[Maria Bartiromo interviewed Donald Trump in the Roosevelt Room of the White House on October 16, 2025. The full interview aired the morning of October 19, 2025. The following transcript was provided by Fox News. It was cross-checked and confirmed for accuracy. Video courtesy and copyright Fox News.]
And after the press conference, the president joined me in the Roosevelt Room, where he took us behind the scenes of his historic peace deal in the Middle East.
It started probably with Soleimani. He was a mastermind who did a lot of bad things, the father of the roadside bomb that would blow up. And most of the people, our great patriots, our great soldiers, that you see without arms, legs, lots of problems, he was the one. That was his way of saying, we don't like you too much, and affected a lot of people.
That started one. But I think very big was recently with the taking out of the nuclear weapon from Iran. When we blew -- those beautiful B-2 bombers, when they went into Iran airspace and they came out unscathed, I mean, the whole thing was the most beautiful military operation. They flew for 37 hours. We had everything.
And they went into that and they bombed the hell out of it. And when we destroyed their nuclear capability, they no longer became the bully of the Middle East. And we hit them a lot of other ways, along with Israel. And they no longer became the bully. And if they were, we wouldn't have been able to make the deal, the deal we just made, which is basically peace in the Middle East beyond Gaza, peace in the Middle East.
And all of those great Arab nations, I mean, you look at Saudi Arabia and Qatar and UAE, those three, and then you have the ones that, as you know, joined the Abraham Accords. But they were able to breathe. They were able to do what they had to do. And they have been fantastic. But if we didn't take out the nuclear, there's no way that we would have been able to do this.
And I spoke with you right after that strike on the nuclear facilities. And you were so complimentary, obviously, of our pilots.
Yes.
But you also have relationships in the Middle East. You went to the Middle East as your first international trip as president.
I did.
So was there some cajoling that you did with the leadership of Qatar and the leadership of UAE to get them to make the case to Hamas it's over?
So I have been friendly with them for years. And, actually, I became somewhat friendly during my first term. But I was friendly with some of them before I was a politician. And it's vast wealth. Those countries are incredibly wealthy. And they put out money. They invest money, et cetera, et cetera. They have tremendous oil wealth.
So I knew a lot of them before. But I got to know them very well during the first term and really well now. But I got to know them very well during the first term. Qatar, as an example, the emir, who's a fantastic man, to me, he's, like, a really fantastic person. And he's in the middle of a very tough little area because he's sort of surrounded by every little problem.
And he has to play it close to the vest a little bit. He has to. Anybody would, anybody that's smart. And he's very smart. The king of Saudi Arabia has done unbelievable. Now, you have the king and then you have the son, who is -- and the king is fantastic. He's got a son who is phenomenal, who you know a little bit.
MBS.
Mohammed. And Mohammed's going to be a great leader for many years. And then you have UAE, and he is incredible. They're all incredible people. But, sometimes, people don't realize that. And they really helped us a lot. Qatar was -- Qatar is the one that's most vulnerable in that sense, because it was right next to Iran, but they had great courage.
And the bottom line is, we got it done, and we did something that nobody thought was possible. We created -- you know, it's peace in the Middle East. And I think we're going to get Russia done. I think that will be -- it's not easy. I thought that would have been the easiest one. I have a good relationship with President Putin.
I have always had. He -- don't forget he had to go through the Russia, Russia, Russia hoax. That made it very difficult for us in terms of trade or other things. That hoax was just a disgrace. So now we have the war, the first time we had that, and now we have the war. But there's a great potential for trade there.
And I hope that we're going to be successful. Ukraine has been very brave.
Well, you came at the peace deal with the Qataris as a businessperson. You were a businessperson before the commander in chief. So is that the case you made for the Qataris to explain it to Hamas, think prosperity, think peace, think riches, business?
You know, I don't have to make too much of a case because they have very smart people. And, frankly, if Iran stayed strong, stayed like as a military threat, they would -- I wouldn't have -- I wouldn't have even asked them. They would -- there's nothing -- it's right -- they're neighbors, right? They're right next to you.
You literally would walk into one or the other. So I didn't -- and just it was really the decimation of Iran that got us there. Without that, we couldn't have gone to the next step. And then we went to the next step and now we have a deal. And I think it's a deal that catches on. It's a deal that's respected by everybody.
We had Arab countries, Muslim countries. We had everybody. Israel approved this deal. Bibi was very brave. Bibi was a great warrior.
And yet, as soon as you left, Hamas executed seven people and then they went on to execute 30 more.
Yes. Yes.
Do you believe they really will disarm?
Well, they promised they would. They said they would. It's down that they would. Now, they said they were gang members, et cetera, et cetera. But these are very violent people. This is a very violent part of the world. Nobody's seen violence like this. If we have to, we will disarm them.
The U.S.?
Well, whether it's me or the U.S. or it's a proxy. It could be Israel with our backing. We won't have boots on the ground. There's no reason to.
In the past, you have said Gaza could be beautiful. It could be developed.
Yes.
You said you wanted to develop it. Do you have plans for that?
Well, not me develop, not me as an individual.
The U.S.
I liked it as, like, Freedom Place. You call it Freedom Place. And we would get all of the people that live there into decent homes throughout the region. If you look, Egypt has a lot of land. Jordan has a lot of land right next door. A lot of countries have a lot of land. So I had an initial vision that we would get them -- look at Gaza.
I mean, there's nothing standing. The whole thing is -- it's all rubble. So, it's not too hard to top that. And we'd build houses and it would be paid for by the wealth of the -- you know, the wealthiest countries are there, although, if we win the tariff case, which hopefully we will -- it's vital to the interests of our country.
We're the wealthiest country there is. If we don't, we will be struggling for years to come. I have ended -- of the eight wars that we just mentioned, five of them have been ended because of tariffs. The threat of tariffs, as an example, kept India and Pakistan, two nuclear nations, from going at it. They were going at it. Seven planes were shot down.
That's a lot. And they were going at it. And that could have been a nuclear war. And the prime minister of Pakistan actually just said, Donald Trump, President Trump saved millions of lives by him getting that. And I said to India and Pakistan pretty much the same thing. I said, look, if you're going to fight each other, I'm not going to do business with you.
We're going to put on a 200 percent tariff, which will make it impossible for you to deal. And we're not going to do business. No, no, no. They said, no, no. And after 24 hours, I settled the war, because they -- and I settled it through trade.
I want to get back to that, because I want to talk a little about your backup plan should that not go your way. But just to close the loop here, so are there plans for the U.S. or for yourself to help develop Gaza?
We are going to have a Board of Peace. You heard about it. And they have asked me to be the chairman. This is what I needed, another -- but it's very important that that whole -- to me, peace in the Middle East, that's a big thing. I have heard the name, the term all my life, peace in the Middle East. For 3,000 years, it hasn't happened.
When you spoke to Vladimir Putin, did you tell him that you were considering sending Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine? Are you still seriously considering that?
Well, I have been asked by Ukraine if they could have Tomahawks. And I'm looking at it. I spoke with Vladimir Putin about it, not that he would be thrilled. It's a violent, vicious weapon. But we have to remember one thing. We need them for ourselves too. We can't give all of our weapons to Ukraine. We just can't do that.
And I have been very good to President Zelenskyy and to Ukraine. But we can't give -- if we're going to be short, I don't want to do that. I can't jeopardize the United States.
Did you get any sense from Putin that he would be willing or open to the idea of ending this war --
I did. I did, yes.
-- without taking significant property from Ukraine?
Well, he's going to take something. I mean, they fought. And he has a lot of property. I mean, he's won certain property, if you say that. He's won certain property. We're the only nation that goes in and wins a war and then leaves, you know, like we did under President Bush in the Middle East. We go in. We blast the hell out of everybody, destroy the place and then we leave, you know?
Remember, I used to say, keep the oil. But I really didn't say -- I said two things. I said, don't go in. But then they went in. And I said, well, don't go in, but if you're going to go in, keep the oil. But we didn't keep the oil.
Did you --
What do we do? We go in, we blast it to pieces and then we leave. Doesn't make sense, never made sense.
Is there a timeline to get Hamas to disarm, in your mind?
Not a timeline, not a hard line, but we're going to see how it all works out. They have lived there for a long time. They're very violent. You understand. You have been covering it for a long time. But we're going to find out. Don't forget 50,000 of them have been killed, OK? So they killed 1,200 people in horrible -- the October 7 attack.
It was an attack. They killed 1,200. But Israel can say that we killed 50,000, and so you would say it's a whole new set of people. And it is. I mean, they get replaced by other people, young people. But we're going to find out. So it's not a hard timeline. But it's a line in my own mind. And, at a certain point, if they don't do what they're supposed to do, then we will have to do it for them.
Do you expect an expansion of the Abraham Accords?
I do, almost soon. I don't want to use the word immediate, but soon. The Abraham Accords are a miracle in a way. And the four countries that went in initially, including UAE, highly respected, big and highly respected, they stayed in, and they're doing incredibly well. I mean, they're basically trading with Israel and have access and everything else, I mean, good for everybody.
I hope to see Saudi Arabia go in and I hope to see others go in. I think, when Saudi Arabia goes in, everybody goes in, highly respected. And the crown prince, who's also the prime minister and the king in waiting, his father is such a wonderful man. He's still -- he's still healthy and he's still very sharp.
But, yes, I think that they're going to all go in very soon.
So they have indicated to you a willingness to do so?
Oh, they have even as recently as like yesterday, I had some very good conversations. Now, they couldn't have done it during the war. They couldn't have done it with the fight with -- the fight that was going on with Iran as a power. With Iran as a power, that's why the four original countries, really they -- it was somewhat courageous of them, and they did it with Iran as a power, and they made the right decision.
And then they stayed during the war. A lot of people thought they would have to get out. No, the Abraham Accords are amazing. It's really -- it's amazing. And it'll help bring long-lasting peace in the -- into the Middle East. Nobody thought they were possible either. But the big thing is what happened over the last few days.
It's been pretty much incredible. Just like your ratings are incredible, it's been incredible.
That's wonderful, Mr. President. Now, the Biden administration is saying that -- they're taking credit for the peace plan.
Oh.
Antony Blinken said that they laid the groundwork for the peace deal before leaving office.
So let me just tell you how crazy it is. They backed Iran. They backed Iran totally. They deserted Israel. They deserted everybody. And they backed Iran. You know that. It started with Barack Hussein Obama. He went into Iran. And let's say that their idea worked. Then you would have right now a nuclear-powered Iran, because Iran was on its way to a nuclear weapon under these people.
And so, when we do it, rather than saying -- although they did say congratulations. I mean, Biden said it. Hillary Clinton said it. A lot of people said it.
That's right.
The only one that I heard say that was Blinken.
Right.
And Blinken didn't -- he wasn't good at what he did. He was a lousy negotiator. And for him to try and take credit, just so you understand, they did the exact opposite. They didn't set groundwork. They set the opposite of groundwork. They set traps, because they wanted, and they felt strongly, that they wanted to back Iran over the rest of the Middle East.
And they did it with Obama. And they did it with Biden. Now, Biden didn't know what the hell he was doing, so it didn't matter, but his people that surrounded him in the Oval Office, the people that worked the autopen, the people that signed all those signatures illegally, because he had no idea what was going on. So all those signatures that were signed, except his son's signature.
I think he signed for Hunter. I think that was actually -- because it wasn't nearly as neat as the autopen. The autopen was much better.
[Commercial break]
I'm wondering what China is thinking right now. Did Xi Jinping congratulate you about the success of the peace deal?
Well, I heard he did. There was a statement put out, but I'm meeting with him in two weeks.
Because in the middle of it all, he squeezed the U.S. by tightening the export controls over rare earth minerals.
He did. And I raised our tariffs to 100 percent on top of what they're already paying, which is far worse, far worse. We will see what happens with China. I have always had a great relationship with them, as you know. But they're always looking for an edge. They ripped off our country for years. We're going to meet in a couple of weeks.
We're going to meet in South Korea actually with President Xi and other people too, but we're going to meet. And we have separate meeting set up.
Well, if you put that 100 percent tariff on top of what's in place already --
Fifty-five.
-- you're talking a 157 percent tariff on China.
That's right. Right.
Can that stand?
No.
I mean, what is that going to do to the economy?
It's not sustainable, but that's what the number is. It's probably not -- it could stand, but they forced me to do that. I think we're going to do fine with China. I get along great with him. He's a very strong leader, a very amazing man if you look at what he's done and what he's -- where he's -- his life is an amazing story.
It's a story for a great movie. I think we're going to be fine with China, but we have to have a fair deal. It's got to be fair. And you cover it as well as anybody that's ever covered this subject. It's a very complex subject. But China has ripped us off from day one. And Richard Nixon, he allowed -- he allowed this to happen.
He was the one. He opened China, and I said, is that good or bad? You tell me. He unleashed it. And we have a very strong adversary, and they only respect strength.
Mr. President, you came into office with a real vision. You wanted supply chains in America.
Yes.
On the rare earth minerals thing, I know that there are rare earth minerals, but it's the refining of the minerals that China has a lock on.
Right.
How did we get here? I mean, for 10 years, you have been attacked by your enemies, political enemies, the Democrats, who've tried to take you down for 10 years, Russia, Russia, Russia.
Think of it. Isn't it amazing?
And yet, all this time, China has been eating our lunch.
Yes.
Now, 90 percent of the pharmaceuticals that we need, underlying components, are made in China.
It's all coming back.
So how did we get here?
Wait. You know it's all coming back.
Well, how long is it going to take? How long is it going to take to get the supply chains?
Fast. The pharmaceuticals are coming back already, again, tariffs. So, essentially, I'm putting tariffs on pharmaceuticals unless they're made here. They're all coming back. Chips. I put big tariffs on chips unless they're made here. There's no tariff if they make them here. And all those companies are coming back from Taiwan.
They're coming back from all over the world. And they're coming back fast. You know better than number anybody else, $17 trillion. It could be $20 trillion by the end of the first year, my first year.
You mean the investment in America.
Investing in America, $20 trillion. No country's ever done anywhere even near that, like a fraction of that. Biden did less than a trillion in four years. I did $20 trillion. We're going to do over $17 trillion in eight months. By the time we end, we could do over $20 trillion. There's never -- in China, no matter where you go, there's never been anything like it. We are building up something that's unbelievable.
And a big part of that are the tariffs, because they don't want to have to pay the tariffs because it's so unsustainable that they come and build the pharmaceuticals and the chips and all the things. They are coming into the United States, and they're building them. It's a miracle what's happening. We are building the greatest country in the world, economically greater than we have ever been before.
But we do have a big decision, and that decision is coming up in the Supreme Court. And, again, this is being fought by radical left lunatics that don't even know what they're doing and people that represent foreign countries that have taken advantage of us for years. Tariffs have been used against the United States for years.
And it would always bother me so much. I'd look and I'd see. I'd say, how can they allow this to happen to our country? We lost 55 percent of our automobile business because of the fact we didn't use tariffs. Had we used tariffs, we wouldn't have lost anything.
What is your backup plan should the Supreme Court decision go against you on the tariffs and the emergency use?
Well, I will have to figure something out. I don't want to even think about it. We're doing so well. To think about it, if that happened, we'd have to pay back money. So if anything would happen with that, that would mean they're allowed to use tariffs and we're not. If they took away -- this is national security.
If they took away tariffs, then they have taken away our national security.
Well, you have also been monetizing the balance sheet. And you took a 10 percent stake in Intel.
That's right.
You're taking a stake in Mountain Pass, M.P.
[Crosstalk]
Do you know that Intel -- I think we're up $40 billion since I made the deal. We made a big deal.
Right.
And I didn't do it for myself. I did it. They came in to see me and I said, you know what, I think the United States should own 10 percent of your company. And they gave me 10 percent. And you know what? It's been good for them too. Their stock has gone up so much that they end up making a fortune. But we made $30 billion or $40 billion on that deal, and the same thing with Mountain Pass.
But in that case, it's because we want to get the rare earth refined.
Yes, I mean, it was a national security emergency. Or are you looking to take stakes in other companies for other reasons?
Well, I will give you an example. In Alaska, they have a road that we just approved, right? That was a big deal. They have been trying to get it done for, like, forever. They can never get it done. And it's a very simple deal. So here comes the road. And at the end of the road is vast wealth that's owned by big companies, vast wealth, minerals.
And I said, they came in with an agreement allowing the road to be built, environmentally, everything else, very complicated. We're going to build bridges. We're going to -- I said, so what are we getting out of it? Sir, you're getting minerals. I know, but we're opening up this part of the world that you were unable to even get to except by a helicopter.
We're building a massive road. They're building it. We're making it possible to build. I said, so if we're making it possible to build, we should get a percentage of the things that are taken out. And my people looked at me and said, gee, I never thought of that. I thought of that, because you have to see this, unbelievable wealth, unobtainable, can't get -- we make it easily available.
We're building a gravel -- massive, hundreds of miles long, a gravel road into this incredible place of rare earth. And I said, we should own a part of that company. And then I do that and people criticize me. That's not the American way. It is actually the American way. And our country, we're going to be the richest country in the world.
We just have to go this way. And all we need is a series of smart presidents. We can't have people like Biden or Kamala and people like that, low-I.Q. people. We need smart presidents. And if we have smart presidents, the United States will be the richest country ever in history.
[Commercial break]
I know that things feel like they're going well, but we don't have any data. The government is shut down. How long is this going to last?
Well, look, the Democrats are kamikazes right now. They're kamikaze pilots right now. They have nothing going. They have no future. They have incompetent candidates. I mean, I looked at Crockett, Jasmine Crockett. She's a low -- very low- I.Q. person. She's polling OK in the Democrat Party. I can't even believe it. AOC is -- I watched her the other day.
It's like you got to be kidding. This is not going to make our country great. And for us to have a communist mayor -- it looks like we're going to in New York. He's not a socialist. He's a communist. And it'll be very interesting. But remember this.
Are you going to endorse anybody in New York?
Well --
Cuomo or Sliwa?
Yes, I guess I haven't made a decision really.
Sounds like you're leaning towards somebody.
It's not like -- well, I think it's not good to have a communist, OK? Would I rather have a Democrat than a communist? Barely. They're almost becoming the same thing.
What about a Republican, Curtis Sliwa?
Well, look, I mean, I don't know. He's a Republican. Is he really a Republican? It's -- am I a big fan? This isn't exactly ideal, where he wants to make Gracie Mansion a home for the cats. Gracie Mansion is a magnificent home of Fiorello La Guardia, the great mayors, Rudy, Rudy Giuliani. You know, Rudy Giuliani was the greatest mayor in the history of New York.
He did a great job.
So are you going to get involved?
He went through hell. So I will make a decision.
Soon?
Yes, I guess.
It's only three weeks away. The mayor's race is three weeks away.
I don't know. I don't know that -- look, I don't know that I'm going to get involved. I don't want to be endorsing Democrats as an example. It's not my thing. But would you rather endorse a Democrat than a communist? Barely, because they're almost the same thing.
Well, Mamdani was on Fox the other day, and he would not give you credit for the peace deal. He said it's too early to tell.
I watched him a couple of times be interviewed. And he's pretty slick. But he doesn't have what it takes. He doesn't have what it takes. The city will be in big trouble.
Mr. President, do you think that the government shutdown is all about this rally that's happening this weekend, the No Kings rally?
No. No. I mean, some people say they want to delay it for that. A king. This is not a king.
It's more than that.
They're saying -- they're referring to me as a king. I'm not a king.
No, but just so that Chuck Schumer could go and say, I'm fighting Trump.
Yes, well, Chuck is at the end of the line. He's being beaten by everybody that they poll against him. And what he did is, he did the right thing a couple of years ago on something like this. And he got hurt by his party. And it doesn't -- I don't think it matters to him. I think he's just so dead that he will do anything.
I think they could just stay out forever, I mean, to be honest with you. Now, what we're doing is, we're cutting Democrat programs that we didn't want, because, I mean, they made one mistake. They didn't realize that that gives me the right to cut programs that Republicans never wanted, giveaways, welfare programs, et cetera.
And we're doing that. And we're cutting them permanently. We're cutting a $20 billion project that Schumer fought for 15 years to get. And I'm cutting the project. The project is going to be dead. It is pretty much dead right now.
Well, how significant will the layoffs be? Because now you have got a federal judge trying to stop you there as well --
Yes.
-- saying that any layoffs during --
Yes.
-- a temporary shutdown is illegal.
These judges, I'm telling you, it's so terrible what's happening with the judges. When we want to go into a city to save the city -- look at what we did in D.C. Washington, D.C., was a death trap. People would come from Iowa and Idaho and Florida. And they end up getting -- going home in a casket, right?
They were killed. Now it's the safest city in the country. It took me 12 days to make it that way, 30 days to make it really good, 12 days to make it very good. And I will tell you what. It's -- I'm so proud of the city. Do you see the way this city looks now?
It feels different, Mr. President. You're right.
It's clean.
I mean, Union Station was totally clean.
Even the grass is growing properly.
And Union Station looked good.
Union Station is a dream. It's a beautiful place. You couldn't walk through Union Station without getting accosted or mugged or hit over the head with a bat. We moved out 1,700 career criminals and criminals from other countries that came in through Biden's open border. You know, the worst thing that Biden did -- and I don't really think it was him.
I think it was -- he's not an open border person. He doesn't -- I really don't believe it. It's he's surrounded -- he was surrounded by radical left lunatics, who were smart. And yet they have been after me for so many years, and how am I doing? I'm president. Here we are in the White House. Are we in the White House?
I think so, right?
Yes.
So we want to go in and do what we did in D.C. So we're in Chicago now. We're being met with -- by the way, the people love us. The people want us there. I said beautiful black women wearing MAGA caps all over the city. It's the most incredible thing. I love it. And they're all -- there's, like, MAGA. I think you had them on your program.
They're MAGA all over the place. But the governor, who got thrown out of his business by his family because he's a dope, but the governor, Pritzker, he doesn't want us in. If I were him, if I were a Democrat, and I were him, I'd say, come on in. What do you have to lose? Come on in.
And you're going to go to San Francisco next.
We're going to go to San Francisco. The difference is, I think they want us in San Francisco. San Francisco was truly one of the great cities of the world. And then, 15 years ago, it went wrong. It went woke. Remember my statement? Anything woke is -- and then I used a filthy --
Is broke.
Well, broke is another word. I used a filthy word, but I didn't --
No.
I took enough heat on that. I won't say it again. But it's true. I mean, nothing changes, right? But we're going to go to San Francisco, and we're going to make it great. We're going to make it great. It'll be great again. San Francisco is a great city. It won't be great if it keeps going like this. Chicago is another one.
So the head of the Union Pacific, who you probably had on your show, he started off as like a conductor. And now he's the chairman. It's sort of a great story. His father worked for the railroad, the Union Pacific, great, great company. And he was in my office. And I talked to him because he knows all the cities.
He said: "Sir, save Chicago. It's a great city. We're going to lose Chicago. Save Chicago." That was two months ago. And I said, let's do it. And I'm met with, like, this legal force. And don't forget -- and I haven't used it, but don't forget, I can use the Insurrection Act. Fifty percent of the presidents almost have used that.
And that's unquestioned power. I choose not to. I'd rather do this. But I'm met constantly by fake politicians, politicians that think that -- it's not like a part of the radical left movement to have safety.
Yes.
These cities have to be safe. Our cities that are Democrat-run exclusively, just about, are unsafe cities. They're a disaster. And I'm going to save the cities. I didn't run on that. I ran on crime, but I didn't run on straightening out the city.
[Commercial break]
Aren't you going to have to compromise on something around health care subsidies to end this thing?
I don't know. Here's the problem. They want to give one point for -- they have a deal. We have a deal. We just want an extension. And the reason we want an extension is because you can't make a deal with these people. They're lunatics. They have gone crazy. They're crazed people. Trump derangement syndrome, there really is that disease.
At first, I found it to be amusing. Now I find it there really is. They want $1.5 trillion for health care for illegal aliens that come into our country. If we do that, it will jeopardize the health care of the citizens of our country. So we're not going to do that.
And, on China, you have got a lot of economic levers to pull. You have got all those Chinese companies trading on our exchanges. The most liquid --
I have a lot to pull. I don't want to -- I'm not looking to destroy China. I'm not looking to destroy China. But China has taken out hundreds of -- trillions, I mean, trillions of dollars, not hundreds, over the years, trillions of dollars. China has built their military because of us. China has taken out trillions and trillions of dollars.
And then I came along, my first term, as you know, I took out hundreds of billions of dollars from China. I tariffed China. And Biden left them, except he made so many exceptions, it didn't matter. But I tariffed China. I took in hundreds of billions of dollars from China. And now they forced me to charge them what is the equivalent of 155 to 157 percent.
But they need our capital markets. I mean, we're funding the expansion of these companies tied to the military.
I think they do. But, look, they have a very smart leader. And I think we have a leader that wants to make a deal, because I think that's smart. And he's smart. So we will see what happens. I'm meeting with him in two weeks. We're going to see what happens.
Final question on the surveillance that has gone on. I mean, we have got reports that Congress -- collected 30 million lines of phone data during the January 6 investigation. They tapped the phones of eight sitting lawmakers. What can you do to prevent this kind of surveillance? And how high up the chain did this go?
I think it went right up to the top. And I think it started with Obama, with Comey going up and giving me a briefing in 2016, 2015, the end of 2015 and 2016. And then I said to him: "Who knows about this?" He said: "President Obama, his wife and Joe Biden." They sat in the Oval Office talking about it. But it went all the way through.
Obama was involved. Biden was involved. Everybody. And then they got this guy deranged Jack Smith, a lunatic. And they put him in because he was the meanest prosecutor you could find. He was sort of a failed prosecutor because he failed a lot of -- he'd failed because he'd always go too far. And now he really went too far.
And we will see. But you had eight senators and I guess a couple of congressmen and some other people. But you had -- maybe worse than that, you had a House raided of the ex- president of the United States who actually won the second election by a lot.
Were they looking for that report on Russia collusion?
I heard that they were looking because they thought there was a report bad about them. They thought I had it, which I didn't have. I didn't have anything of any merit. But they were looking. And I also had the Presidential Records Act. I had the right to have all this stuff. I had the right to have it. Only the president has that right.
The vice president doesn't have that right. But the president does. But they were looking for bad -- they thought I had bad things on them, because they knew how bad they were.
So was it a conspiracy?
If they weren't bad, they wouldn't have known that.
Do you expect there will be charges that there was a conspiracy against you?
I don't know about charges. You know, I'm allowed to be involved in this. I'm the chief law enforcement officer of the United States. You know that, right? A lot of people say, oh, he's the president. He should -- no, I'm the chief law enforcement. I'm allowed to be involved in it. But I haven't chosen to. I think Pam is doing a very good job.
I think Kash is really coming onto his own. It's a field that he's very good at. I think they have some people that are very good. We're going to see what happens. I see -- I just -- and, again, I didn't know it was happening. But I see John Bolton just got indicted. That's a good thing. He's a bad guy. I don't know what he did, but that's a bad -- he's a bad guy, stupid kind of a guy, actually, you know?
He helped me, though, I must say. When I brought him into a room and I was negotiating like with Putin or this one or Kim Jong-un or whoever, when they saw Bolton, they gave me everything. You know why? Because they thought it meant war because he was crazy. All he wanted to do is drop bombs on people. He's one of the people that convinced push to go into the Middle East.
And I understand why. The guy was just sort of -- I thought he was a crazed person. When in doubt, drop bombs on everybody. When in doubt, kill people. But having him stand -- he never talked much. He almost never talked, come to think of it. But having him stand there with a big mustache, these people that I was fighting, they looked at him and they said, oh, man, we -- let's give up to Trump because this guy's crazy.
Bolton is going -- is crazy, and we will end up in a war. I won so much stuff. But, despite that, he's a bad guy. I don't know what he did. It must be pretty severe. But whatever it is, let the courts decide.
And all of these indictments caused Obama the other day in a podcast to say that right now democracy is being threatened.
Yes, I know. He says that all the time. He's the one that threatened it by spying on my campaign. He started it. Obama spied on my campaign. And he did it knowing it was illegal. He knew it was illegal, but he started the whole thing. And there were a lot of dishonest people. And I suspect they will be caught.
Mr. President, thank you.