We stopped the nuclear with the B-2 and I stopped it also when I ended -- when I terminated that horrible deal made by Obama, they call it the Iran Nuclear Deal. It was the worst, dumbest deal. It was a road to a nuclear weapon. And if they had a nuclear weapon, you wouldn't have Israel around.

Frankly, if I weren't president of the United States, Israel today would not exist.

So, it's been said by military people you know better, that for the 14 days that you hit him was relatively surgical. It was focused basically around the strait. But to amp it up, he needed more of your material in the region and it's arrived. Has Admiral Cooper given you the type of plan that you believe will be effective in essentially destroying their nuclear, stopping their funding of proxies as well as their ballistic program?

Have you seen that on paper as a convention would come on?

Well, it's already mostly done. Look, we have a blockade up there right now and only ships that we want to get through get through. Iran doesn't control the strait; we control the strait. Now they can drop a couple of mines in there and screw things up, but we control the strait. Our Navy is incredible. Not one ship has gotten to Iran during any time where we had the blockade.

So, we had the blockade; we had the confines of a deal. I set the blockade back, but I didn't take it away, the ships were not far away.

But ships are not getting through now.

And then I had to bring it back. But no, this is done with the Admiral. He's great. This is all done with the Admiral. He's a great guy. General Raizin Caine is there.

Mr. President, are we right that no merchant ships are getting through right now? Maybe three or four a day when you need about 100.

The only ones that get through are the ones that we want to get through. They're the only ships that get through, Brian. We have a blockade that's so powerful that nobody can get through. They tried, three or four of them tried over the last week. But, you know, we opened the blockade because we had the confines of a deal.

So, we did it, and then we put it back because they broke the deal. They broke the deal. We cannot have them break deals anymore.

Mr. President, let's talk about the Fauci diaries. Senator Rand Paul released more than 1,000 pages of this private typed diary entries, many of them, of Dr. Anthony Fauci during COVID. He was saying one thing in his diary entry, saying something else publicly. For instance, the origin of COVID; he was saying it was from the wet market, not the Wuhan lab.

He was writing something different. He was saying he never talked about closing schools. He's writing that he talked to Cuomo and he talked to Gavin Newsom about closing schools in New York and in California. So, a tale of two different things and he's going to be in front of Congress tomorrow testifying.

What is your reaction to this? What is your takeaway?

Well, if you remember early on when it first came, I always said it came from the Wuhan Labs, I never changed my tune on that. I think he said something different. He was a much bigger player in the Biden administration. I grew tired of him. He was -- you remember that he wanted to close everything down.

I allowed it to be up to the governors, and most or many of the Republican governors didn't want to close. And being somewhat of a Federalist, the Federalist theory is let the governors make the decision, and we let them. The blue states were mostly closed, and the red states were open, or they started to open very fast.

So, the Republicans actually did a very, very good job having to do with that. And we did a great job with Operation Warp Speed. I never got the credit that we should have gotten. I get a lot of credit for a lot of things, to be honest -- the military, the rebuilding, all the things we've done, the economy.

We had the best economy in the history of our country in my first term. This is going to be better. As soon as this little situation gets worked out, I believe it's going to be better. It already is better; we're hitting -- just today we're hitting new stock market highs every single day. We're up to almost 80 of them, 80 days in a year and a half.

80 days hit new stock market highs. 401(k)s are the highest they've ever been. So, I mean, we have an amazing economy. And frankly, when this gets done there'll be nothing to compete. This is -- we had the best economy of any president ever in my first term; I believe this is going to blow it away.

Mr. President, you also get credit for Operation Warp Speed, which got a lot of critical stuff that we needed at the time to the American people. In this for that --

Thank you, Steve, for that.

Oh, absolutely.

Steve, thank you. You know, Operation Warp Speed is considered one of the greatest things that anybody has ever seen a president do. And a lot of people say that, but they don't say it publicly. And I appreciate you saying it.

No, you get credit --

And I like your son, OK? I like your son.

[Laughter] You always keep him on his toes; I'll just say that. So, Mr. President -- so, given the fact that you were heavily invested because that was at the end of your first term with COVID, in his private journals, he has some very unkind things to say about you. He disagreed with your approach; it was different than his.

If you --

Well, yeah, because he wanted to close everything down and I didn't.

Absolutely. But given what you know now --

Had I taken his advice, the whole country would have been closed down. And much of the country was open because I didn't close it down. What I did do, though, is with Operation Warp Speed is we got things done that nobody's ever seen in terms of all of the gear necessary. And we learned that the cupboards were bare.

You know, when I took over, we had none of this. We didn't have the ventilators; we didn't have anything. We ended up becoming the number one ventilator producer, and we were supplying ventilators to other countries by the time we got going and we did a great job. No, but I was not a believer because he said, everybody has to wear a mask.

Then he said, don't wear a mask. You remember there was a whole thing -- wear them, don't wear them. I said what are you doing? You keep -- he started off saying don't wear them; then he said wear them; then he said don't wear them. And I lost a lot of respect for him during the period of time. But I inherited him.

He's been there since the 1980s. I mean, he was a guy that was there that I inherited. And with time -- I didn't mind him, I didn't find him to be bad, you know, personally, as a person but I didn't agree with what he was saying or what he was doing. And when Biden came in, he inherited him and he gave him a tremendously high position.

And then he gave him a pardon.

He did indeed. And, you know, I think we all thought there was a lot of science behind what he was saying, and maybe not so much. But Mr. President, if you would have known then what you know now, would you have fired him?

Well, I would have fired him. But again, I didn't listen to him. So, when he was with Biden, he was like the God. When he was with me, he wasn't even close. And I wasn't very close to him; I dealt with him very little. I didn't agree with many of the things he said. No, he wanted to close up everything. Look at all the states that remained open.

Those states remained open; he wanted everything closed. And it just turned out that closing wasn't so good because, you know, it's very interesting, some of the states that fared the worst in terms of the spread were actually closed, OK? Explain that. Nobody can explain that one, but that's the way it is.

Yeah, he was the worst. He did more damage than anybody else.

They did a lot of damage in a lot of different ways.

So, Mr. President, with the economy, that's going to be your focus. That was your focus yesterday in the midterms in Michigan. Are you worried that the tariffs that you put forward over the last couple of days will hurt the economy as they adjust in bringing manufacturing home?

No, because it's bringing hundreds of billions of dollars. I was at General Motors yesterday, they have the best year, they have the most trucks, the most cars. The tariffs have saved General Motors. What I've done to the auto business, what I've done to the chip business. We have chip companies now making -- building hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of chip plants in Arizona.

The biggest company -- chip company of its kind in the world. I mean, the biggest company there is in the chip world is building a $400 billion plant. We're going to end up with 40 to 50 percent of the chip business from nothing in a year and a half from now. No, no, the tariffs have -- I mean, it's a shame that I have to go a harder way for the tariffs because the Supreme Court, in a very close decision, ruled against me. Now I have other ways of doing the same thing.

But it's a more cumbersome process -- you know, way of doing it. But the tariffs have made this country a fortune. It made the country rich. And I stopped eight wars, I would say five of them because of tariffs. The threat of tariffs stopped India and Pakistan from going into a nuclear war. The threat of tariffs stopped numerous other countries from going to war.

These tariffs, it's the greatest thing. And only the really smart people or the people that are nonpolitical and that get it, talk about it. The Democrats know how good it's been. We have the hottest car business. We're right now building more car plants than at any time in our history. Toyota just left Mexico, they're building -- they just announced they're building $12 billion worth of plants in the United States, all because they want to avoid tariffs.

They have no tariffs if they build their product here.

Yeah.

So, the USMCA, are you looking to update that?

I don't care. I mean, I don't really want to; I'd rather be independent. Here's the thing, Mexico and Canada need us; we don't need them. The deal is important for them; it's not important for us.

OK, Mr. President, thank you so much. I know you're speaking at Lindsey Graham's funeral this morning. We're going to be carrying that; our coverage starts at 1:00. Godspeed. I'm sorry for your loss. I know he was a good friend of yours.

Thank you very much. He was, he was a great guy. Thank you very much, everybody.

Thank you, Mr. President.