Interview: Sean Hannity Interviews Donald Trump in Beijing for Fox News - May 14, 2026

[This interview was recorded earlier in the day, after the visit to the Temple of Heaven but prior to the state banquet, at the Four Seasons Hotel Beijing on May 14, 2026. It it aired later in the day at 9:00 pm Eastern on Fox News' Hannity. Video courtesy and copyright Fox News.]

Mr. President.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for sitting down. Your first interview, we appreciate it. Um, wow. They rolled out the red carpet. I have video of when Barack Hussein Obama came to China. There wasn't as much pageantry.

No.

From your perspective, that welcome, what did that, how did you interpret that?

Well, we have a relationship, he and I, and we've been working together a long time. We've gotten along well. When I first came here, China was really taking advantage of the United States. He understands that. And now we do great with China, and we have a very good relationship. We have a friendship, really.

He's a tremendous leader. He's been here a long time. Very powerful. Very strong. There's no doubt about it. And we just have a good relationship. I did actually see, uh, other people arrive here that not treated so well.

Mm-hmm.

But we were treated very well.

So that, that was meaningful for you?

Well, I, I mean, if I got out of a plane and nobody was there to greet me, I would say that wouldn't be so cool.

Mm.

Because it's really respect for our country. Our country's respected. Look, we're the hottest country right now anywhere in the world, but he and I know each other well, I think beyond maybe that. But we certainly got a very nice greeting and today was beautiful.

Mr. President, if there was any meeting that I think I would want to be a part of, I would love to have been in that meeting. Rather than me start with a bunch of questions about this and that, and I do have specific questions. In your own words, how did this meeting go? 'Cause I knew you were there a long time.

It was a long meeting. It started off interestingly because they're very organized people. And as you know, we have about 30 of the biggest business leaders in the world, biggest everything, you know? I mean, you name it, from chips to planes to everything. And they're all here. I didn't invite them. They all wanted to come, and they're all here.

And I suggested that before we start the meeting, I'd like to introduce them to you. And they were surprised because it wasn't, you know, it wasn't scheduled. And they looked around, they said, "Well," and then, uh, you know, we had everybody. I don't want to go into names because I'll leave some out and, but there were a lot of guys, lot of --

Tim Cook, Elon Musk.

A lot of people. Yeah.

You know.

We had, we had everybody.

Head Nvidia was there.

Jensen. We had, uh --

Jensen.

-- just everybody. And, uh, men and women all, all great business led, the best. And they said, "Okay." And they each spoke a little bit and introduced themselves. It's interesting because they, they do business in China. Most of them do business here, but probably like to do more. And I'd like to see them do more, that would be good for trade and trade balance.

And, uh, they were fantastic. I'll tell you, they really had a good time. Once they, uh, once the Chinese leadership, because it was, it was President Xi and many other leaders, once they got used to the fact that we're a little off schedule here, and we're talking about a subject that wasn't even thought about.

But they were outside. I said, "I think we can get them in five minutes," because they were literally, you know, few minutes away from the room where we were in the great hall. We were in the great hall. And they came in and they, uh, did fantastically well. It was really good. I think it was, he actually said, "Mm, that was very good.

That was a good idea." But it was very different from what the schedule had. And then we went on, and we talked about a lot of different subjects, and I think it was all good.

Let me ask you this. You know, you always say that you have a very good relationship with President Xi, and you say the same thing about Vladimir Putin.

Yeah.

You're America first.

Yeah.

You seem to always understand he's gonna be China first.

Yeah, totally.

And so --

He is, he's China first. He wants to make good deals, but having a good relationship is a good thing, not a bad, I explained to people, you know, it's great when you have good relationships with very powerful countries and powerful economically as well, as we have the most, I built in my first term the greatest military in the world.

We have the greatest military in the world. We proved that with Venezuela. We proved it with Iran. Iran's wiped out militarily. It's just a question of time and, uh, you know, we, we gave them a break by stopping a little while. We have a blockade. They have no boats are going in. No boats are even thinking about it. We talked about it today.

It's very interesting, but they're impressed. We have a great military. We have the greatest military we've ever had, but we have the greatest military anywhere in the world. I built it in the first term. A little was given away by Biden to Afghanistan and as much as it was, it was a lot, but there's a very little compared to what we have.

Uh, we have, uh, a country that is respected. Our country two years ago, if, if Biden came here, I don't even think he would get a meeting with President Xi. I don't think they'd even meet with him.

I don't know --

He wouldn't come here.

-- if he'd have to be able to focus long enough in the meeting.

You know what, he wouldn't come here. But assuming he came, I don't know that he'd even have a meeting. It's amazing. Actually, a lot of people I noticed even with the business leaders said the biggest businessmen in the world and, and women, couple of women and most of them, almost all of them, but most of them never met President Xi. This was the first time they've met him.

So they found it exciting. They all performed very well. [Laughs] They all, they all spoke. And I said, "It's a little different position for them because they're hot stuff back in our country, but here they are..." They're standing in front of this, you know, massive country, the leadership. But they've really performed well, I thought.

You have in the past described President Xi to me as very tough all business.

Yeah.

Y- -- you're not describing the type of business that he normally used to do. Do you think that your relationship has evolved to the point where, oh, he can go along with your spontaneity or --

Yeah. I, I think he's a warm person actually, but, but he's all business. He's, uh, you know, there's no games. There's no talking about how nice the weather is. Oh, let's look at the stars.

[Laughs]

Let's look at the sun, you know? No, he's all, he's all business and, and that's, I like that. I mean, that's a good thing. No games. I say it about him and I could say it about some, not as complimentary, frankly, for the most part. But I say about him that, uh, if you went to Hollywood and you looked for a leader of China to play a role in a movie.

Central casting.

He's central casting. You wouldn't, you couldn't find a guy like him.

Mm.

Uh, even his, his physical features, you know, he's tall, very tall. And, uh, especially for this country, because they tend to be a little bit shorter. You look at the military. I mean, the military today was incredible.

Mm.

That military marching was incredible. But no, if you went to Hollywood, you wouldn't find a, you're not gonna find a guy to play the role. He's good. And he's a, you know, I mean, I'll get criticized. They always criticize me when I say good things about certain leaders, but, and this one. But, uh, he's a leader for China.

He, he's, he's led almost 1.5 billion people for a long time and he's respected. It's sort of interesting when the fake news said, "He said..." They'll say, "President Trump said that President Xi was a brilliant leader. That's a terrible thing." What am I gonna do, you know? But it's, uh, you know, you saw the response, you saw the, and well, here's the thing, those business people are here to make deals and to bring back jobs.

They're bringing back massive numbers. You know, the, China's going to invest hundreds of billions of dollars with those people that were in that room today. That's why they came. That's why they came. It was really an honor. We had every major, just about every major business leader in there.

Yeah. I, I mean, the list was impressive to know that.

Impressive, yeah.

So maybe to give people some insight into how you act in these situations, you're representing our country.

Yeah.

You're the president of our country. And we, we get to watch you on a regular basis, something that the media did not get a lot of access to when Joe Biden was president. But we watch you --

He never did it.

Well, I don't --

And when he did do it, it was a disaster, okay? So almost 100% of the time [Laughs] it was a disaster.

Pretty much.

It was a terrible, it was a terrible thing for our country. Can't be represented like that. Our country was laughed at. Two years ago, our country was laughed at. We felt like a stupid country. We were, we were scorned. We were mocked. We were taken advantage of in trade and every other way. I mean, look at what happened with Afghanistan.

We left all that, you know, billions of dollars of equipment behind. Could have taken it. It was just unbelievable. There's no reason to do that. It just all of a sudden, leave it. Um, no, we were, we were a country with the highest inflation in history. You know, when they talk about high prices, I inherited the high prices.

I'm getting them down. I've got them down incredibly. In fact, if I didn't make the little excursion to the country of Iran, I had to do it. We just hit the highest stock market ever, which by the way, now we're the highest, we're now higher than we were before the war started. And oil went up very little compared to what most people, even including me, I thought it would go up more, but it, that was okay for a short period of time because we, we cannot let Iran have a nuclear weapon.

They're crazy.

I'm gonna get to that.

You can't let 'em have a nuclear weapon. They would use it.

I agree.

There'd be no Israel. There'd be no Middle East. There'd be no Europe. And they'd come at us, too. Because you know why? They're crazy.

I'm gonna get back to Iran. Let me go to the media and Donald Trump, and then the person, and give people insight into the guy that sits in the room across from the leader of China, eh, 1.5 billion people. Um, we watch you almost daily with the media and I think you enjoy it. You bring them in, they have gaggles, you keep them there for a long period of time, probably --

It's not that I enjoy it.

You don't enjoy it?

No. I don't really.

You seem like you do.

Well, every question's a kill. You know, they're always going for the kill.

Uh-huh.

Every question you see these people with a hatred. I said, "You have such hatred when you ask the question. Why?"

[Laughs]

Because I have a strong border, because I have a good military? Why, why do you have such hatred? It's the whole thing is crazy. It's not that I enjoy it. It's that I can get the word out because I don't get the word out. I mean, look, Fox is great and, you know, we have some that are good. But overall, if you read the New York Times, you actually think we're losing or not doing well in Iran.

They have no navy. They have no air force. It, it's all, it's, it's gone. It's just a question of time. If we want, we stopped. Could have gone for another few weeks it would have been over. Uh, I did that at the request of a lot of leaders that are friendly with them. Uh, it's not going to matter for them.

They're finished. Now they can make a deal or they get annihilated. I don't want to do that.

Yeah.

But we have the greatest military. And you know, when you, uh, when you do news conferences, you're getting the word out that you're not going to read in the New York Times. I mean, I read these things. I see some of your other networks. The way they cover, they will take a massive military victory and make it like we should have done it faster.

The one thing they couldn't complain about was Venezuela because it was over in one day.

Mm-hmm.

So we're comparing it to Venezuela --

So here's my question about --

You know, as an example --

Hm.

-- Vietnam lasted for 19 years, right?

It did.

I think Iraq was 10 years.

Mm-hmm.

Thousands and thousands of people killed --

Afghanistan.

-- there are many, many thousands in Vietnam. Uh, and we have l- -- sadly, we've lost, in two wars, we've lost 13 people. 13, that's 13 people too many, but we've lost 13 as opposed to 75,000, as opposed to 50,000, as opposed to numbers that are staggering. Think of it. We're 19 years in Vietnam we're all, every war we're, you know, four years, eight years, nine years.

Iraq was 10 years. W- -- we're on all these wars. I've never, like a couple of months and the navy's gone. They have 159 ships. Every single one of them is now happily floating or not floating at the bottom of the sea. No, every water, uh, they have no air force. They had a nice air force. They don't anymore.

They have no air force. Uh, they have no anti-aircraft. Now, they probably have, I mean, we, we know everything they've done. They built it up a little bit. We'll take it out in one day. It'll all be gone. I, I hope they're watching 'cause all of their anti-stuff, anything they put up. We, we know exactly what they put up. You know, they had a little respite.

Mm-hmm.

And so they're trying to get a few things together. They have to take in some missiles from underground. We know exactly what they're doing. It'll all be gone in one day. Everything they've done for the last four weeks will be gone in one day. But, but when you read some of these horrible papers, if you watch CNN as an example, or that other one, the, uh, they used to go to MSDNC, now it's MS Now, and they got rid of it because it was such an embarrassment.

Gets no ratings. Uh, CNN has just been destroyed.

You were pretty funny the other day. You were in the Oval Office and you go, "You know, I think whatever I want to do, I'm going to say the opposite --

Yeah.

-- then I'll, then I'll get what I want."

It took me a while, you know? Took quite a while.

By the way, there's probably some tr- -- off --

No, no, I'm going to announce what I don't want.

[Laughs]

I'll be able to get it. They'll immediately like, I'll say, "We will not build a wall. We will not under any..." Because I built over a thousand miles of wall. People don't [Laughs] even talk about it. We have the safest southern border in the history of our country. We have the safest border in the world other than North Korea.

I tell you, North Korea's a pretty safe border, too.

Mm-hmm.

They've got five fences that are fully electric here.

Well you, you were at that border.

I was, I saw it. There's never been anyone --

Hm.

There was one person that got through, but he ended up dying about 10 feet as he got through.

[Commercial break]

Let me go to the issue of trade, tariffs, intellectual property theft. Um, I'm sure, especially with all those big business people you brought in, those are big

Yeah.

Any progress you can report.

Yeah, I mean, it is progress, but I also tell people that, you know, I was on an interview with a very bad, you know, stupid reporter. She works for CBS, you saw their 60-minute, stupid person.

Yeah.

Just an average person. You could take anybody off the street and it'd be as good as she is, you know, just very average. And she asked me a question.

Yeah.

She's talked about China and this and that, that they steal this, and they steal that, and they, I said, "Yeah, we do it to them too. You know?" They spy on us. I said, "We spy on them too, I guess, you know." So some people thought that was cute. Other people said, "You don't have to say that." I said, "I sort of do." No, we have, we do things and they do things and that's the way it is. Now, with that being said, I spoke to him very strongly about that, and I'd like to see it taken care of. But they've been doing that for 50 years, you know? [Laughs] They've been doing it for a long time.

I will say this --

We see a cha- -- in other words, will there be improvement with trades?

You know, Fentanyl is way down coming into the country. For two reasons, the border's strong, but it's also down because they're sending less. You know, we taxed them. I gave them a 20% tariff and, uh, for, because of fentanyl, it was like a, it was like a penalty. Nobody ever did that. You didn't know that probably.

I gave them a 20% tariff because they're sending fentanyl. It's a huge amount of money. I actually said, you know, the tariff is costing you $200 billion and you make $200 million, much less. It's more percentage from the sale. I think from the sale of the fentanyl. And so fentanyl is used for a lot of different reasons, but the bad reason probably outweighs the good, you know?

Fentanyl is used for a lot of, if you go into fentanyl, it's used for a lot of different things including operations, et cetera, et cetera. But, uh, it's been a disaster. But as you know, I put on a charge of 20%, a tariff for 20%. That's a, nobody else would do that. And we do well with China and I think we'll both do well.

These people really want, what I'd like to see, I'd like to see, China doesn't open the country, it's massive. It's a massive, it would be unbelievable for our companies if they opened it and I think it would be good for China too.

Any indication they will open --

I, well, they're gonna open some of it, yeah. They open it in stages. I'd like to just see them open it. But, you know, they guard their country and they, he cherishes his country, he wants to take, you know, he wants China to be, you know --

What does he, what does he want from you? What does he want?

MAGA is the greatest phrase of all time, but they have, they have a similar --

What does he want from us? What does he want from the US?

Um, lot of things. We talked about, we talked about a lot of things. Too many things to discuss, but a lot of things. We had a very good meeting, but we want things from them. Um, one thing he agreed to today, he's gonna order 200 jets. That's a big thing, Boeings.

Boeing.

200 big ones. That's a lot of jobs. It's a lot. Boeing wanted 150, he got 200. Uh, he said, I sort of, I think it was a commitment. I mean, you know, sort of like a statement, but I, I think it was a commitment. It's a great thing. It's a lot of jobs. Uh, Boeing's doing a good job, they're catching up. They're catching up. The, uh, the requests were a lot and our requests were a lot.

We requested for a lot. We have Visa, which is not allowed to trade and they were there. It was a big company and other companies are allowed to trade. And I said, uh, "What about letting Visa..." We had the head of Visa there today, by the way. Visa's a big deal. I said, "What about using Visa in China?" For some reason they were blackballed and maybe that'll come off.

So we had a lot of, you know, we were in there for a few hours, right? Yeah. Long time.

Do you think you made progress? Did you feel like that the give, the give and take --

Yeah, it went great.

Well, for example, you're not gonna sign this big agreement after hours meeting, but do you feel the foundation was laid for great success?

Sure, tremendous. Better than last time. You know, last time we signed like 36 deals, this time it's much bigger than that. Um, talked about soybeans for our farmers. They're gonna do a lot of soybeans for our farmers. They're gonna, they're gonna be buying a lot of our farm product, which is great. You know, they have an unlimited appetite as the expression goes.

They can buy as much as they, when you have that many people, they need it. And we have the best product with the best, sort of the best of everything. And they'll be doing that. Very farmer, to me, is very, you know, I had, I must have got 95% of the farm vote. And by the way, we just signed a Farm Bill, or we just approved the Farm Bill in Congress, which a lot of people thought was not gonna happen.

You know, the Democrats are against farmers, you believe it? I say, how can they be against, add that to the men and women's sports center. The Democrats are against farmers. Can you believe it? So, anyway, they're defective. I came up with a new name. I don't know if I should --

Oh, I know which one it is.

Democrats --

You said --

-- 'Cause they're dumb. They're dumb. It, it's D-U-M, I got rid of the B. So, you're only changing one letter, right? E goes, and the U comes. It's a Dumocrat.

You, You know you take up more space in people's heads --

Yeah.

-- than any one person on the face --

I know, but it's --

-- of the face of this earth. Right? You live rent free.

I was talking about a guy, Hakeem Jeffries. He's a very low IQ individual. And I talked about him. See, he's a dumb guy. He's a Democrat. And I said, "Oh, what a great name for this." So --

Let me ask you this. The issue, and you've been asked about it, and you've spoken about it, and that is China's support of Iran. How big a discussion was that today?

It was, we discussed it. Uh, I mean, when you say support, they're not fighting a war with us, or anything.

No.

Ah, he said he's not gonna give military equipment. That's a big statement. He said that today. That's a big statement. Said that strongly. But at the same time he said, "You know, they buy a lot of their oil there, and they'd like to keep doing that. He'd like to see Hormuz Strait opened." I said, "Well, we didn't stop it. They did it, and then we stopped them." You know, sort of interesting.

He joked. He said, "You know, it's sort of if they stopped it, then you stopped them." But they'd like to see it open. But they actually closed it. He didn't like the fact that they're charging tolls. I don't know if they are or not. I don't know who would pay them. I mean, where do they put the money? The coun- -- the country's decimated, you know, they're charging tolls.

Where's the money going?

Do, do you, do you think President Xi and China have the ability to influence the Iranians considering they are one of their biggest customers?

Yeah, probably, but, uh, um, look, he's not coming in with guns, he's not coming in with rifles --

Doesn't matter.

-- and not coming in shooting.

Influence.

You know, somebody said, "He's been, he's been very good." Uh, they get a lot of their oil, 40% of their oil from that location. So, what has happened, and one thing I think that we, we're gonna make a deal on, he's, they've agreed they want to buy oil from the United States. They're gonna go to Texas. We're gonna start sending Chinese ships to Texas, and to Louisiana, and to Alaska.

And I think that was another thing that was agreed to. That's a big thing.

What about liquified natural gas?

It's not that much longer.

Gas too?

Yeah. Everything. Energy.

Energy?

It's the one thing. They really need energy. That's the one thing. They have an insatiable appetite for energy, and we have unlimited energy. Do you know, we've now, under, under me, but we now produce more than if you combined Saudi Arabia, and before the war, if you took Saudi Arabia, Russia, put them together, we're doing twice as much oil and gas as they are.

Think of that. It's amazing.

Venezuela as well?

Do you know what that was?

Where to?

It's called, "Drill, baby, drill!", right?

Oh. Oh, well, I, I mean, when you really think about it, if they have a problem with Iran --

Yeah.

-- and they need the Strait more than we need it open --

They do. We don't need it all.

We don't need it at all?

We don't need it at all.

Fair enough. So --

I mean, you could make the case, you know, like why are we even, we're doing it to help Israel, and to help Saudi Arabia, and to help, uh, Qatar and UAE and, you know, Kuwait and other countries, Bahrain.

It also helps China.

Uh, we're actually, I told him today, I said, "You know, we're helping you, and we're helping you in another way, because I don't think they want, I don't think China wants Iran to have a nuclear weapon either." I said, "Just don't go crazy. You don't need them having a nuclear weapon either." We talked about it.

What did he say, what did he say?

Well, he's not gonna respond too much. [Laughs] He's a pretty cool guy. He's not gonna say, "Oh, gee, that's a good point."

I think he might --

You know, what's he gonna do, say that?

Oh, I mean --

What a, what a wonderful point.

You, you think he agreed?

Yeah, I think --

That was the impression.

I don't think he, I don't think he wants them to have, no, he would like to see it end, but he's been good about it, you know? Hasn't, he hasn't done anything hostile.

They, they get discounted oil from Iran. Here's a thought. Because if you're gonna expand trade and it's gonna include benefits for our farmers, and it's gonna include manufacturing and all those, you know, top CEOs and executives that you brought into that meeting --

Right.

-- that they didn't expect, I would imagine that there probably is a deal to be had on the energy front, which would be great for our country, because --

So, I told him, "I'd love to see you buy oil from Texas and Louisiana, from the United States, Alaska. We've got so much of it." And he said he likes the idea, he'd like to talk about that. I think it'll happen.

Yeah.

That's a big deal.

Let me ask you --

That's a big deal. I don't know.

I think that'd be a huge announcement.

Look, they're doing it right now. They're sending Chinese ships up to buy it oil.

They do.

So, we're doing, you know? And I don't like talking about it, because then the fake news media says, "Oh, don't, you know, Trump doesn't talk about the fact that somebody's paying two and a half from..." You know, I had it down to 185 in Iowa a gallon. So, now it's $4, and it's gonna not be long, and as soon as the war ends, it's gonna go down to lower than it was before.

It's gonna be very quick. And, you know, when I explain it to people, all you have to do is say, "Do you think Iran, they're crazy, should have a nuclear weapon?" Everybody says, "No." I said, "Well, then you think I'm doing the right thing." And I have no choice. The sad thing is that we had just broken every record on the stock market, as you know.

I thought the market would go down 20, 25 points; it didn't.

Mm-hmm.

It's higher now than it was that, before we started.

All right. If you want y --

Well, what? But isn't amazing, what, you think?

You, it i, it is amazing. And, you know, I know people around you told you oil prices would go up. Okay. I had a conversation with you, and I asked you if I could bring this up. And I said, "Mr. President, if you wanted to knock out Iran's economy, you could probably do it in an, under an hour." And you said to me, "No, probably in five minutes."

Yeah, very little time.

That's what you said to me. And then I asked you --

Well, I, We hit Kharg Island, everything but the oil.

That's their --

We left that one little thing. I said, "Stay 50 yards away." And I said to General Razin Caine, I said, "General, how long will it take?" He said, "Four or five minutes." I said, "No, no, seriously, how long?" I figured he'd say a day or two days, a week. He said, "No, only four or five minutes." They wiped out the whole island except they le -- they left the nozzle, you know, that's where the oil comes out, just in case.

You know what? That would end this conflict. That would end this war.

Well, it would, but then you --

But you said to me --

-- then you'd lose a lot of oil and, I don't know. Look, right now, there's no oil coming out of Kharg Island. None. Zero.

They're gonna cap those walls.

No. People are finding other places to buy oil like Texas, like, so I don't wanna say we're making a fortune. You understand that. Because if I say, they're gonna say, "Oh, he forgets about the little man, you know, with the --

That's not what you told me, though.

-- with the $4 gasoline.

You said the reason, I said, you said to me, "This would wipe out their economy for over a decade." It's a population of over 90 million people that have been oppressed for 47 plus years.

Yeah.

And you said you didn't want to do that if you didn't have to.

So if I don't have to, I don't. Oh, that's the easiest shot of all. That would be done in one minute. The island took four minutes. That would, the only thing, I said, "Leave 50 yards around." They wiped out everything. I mean, it's wiped out. It would take one plane one minute. That's all it would take.

When you do that, you start off, that's a big statement, to do that. Now, you also have bridges, you also have electric plants, which I think, in many ways, are worse because you can, you can get the oil open faster than you can build a new bridge or build a new electric plant. But these guys should make a deal.

I mean, only crazy people would not make a deal. But they should make a deal. And, uh, President Xi would like to see a deal made. He would, he, he would like to see a deal made. And oh, he did offer. He said, "If I can be of any help at all, I would like to be of help," because --

He did say that.

Yeah, he did say that. And look, you, a- -- anybody that buys that much oil is obviously got some kind of a relationship with him. But he said, "I would love to be a help. If I could be of any help whatsoever," he'd like to see the Hormuz Strait open. He said, "If I could be of any help whatsoever, I would like to help."

What has complicated things probably the most is the top three tier leadership is wiped out.

It's gone.

Now you have a fractured leadership.

Yeah, but I think we have people that are leaders. I think they're much better than, I think they're much more reasonable. You know, if you talk about a regime change [Laughs] that's, that's the ultimate --

Happen.

No, I said, "That's, that is serious, the regime change," right? Uh, the third tier that we're dealing with now, I think they're actually much more reasonable and, in many ways, smarter than the first tier and the second tier who are no longer with us.

And why aren't they g, why do they go forwards and backwards?

They can't get there. They, they make a deal, and the next day, like, we waited five days for a letter that should've been there one hour. I said, "Where's the letter?" They're having a lot of turmoil. They got nothing but turmoil inside. And it's an amazing phenomenon. Nobody wants to be the president. You know, it's like they say, "Who wants to be president of Iran?

Anybody wanna be president?" Everyone said, "I don't wanna be president."

But I've known you long enough to know you don't have infinite patience. You have patience. You're being patient.

No, I'm not, I'm not gonna be much more patient. No, I'm not. Um, they should make a deal. Any sane person would make a deal, but they might be crazy.

[Commercial break]

If you were to take some headlines out of this summit, um, America I'm sure watched the reception. And I, I'll do a side by side of the reception of, of President, then President Obama and how he --

He doesn't respect Obama. Nobody does. Highly overrated, and he's a divider. Biden will go down as the worst president in history because I think what he did on the border is so, so --

And how do you explain your relationship with President Xi? 'Cause it du, it seems as cordial as it can be.

Yeah, it is.

He doesn't seem like the warmest guy in the world on the outside.

He is. He's warm. I mean, look, he's smart. He's a very smart person. But we have a good relationship. No, he, he has to respect somebody. He's no games. He's not like, "Let's talk about how did, how did the Yankees do last night?" Okay? You know, who cares? They don't care. He's, uh, all about China. It's, uh, you know --

But their economy's hurting.

-- it's, it's a consummate thing.

Their economy's hurting.

I don't know. I've been, you know, I've been hearing that about them for 40 years, that their economy's hurting I've been hearing about it. I'm always hearing about it. Look, we wanna open it up. It's massive and we wanna get all of those companies and many more and there and make a lot of money and a lot of jobs for America.

That's all. It's very simple. And I've done it better than anybody else. Our deficit's way down from what it used to be, way down with China. And this could end up in any deficit with China. And China's been very good. China, China treated our presidents with great disrespect. You know, like we have a lot of presidents and I was a Reagan fan and am. I liked him.

I thought he was great, great style and everything, but he was not good on trade. Um, we lost the car industry to Japan and Germany and others. Uh, people have liabilities and whatever, but we had some presidents that were really, really bad. They allowed our country to be just absolutely decimated. And when you look at what happened with Biden, when you look at what happened, the way everybody treated him, there was zero respect.

Obama too. The Iran nuclear deal was the worst deal, one of the worst deals ever made. If I didn't go in and terminate that deal, Iran would have a nuclear weapon and they would have used it. We wouldn't even be maybe sitting here right now. They would have used it.

Can I ask you though? This is --

Which one?

Yeah.

They would have used it. The Iran nuclear deal.

I agree with you.

Then if I didn't go in with the B-2 bombers nine months ago, they would have had a nuclear weapon. And by the way, the one thing they told me, because I deal with the Iranian leaders now a little bit, they said very strongly, they said, because they said we're getting the nuclear dust. That was a term I made up because it sort of, you know, it's a simpler term for people to understand, it's nuclear dust, sort of dusty.

But I said, uh, "We get the nuclear dust." They said, "You will get it." He, they agreed to it, right? They agreed to it. But then they take it back, then they agree, you know, it's back and forth. I don't know. I think they have a lot of problems with the leadership. But, but Sean, they said, "We get the nuclear dust." They said, "There's only two countries that can get it." "Who?" "You and China.

Nobody else has the technology." I said, "Why do you say?" He said, "Because when you hit that thing, the whole mountain collapsed on it." I said, "So you're saying we, we really hit it good, didn't we?" He said, "There's no way that any normal country can, the only two countries that can go down and get that are you in China." It's very interesting.

Because CNN was saying, "Well, maybe it wasn't hit that badly. It was hit." And what they did is they took a lot of credit away from those great Bu- -- bi- -- you know, pilots and the Tomahawk submarines and, you know, we had the submarine shooting Tomahawks in there, 30 Tomahawks. We obliterated it. And before the pilots even go back, I remember CNN saying, "Well, maybe it wasn't hit that badly.

Maybe it wasn't..." They didn't even know anything, and they were saying that. The top person said to me, "There's two countries that can get that. We can't get it even if we wanted to, because we don't have the technology or the equipment." They said us and China. It's very interesting.

60% enriched uranium could be weapons grade, 90% enriched in under 12 days.

Yeah.

And they were bragging to your Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff.

If I didn't go in with the B-2 bombers, that week, that day, that week, they would right now have a nuclear bomb.

So it was that imminent?

Well, I thought so. Uh --

The intelligence told you so?

I thought that they were very close to having a nuclear weapon and it all emanated from those three sites that we hit, and we hit them good. We hit them good. And when he told me that, and he wasn't saying that as a negotiation, he was just saying, "We can't get it. We'll never be able to get it." They're not, you know, you gotta move like the weight of a mountain, it's, and it was a granite mountain, those bombs went right down air chutes.

I guarantee they'll never build an air chute again.

This is the bunker --

But think of it, at 1:00 in the morning with no moon --

Mm-hmm.

-- we dropped bombs. Every one of those bombs went down an air chute and exploded, and the whole mountain collapsed on top of that site. And the Iranian leaders told me that they would be, and, and everybody else other than literally he said us and China. And I don't know that China can do it. I know we can do it, but it's a big project.

To get it, it's a big project.

Do you feel there's been people that have, and generals that I've spoken to that think you have to get the dust, which is the enriched uranium, or have you been told that maybe a way to entomb it that they could never get to it?

Yeah. So --

Yeah.

-- we were thinking about doing it early on and --

About getting it?

-- it would take, it would take a while. It would take a week and a half. [Laughs] That's a long time --

Wow.

-- to be in enemy territory. No, it's, you, you gotta move these massive amounts of granite. You know, it's a granite. Granite is the hardest stone. It's amazing that it, it's, uh, you know, what, those were really powerful bombs that we used. And don't forget, we hit it on top of that. We hit Tomahawks on top of that.

Uh, no, I don't think it's necessary except from a public relations standpoint. I think it's important for the fake news that we get it. I'm the one that said we're gonna get it and we're gonna get it. Um, we have our eye on it so Space Force was my creation. I did that on my first term. It's gonna end up going down as one of the most important of all of our militaries.

So it can, it can be entombed?

Yeah. It can be.

With Eyes on it?

It can be, but I'd rather get it, to be honest with you. It can be a lot of things can happen, but, and even despite the statement that, you know, they can't get it, they are, it, it, first of all, if we left right now, it would take around 25 years. I would rather get it, but, uh, we have our eyes on it. You know, we know exactly what's happening there.

We had, the other day, there was a man that tried to get into the shoot. You know, we, we saw there was a door that was blown to smithereens, and we know everything that's happening. If they ever moved on and, and I told them that if they have sent a force over there to try, where I see somebody's trying, all we'll do is just hit it with a couple of bombs and that's gonna be the end of that.

They won't do it. I said, "We have, we have nine cameras on that site, on those three sites, 24 hours a day." We know exactly what's happening. Nobody's even gotten close to it. They, they looked at it at the beginning and they said, "There's no way that anybody can ever get down to, to the nuclear dust."

Do you think it's just --

But I'd still rather have it. I'd rather get it. I'd just feel better if I got it, actually.

Mm-hmm.

But it's, I think it's more for public relations than it is for anything else. The other thing we could do is bomb it again, just make it, absolute. But I just, I would feel better getting it, so, and we will get it.

Let me go back to a question that has, has come up before for you. And I, I wanna get into more detail 'cause we are in Beijing. Uh, the issue of Chinese students in our universities. More importantly in my mind is that Chinese nationals have been buying up thousands and thousands of acres of farmland, ranch land, and land near military installations.

Now, I would assume I'm in Beijing if I wanted to buy property near one of their military installations --

Mm-hmm.

-- I don't think President Xi --

No, they wouldn't let you. I don't --

Yeah.

Look, it's not that I love it. Do you wanna see farm prices drop? You wanna see farmers lose a lot of money? Just take that out of the market. Uh, but, uh, they've had a lot of land for a long time. Obama did nothing about it. They bought a lot of it during the Obama administration. He did nothing about it. As far as the students, it's 500,000 students.

They come, good students. Uh, I could tell them, "I don't want any students," is a very insulting thing to say to a country. They would then immediately go out and start building universities all over China. But if you don't have those students, good students, by the way, if you don't, and, and we do another thing, you know, if they're good and they want to stay in America, we, we won't give them a green card and things like that.

Um, you know, I've, and that o- -- not only them, but other, other countries. But if you want to see a university system die, take a half a million people out of it. And you know, the ones that won't be hurt are the top schools. The top schools will do fine. But your lower schools, your lower, uh, the ones that don't do quite as well, those too, they'll be dying all over the place.

Uh, I frankly think that it's good that people come from other countries and they learn our culture and many of them want to stay here. I think it's good. Um, not everybody agrees with me and it doesn't sound like a very conservative position.

Mm-hmm.

And I'm as conservative, I'm a conservative guy. I'm, I'm really a common sense guy, I think, more than a conservative guy. I think MAGA is common sense, you know? Uh, people understand we want strong borders, we want strong military, we want good education, we want low interest rates, we want, you know, we want, but, but --

But I think people would argue --

But --

-- they worry about, do they have nefarious intentions.

Uh, sure, yeah, I know. And we worry about that. And honestly, you know, they do things to us and we do things to them. It's, it's, um, it's a very, very fine line, the whole thing with students. So, they have 500,000 students and our university system does great, you know, it does great. You wanna screw it up, take a half a million students out.

Mm-hmm.

And you're gonna, you're gonna see bankruptcies at the lower end of good colleges, but they're not known or whatever. Uh, you're gonna have a lot of problems. So, it's something I'm always looking at, but it's a very insulting thing to tell a country, "We don't want your people in our schools." I mean, it really is. Now, I'll have people say, "Oh, that's a terrible thing," you know.

It is, very insulting thing. Um, and it's very interesting. It's something, didn't come up today. Came up last time, came up last time, but I will tell you that school systems don't want that to happen because you won't have much of a school system.

All right, Mr. President, when they look through the history books, this summit, what will people be say, be saying 10 years from now?

Well, I think it's a very historic summit. It's the two great countries. I call it the G2. This is the G2. They have G7, they have the G8, this is the G2. Uh, and I think it'll go down as a very important moment in history and maybe more than anything else, a great moment of respect.

Mr. President, we appreciate your time.

Thank you, thank you very much.

Thank you very much. Thank you.

Thank you, Sean.

Great to see you.