Interview: Laura Ingraham Interviews Donald Trump on Fox's The Ingraham Angle - September 10, 2025

[Laura Ingraham sat for an interview with Donald Trump in Dallas on September 10, 2026. The first segment aired on The Ingraham Angle with an additional short clip on September 10, 2026. The second part aired on September 11, 2026. Video courtesy and copyright Fox News.]

You spoke for nearly two hours last night at the convention, um, and, and you look like you were having fun.

I did.

And I know sometimes speeches, it's a thing you have to check, check the box, but you look like you were enjoying the moment and the crowd was whooping it up. I mean, it was crazy on the floor there. One sentence, if you could boil down why Republicans need to show up in the midterms, one sentence to sum it up.

Communism. They are trying to turn this country around and destroy our country. And, you know, I used to say a lot, uh, this will never be a socialist country. We will never be a country of socialism. And I was right. They could be a, I mean, they're going for the big one. They skip socialism. These people are sick.

When you look at the guy from Michigan, Abdul, when you look at some of the people that he's listened to, when you look at even maybe at a different kind of a level, look at this guy running from Texas. He looks like --

Talarico.

Yeah. Well, I call him "Talafriko" because he is, he's a, he's a freaky guy. He's, he's got some, he's got something wrong with him. Um --

He says he's misspoken or he's missed the mark on some of the comments.

No, no, he's misspoken on everything. Uh, he has no respect for Jesus. He has no respect for religion. All of a sudden he's a big religious fanatic, you know. He, uh, loves meat. He, he throws up after every time he eats, he gets sick and he throws up all over the place. But he goes to barbecues now, whereas before he was, he can't be against meat in Texas.

He can't be against oil. He wants to get rid of all the oil. Now all of a sudden he loves oil. One thing about politicians is that, and I've learned it maybe the hard way in a certain way, when a politician comes out with something, that's where they are. When they change, they always go back to what they are.

And he's very, very --

Authenticity.

Well, he's not authentic. He's just a very liberal, you know, to use an old-fashioned word. He's a very, the word progressive is so, it's such a beautiful word. They love progressive, but he's a very liberal guy.

Um, big headline from the speech last night was the $5,000, uh, dividend to the American people that you promised if Republicans were able to hold the House in the Senate. So, the obvious response to that is we're $40 trillion in debt. How is that financially responsible or even doable?

Well, first of all, the money has to be spent in the United States. We can't go out and buy things from Germany or, or frankly, Canada or any other place. And therefore, it just gets flown right into the system. But much more importantly, we're gonna take care of the 40 trillion over a period of time through growth.

We're growing at a faster rate than we've ever grown before. You get that more than most others. And the reason is --

Well, they're saying you're buying the election, you wanna buy the election. Why not just give the money now? If you have the money, why not give it out?

Because they can't, I'll tell you what, because the Democrats can't do it because with them it's negative growth. With, uh, with us, it's so positive. So, we're taking in $21 trillion. Nobody, no country has ever taken in anywhere near that. It's four or five times higher than the next, all because of that beautiful word that you and I love more than most others, tariffs.

You got it. I'm so proud of you. I mean, business isn't your biggest thing, but you got it better than most of the people.

Okay. Thank you a lot.

Well, it's, it's okay. You're very good at other things --

[Laughs]

-- and you're very good at business, frankly, because you understood tariff better than most people. And you would say, "Charge your tariffs." You got it. And all we're doing is saying you don't have to pay any tariff at all. Do you know that we have now, uh, 19 medical plants? Eli Lilly, Merck, Pfizer, they're all building plants in the United States.

Have you talked to Johnson, Speaker Johnson or Thune about this $5,000 rebate? Or dividend, excuse me.

Uh, I do speak to him. Uh, we can do it. There are a lot of people think I don't even need congressional approval because we've made so much money. We're making, we're taking in money, even like TikTok. We got a fee. Me, I got a fee for our country. $10 billion. Uh, in Intel, I made, I, I, I didn't buy. I said, "If I'm gonna help you, meaning if the country's gonna help you, I want 10% of the company --

They're calling that MAGA socialism in The New York Times --

You know what it is? It's real entrepreneurship. That's really what it is. You know, I see that. Oh, some people say, "That's communism." It's not communism. It's actually good entrepreneurship.

Are you gonna campaign harder than you've ever campaigned in this month?

No. The hardest I ever campaigned, because I had a win, was the last. I took four months, no empty days, no empty hours. I made speeches all day. I didn't wanna have fundraisers. I had the money. I didn't wanna -- which is a big advantage. I was able to raise a lot of money, and I have a lot of money. I spent my own money.

But I took four months, 120 days, I didn't have one --

But isn't this just as important, Mr. President? I mean, your whole legacy is on the line.

Well, it's never as important. Look, I'm campaigning for other people. The, the, when you say my legacy, I'll be a block. I'll end up being a blocker. I'll block all their bad stuff for two years. It won't be the same, but I'll be a blocker. What can I tell you? Uh, and probably be able to make deals with them.

You know, they're gonna want some stuff and we'll get, you make deals.

Good point.

I mean, it's one of those things. So, it's not as dire. Maybe it is as dire.

Well, I'm just talking about impeachment investigations, that whole routine.

They'll try and impeach. Uh, they had a guy on the other day, "Yeah. I think we'll try and impeach Trump." What would you do it on? I don't know.

[Laughs]

He had no idea. [Laughs] Here's the one thing they have going against them, really bad policy. Because, you know, they got some real dummies in there, but they have some real smart people. But they're radical left, they're, they are communists, but they're certainly socialists, but they are communists. But what they really have is bad policy.

The Iran war of conflict, military conflict, um, there's a lot of back and forth lately of obviously they're firing on our ships, our Navy ships are attempting to --

We not knocked out --

-- attempting to hit --

We knocked out --

We knocked out their tankers.

We knocked out nine of their tankers.

Um, so how, there, there's confusion out there about how long this will go on. It's very difficult to --

It, it's gonna end right after the election.

I think it was the Wall Street Journal that said that Rubio and Vance, uh, believed the conflict could go on after the next presidential election, until January 2029.

I'm not gonna say when, but I think it ends right after the election. Uh, they're, they're limping along. They're in deep trouble. Uh, their economy --

How are they getting o- -- off missiles? Uh, we decimated them.

Well, they can always get off missiles. They had plenty and they have some. They've been largely wiped out. It's hard for them to manufacture. Now most of that's been knocked out, but they have missiles. They'll always have some missiles. And we knocked them down. You know, they sent 11 missiles at us and we knocked every one of them down.

Two of them we let go. You know, we don't wanna waste it if they're not, these guys are amazing, by the way. They look at a missile coming at them at 4,000 miles an hour. Think of it. And they say, "Let it go. That one's not gonna hit us."

If we hadn't done Iran, you would be cruising to midterm victory, 2.25 gas. I mean, you'd be cruising.

Yeah, and we, well, you don't know that, but --

Any, any regrets?

No. No. I think, I think, I, I don't believe in the word regret. Uh, you can always question yourself a little bit. Uh, and a few people have asked me that. If I had it to do again, I'd do exactly as I did. I took out their nuclear capability. Supposing we were cruising and all of a sudden Iran has a nuclear weapon, they would use it. They're crazy.

Okay. I deal with them. They're crazy. And they would use it. They would've wiped out Israel, they would've wiped out the Middle East, and they would've started hitting a couple of our cities. You wanna see a bad stock market? Remember this, the stock market right now is at the all-time high. 81 times during this term it's been a, during this whole little conflict, we call it a conflict, uh, the stock market's at an all time high.

The highest it's ever been, uh, much higher than when I started. You know, when I started, it was at 49,000. Now it's at 53. It's gonna be 54 pretty soon. It's going up, continues to go up. Oil went up. When it ends, which will, I believe it'll end right after the, maybe it ends before, but I, I think it's gonna end right after.

They're trying to do anything possible to get me out because --

Because they think the Democrats will let them off the hook.

Because they think the Democrats will let them essentially have a nuclear weapon. They're not gonna have a nuclear weapon. So when you, and I know you're against the war and all that. I know you very well and I think it's fine, but I don't know how you could be because Iran cannot have a nuclear weapon. And if I didn't do what I did, they would have a nuclear weapon.

I did two things, the B2 bombers, but before that in my first time, I terminated the worst agreement I've ever seen there. The, uh, Obama nuclear deal, the JCPOA. What a horrible agreement. That was a road to a nuclear weapon.

But even the neo-conservatives are saying, "If you were gonna go in, go in full. Go, just go in and t- -- take them out."

Well, maybe I don't do that because of the election. You know, I wanna keep things. Look, we're taking a lot of oil. You know, last night we took 22 boats out of the strait. You know, we control the strait. They don't control the strait. They control nothing. They have 300% inflation. They're not paying their military.

They're not playing their law enforcement. And at some point, the, uh, military and the law enforcement are gonna stop shooting the protestors. Uh, it's a little, it's amazing how they can do that. You know, China did it successfully and, uh, with the army tank. You remember other countries couldn't -- Turkey couldn't do it. The army tank --

China never seems to get in many military conflicts, right?

Uh --

They, they, just, they decided they were gonna take care of their own industry and their own industrialization.

They, they, they do it with trade. [Laughs]

Right. Well, they, they --

China --

No.

China fights with trade.

But what do you say to all these young men?

Russia fights -- you, do you ever hear the expression?

Yeah. Um --

China fights with trade and Russia fights with military, but Russia's having a hard time right now.

Um, what do you say to all the young men out there? And I know these are people who supported you in 2024, 2020.

And they still do. And they still do.

And yeah, I think a lot of them still do, but some of them are demoralized.

No, no, no, no, no. Let, let me just, I don't think they're demoralized. I think they're very proud of the fact that I'm not letting Iran have a nuclear weapon. I disagree with you. Uh, you're not in favor of it, but, uh, if Iran had a nuclear weapon, we'd be calling up and saying, "Sir, uh, could we get together possibly?" We'd be dealing with it much differently.

So if it, if it turns out that in the end, the Republicans, I think, I think Republicans have a huge chance at winning. I don't. I've rejected this narrative all along, but if Republicans don't win, you know what they're gonna do. We've talked about this before, impeachment, investigations. They've to- told everyone.

They're gonna lock this country down --

They're a bunch of crooked people.

-- with gridlock.

They're crooked.

It's going to be a nightmare.

They're crooked.

Still worth it if that all happens? Your agenda brought gr- -- ground to a halt.

It is. It is what it is.

[Break in interview]

-- be with President Trump tomorrow and a few more bonus clips throughout the show tonight.

[Begin interview clip]

There is something --

I'm very proud of him because his father-in-law called me. He was running. Nobody knew who he was. And I got a little --

Dinesh D'Souza's an old friend, yeah.

Dinesh, yeah, good guy. And, uh, he called about his son-in-law. I guess it's his son-in-law. He said, "Could you do something with an endorsement?" But, uh, I endorsed him and he won, and he's been fantastic.

Oh, he's, he has that Charlie Kirk kind of f- -- feel to his presentations.

Yeah.

Very optimistic.

Yeah.

But very tough.

Got a good look. Got a good way.

Mm-hmm.

You know, look's not supposed to matter, but probably does a little bit.

They always matter a little bit.

[End interview clip]

[The following segment aired on September 11, 2026 on The Ingraham Angle, edited from the same interview. Video courtesy and copyright Fox News.]

It's hard for the Republicans because they come out, they know the numbers, they see the numbers, you read the numbers, you read 'em, at least professionally you read 'em. But the mainstream media doesn't like putting out the kind of numbers. They don't wanna talk about something like favored nations on drug pricing.

And I brought down drug pricing 50, 60, 70, and 80%. They don't even write stories about it. It's just the craziest thing I've ever seen. But somehow the people understand because that's why I'm here, I guess. You know, I mean, they might as you would say, and you're the one that understands tariffs better than anybody else, I have to say.

Uh, I don't agree with you on everything, but one thing you do, you do understand tariffs. Without tariffs, we would be like every other country. We would be just in trouble.

Germany's in huge trouble right now --

Well, they --

-- with their automobile industry --

Yeah.

-- being threatened by BYD, um, uh, perhaps, uh, you know, really --

And immigration and immigration.

Yeah, deep fixing, uh, the German economy.

Yep.

Um, the- -- there's been rumor --

We're beating everybody.

Yeah, there's a rumor.

We're beating everybody.

Elissa Slotkin put out a tweet, I think it was yesterday, saying that you're considering allowing BYD or Chinese vehicles to come into the United States --

Yeah.

-- which most of us believe would just decimate the auto industry. What can you tell the American people today about that?

I, I knew this rumor. It's a total phony rumor. I'm the one that has 150% tariff on any car from China. You know how many Chinese cars we have in the United States? None.

And you're, you're pledging tonight that none will be in the United States.

I've never even heard about it. She made it up. It's just fake news. It's just, these people are very dishonest. They're very dishonest. Slotkin, she's doing a terrible job by the way. But, uh, like most of them. I mean, most of the radical left, they're ruining their states. They're ruining their cities.

I know nothing about it. I know nothing about BYD. I'm the only one that stopped them from coming in. They've destroyed, you know, they're destroying Germany, they're ruining Mercedes, they're ruining BMW. And if you go to Europe, you look at what's going on. It's like an avalanche of Chinese cars. And I'm not knocking Chinese.

I'm not knocking Chinese cars. President Xi's coming over to have a nice state dinner in two weeks.

With a lot of CEOs. What does he want?

Well, he, we get along. You know, he and I get along very well. People say, "Oh, he spies on us." Well, we spy on him too, you know? We're very good at all, at it also. So, uh, we get along. We have a very good relationship. He's coming over in two weeks. It's gonna be interesting. You know, the fact that we get along is a good thing.

We do very well with China now. We used to do very badly with China, but we do well with China. And, uh, I have a --

But he wants our market. He want- -- I mean, they're, they're, they're under huge pressure in China right now.

Well, well --

Will you br- -- allow Chinese manufacturing to come into the United States?

We don't allow his cars into the United States, and I never did. And Biden, I mean, probably the only good thing Biden did is he kept my policies on having to do with Chinese cars, uh, or we would've been overrun. Our car companies would've all been bankrupt. Instead, they're thriving. Uh, General Motors, Ford, every one of them, they're making more money than they've ever made.

They're doing great, and they're building factories all in the United States. And, uh, just announced that Honda's now moving from Mexico into the United States. We have, uh, all of them. I mean, Toyota's just announced the biggest plant in the world is coming into the United States --

More good economic news.

-- building cars.

This is more good eco- -- economic news. But China's a different deal, right? So if they come in and they bring in manufacturing into the United States, that's a whole different ballgame. They have an adversarial political system to ours.

You're right. You're right. You're --

Obviously threatening us in many ways militarily.

But, but they're gonna use our people to build it. Now, if China wanted to come in and open a plant to build their cars here, I'd be okay with it. Japan does it, but they hire our people. The big thing is they hire our people. They use our people. Uh, what I don't want is them to build in Mexico and just, you know, build it inexpensively and ship it across the border.

That's unhappening. Just like the Gulf of Mexico is unhappening. We're now Gulf of America. It's, uh, it's not happening in Mexico anymore. The, all of those car companies are moving here. By the way, Canada, all of the car companies are moving into the United States. They're all leaving Canada. They're coming here.

Uh, the Canada thing is amazing. They've been ripping us off for years now.

He's trying to wait out the midterms as well, isn't he? I mean --

Well, I think a lot of people are so Iran. You know, as soon as the, by the way, the war will end right after the midterms.

If you, if Republicans win. But if Republicans lose in the midterms, why would the Iran war end?

Well, I think a lot of people think if we lose, then I'll be much more angry and I'll just take care of business, you know? It's another way of doing it, you know? Not either way they lose.

AI, I know you've been focusing on this. And some top researchers in AI companies, one in particular from Anthropic, quit saying, you know, the people that are developing this know that within a decade, they will have the power to basically, talk about nuclear weapon, kill humanity off. And, and so to you --

What's interesting that Anthropic was the one that wanted to do that. Uh, you know what happened with Anthropic --

With the US government.

-- two months ago.

Yeah.

Uh --

Yeah.

They had to be reined in and now all of a sudden they're goody two shoes as they say, right?

But the guardrails in place, which I know you've talked about. But what can you tell the American people who, you know, do see headlines? What guardrails can be in place so we ensure that we can win the AI race against China, but still reassure the American people --

Yeah.

-- who are freaking out about data centers, it's a big political issue, reassure them that we are on the right course and not endangering humanity?

So let's talk about Anthropic. They did something that was very bad three week, three months ago, and we shut them down. We shut them down fast. We have guardrails. Uh, the biggest guardrails are having people that are just as smart because nobody understands it except you have to be extremely high IQ, not Joe Biden.

You have to be extremely high IQ and you're gonna have to see what's happening. But the bottom line is we're gonna, we're making strides in medicine right now. We're making strides in every business right now that would take, in many cases, a hundred years to get to. The kind of things that are coming out are incredible.

Now, we want guardrails, but we, at this, there's a very fine line. You know, China doesn't have guardrails, by the way. You know the guardrails, President Xi, that's the guardrail. They don't have any guardrails on anything. I mean, you can do anything in China. We're competing with China. As you know, we're winning.

You know we're winning against China with respect to AI. And you know, there's an expression, whoever wins AI wins. That's how big it is. It's bigger than the internet. It's bigger probably than the industrial revolution. It's the biggest thing. It could be, and we'll know in about a year, it could be the biggest thing of all.

And it's mostly for the good. It's gonna be treme- -- you have to see what's happening in this country. And we're building car plants, we're building everything, but we're building the AI plants. I'm not building them, but they are building them.

But the data centers have become a --

And they're spending --

Are you surprised?

-- billions and billions. Well, one second. Um, there's so much talk about electricity and everything else. They're building their own electric plants and the excess electricity goes into the grid. That was my idea because there was no way. We couldn't have, we couldn't take one of these. They need extraordinary amounts of electricity.

I gave them the right to build. They become utilities. I gave them the right to build. Every single one of them is building their own. You know, so there's a lot of false narrative like that they're hurting our electricity, just the opposite. They're building plants that are so superior to guys that have been building plants for all their lives, you know, Con Edison and all these, and they're fine.

Everything's fine. But you have to see some of the new plants to come because you're dealing with super genius. They are building electrical plants. They supply their water. They supply, they're doing everything.

So why do people don't want them in their backyard?

Because somehow they've got, I mean, a lot of people say it's China. You know, a lot of people say that it's a China PR thing. Uh, I, I just noticed that, uh --

Flooding social media with negative commentary.

Why now there's Google is building one now in Europe. I'm not happy about that. They're building one in Finland and I'm saying, why are they building in Finland? Uh, we cannot be the stupid people that chase them out. If you take a look at communities where these plants open, the people are making a fortune.

Their houses are much more valuable. The communities got nothing --

So your message to Americans who are worried tonight is what?

But take a look at Loudoun County. Take a look at Loudoun County and it's unbeli- -- it's booming.

So your message to the Americans on this?

My message is that do what you want, but if you wanna be poor, have no jobs, and watch other countries do great or other states do great, you know, West Virginia's been very proactive. Uh, they'll go other places. Uh, if you wanna make a lot of money, if you wanna make a lot more money than you've ever made before, if you wanna see your house go up, your education get better, I would suggest you have.

Now, you use the word guardrails, put them in the right areas, put them there. But you don't wanna kill the golden goose because that's what you'd be doing. You would be killing the golden goose. This is the oil of the next 50 years in many ways.

In just moments, President Trump on his legacy and the race he believes is defining for America's future. More of my exclusive interview next. And here's more of my exclusive interview with President Trump. 11 years, as I said, you've dominated politics. It's, it's, some young people, they've never known anything else but the, the age of Trump.

History will look at this period of time as dominated by you. So the age of Trump will be books and documentaries that whoever the Ken Burns is of 50, 100 years from now. What do you expect the historians to say about this era?

When the books are written, I think they're gonna say, I saved the country. I really believe it. I saved this country. This country is going down. Um, what I'm doing with Iran, uh, I know you probably would've liked to have seen it maybe go a different way, but if I went a different way, those B2 bombers and my termination of the Barack Hussein Obama deal was a horrible deal.

JCPOA, one of the dumbest deals I've ever seen. NAFTA, one of the dumbest deal. I terminated NAFTA. We're making a fortune now with Mexico, with Canada. Wait until you see the deal we make with Canada. Wait until you see the deal we make with Mexico. What we've done, I've saved the country. This country was going down.

You know, we're taking in $20 trillion right now. If I weren't president, we'd be losing five trillion and our welfare was doubling and everything was corrupt.

Uh, final question, kind of a fun question. You've dominated in entertainment with the Apprentice, obviously real estate, you know, tycoon, all the rest, and in politics. Which --

[Laughs]

Which do you like the most? What do you, what --

Such an interesting, never been asked of me. I don't think anyone in that forum. I though you were gonna say, "Where are the people the worst?"

No. Uh, which of have you enjoyed the most?

No, but you understand that.

Yes.

I've been asked, "Who are the worst? Are they the business people, real estate people? Are they entertainment people? Or are they-"

Who's more cutthroat. Well --

Politicians.

But, but what have you enjoyed most in your life?

Um, uh, look, I've enjoyed it all. I've had a great, crazy life. You know, I ran for politics and everyone though I was just doing it for fun, you know that. And I wasn't doing it for fun, but I ran --

I kind of thought that for about five minutes.

I had a great business. Uh, my business is phenomenal. Has been for, I mean, it's been amazing. Uh, I then do this little sidetrack. I do a show. It becomes the number one show on te- -- it did so good, The Apprentice for so long. It was on NBC. You know, I though NBC would be great to me. It was just the opposite.

They were so angry at me for leaving. They wanted to give me a five-year extension. They would've paid me anything. They gave the role to Arnold Schwarzenegger and he bombed. I can, you know [Inaudible] --

So what have you enjoyed the most?

Uh, I love politics. I love politics. I say to friends of mine in the real estate business or construction, because I was really good at building things, right? I say, "Am I better at politics or am I better at building?" And they said, "Well, a lot of people can build," which is not really so, because there are not a lot of people that know how to build right, but a lot of people can build, but there's only one president, you know?

I think we've done a great job as president. I don't think any president has done what I've done. And ultimately, I think it'll go down. I saved the country. I believe that this country, if we had to go through another year, not four years, another year of incompetence, if Kamala or Joe was elected or a person that's smarter than them with that same crazy philosophy.

I don't know, you know, they're smart, but they're crazy. If that happened, I really don't believe we would had a country left.

Mr. President, thank you so much for spending so much time with us.

Thank you very much.

Great to see you.

Thank you.

Thank you.