[Peter Doocy interviewed Donald Trump the evening of September 19, 2025 in the White House. The interview aired September 21, 2025. This transcript was provided by Fox News. It has been cross-checked and verified for accuracy.]
President Trump, welcome to the first edition of "The Sunday Briefing." You are our first guest. You'll be a very tough act to follow.
Yes. Thank you.
Before you were the president, though, you were a TV producer. I've never hosted a TV show before, so what do I do? Should I lead with a joke? Do we do the questions?
I think in your case, I can say honestly, just be yourself. You've done a great job. Your father's very proud of you. He has been a friend of mine for a long time, and you are definitely his son. I look at you, there's no question about that, but just be yourself. Keep doing the job you're doing. You're doing great.
Thank you, President Trump. Let's get right into it. Politics, today, there is a report that AOC wants to run for president in 2028. This new Sunday show, it's kind of a next-gen Sunday show. We're trying something new. Do you have anything nice that -- to say about AOC?
Well, look, she's the wrong philosophy for the country in terms of keeping America great. We're making it great. We're taking in so many different elements of success, including tremendous -- trillions of dollars, and our country is being great again. We have a closed border now. Nobody's coming in illegally.
They're coming in legally, but not illegally. So many things have happened. Her philosophy is so bad. She's got a little spunk. She's got a little something that's good. Joe Crowley, she ran against him and I said, you know, Joe, you're going to lose this thing unless you go out and campaign. I watched the campaigning a little bit.
I happened to turn on television. I saw her campaign. It was almost like by accident. And I said, you're going to have to run a little bit. Oh, well, no, she's a young -- she's a young girl, he said. She's a young girl. She'll be -- I've taken on many of them, and he ended up losing pretty easily, actually.
She got a little something, but her philosophy is bad for the country. I don't think -- I don't think that philosophy can come close to winning.
And the reason that I ask is because there's this "New York Times" excerpt of Kamala Harris' book. She says, she writes that in private, you were very nice to her. And she says that on the phone, you called her a tough, smart customer. Did that happen?
I -- not that I know of, but I was nice to her. I met her a couple of times and I was always nice to her. And I'd be nice to AOC too. I thought Kamala would've done a better job than she did in terms of running, because we really won by a lot. And I thought she would've done better. We have, in counties, did you hear, 2,700 to 525 -- that's nationwide.
And I said, that's a little surprising, because the Democrats have certain advantages when it comes to voting. But not this time. But I was -- I was very nice to -- I would be nice -- I don't think I've ever met AOC, but I would be nice to her also. I'm basically a nice person. People just don't know that. [Laughs]
The -- over in Europe, you were with business leaders.
Yes.
You're -- everything that you do, there is a business aspect to it.
Yes.
What is the worst business to be in right now? The captain of a cartel drug boat in the Caribbean, or --
They're in trouble.
-- or a late night network TV talk show host?
Oh, they're both in trouble. Although Greg Gutfeld is doing great. So I think I'd take that one by a long shot. We have the water drugs -- I call them the water drugs coming, pretty much stopped. In fact, I think water fishing, I think almost anything we have to get into a boat right now in that area would not be doing too well.
We have to stop the drugs from coming into our country and killing our people. So we lose -- in my opinion, 300,000 plus a year to fentanyl and drugs coming into the country. So when you feel badly for somebody that gets blown away, you have to remember they're killing thousands of people. Each one of those people is responsible for killing at least hundreds of people, and we have to stop it. We have no choice.
There's so much noise about this late night TV drama.
Yes.
Now we know, there's various reports. Disney's CEO Bob Iger reviewed Jimmy Kimmel's monologue and he thought that it was over the line. He's the one who benched him. Now that that's out there, your critics are saying, well, White House and the FCC are intimidating critics of President Trump. Is that what's happening here?
No, I don't think so at all. We have a great group of people that do watch over this, as you know. Brendan is a fantastic patriot. He really is. And he's, I think, doing a good job. But he's done nothing that's over the line. He just says, you have to be honest. I just had it a little while ago, you may have seen it, I talked to people about 97 percent of the things they say about me on television are negative.
And how do you win, if that's the case? And the credibility of television's way down, most television. You guys are doing a lot better. I disagree with your pollsters because I've always proven to be right on that. I would say, your pollsters, I don't think your pollsters are any good on Fox, but generally speaking, and the anchors, in every case, they're phenomenal.
But you don't have that with other networks. I think that's why they're down. They're down so low in ratings. MSDNC [Sic] is like a dead network. It's -- if you call it cable, I guess. CNN is, it's really a crying shame what happened to CNN. But they're down, they're dead, nobody watching. And they're dead because they have no credibility.
You guys do have credibility, and that's a great thing to have.
We know which hosts you don't like at late night. If one of these CEOs like Bob Iger called you and said, OK, Mr. President, Uncle, who would you want to see as a late-night network TV talk show host?
Well, you know, I'd love to tell you that, to be honest. But all I do is I make enemies, like they say, why didn't you pick me? There are people that have great talent that aren't being utilized, right? And I'm pretty good at that. I think I'm good at talent. And you have people that are really very good .Now, if I say -- if I name five, and I could do that quickly, but I'm going to have six or seven that are going to be really angry that I didn't name them.
And so, it'd be a really dumb question to -- if I answer that question, I can only get myself in trouble. I will say this. You have some people that are terrific on Fox and elsewhere that really would do well. When I look at Jimmy Kimmel, he had no talent. He had no talent. He was a crazy. I don't know if you remember, I did a Truth before he gave out the Best Picture Award in the Academy Awards.
He hosted it. He did a terrible job. I said, what a terrible job he did. He's the worst host in Academy history. And this was during the show, and he saw it, and just before the climax of the whole show, like best picture, or best actor, whatever it was, he read my Truth saying about how bad he was. And then I dispute this.
It was the craziest thing I've ever seen. His wife was begging him not to do it. His agent was begging him not to do it. There's something wrong with the guy. When I look at Fallon, he's the most insecure looking person I've ever seen on television. And the other one, Colbert, who just got canceled, as you know, just terrible.
And it's a hundred -- think of this, it's a hundred percent bad about Trump. They don't say anything good. Even conservatives -- - somebody said they -- I think in two years, two or three of them -- all -- - maybe all three of them, they never even spoke to a Republican or conservative. It's one of the reasons they do so badly because they don't realize what's happening.
But, when you look at these shows and when you look at how untalented they are, I could get people off the street to do a better job than Colbert. He's terrible. He's terrible. And it's not because he says bad things. I don't watch it -- purposely I don't watch it, but I don't find it enjoyable. I don't find him good.
I don't find any of the three. I could get people off the street. Right now, you and I could walk outside of the beautiful White House, walk down the street. I could look at some people and they would do better in ratings, and they would have more talent than any of those three guys.
That'd be a good bit for our new show.
Well, we could do it. Let's do it sometime. I mean, actually we could do it now because Washington, D.C. is safe.
It -- it --
See, that was a good way of getting into that. [Laughter]
But no, it's funny, Washington, oh boy. It was -- it was so bad. And now, it's so good. People are going to restaurants again. The restaurants, new ones are opening. We have -- Washington, D.C. is now a really safe city. And a year ago, it was a disaster.
So you get back from the United Kingdom this week. First thing you do, talk to President Xi. It seems like you guys are getting really, really close to a deal for Americans to take over TikTok and get to keep the algorithm because it's so addictive. That's what makes it so valuable. How much money are we talking?
How much are these American going to --
A tremendous amount of money.
Billions?
Oh, I'd rather have them -- they're very well known people. And Larry Ellison is one of them, he is involved. He's a great guy. Michael Dell is involved. I hate to tell you this, but a man named Lachlan is involved. You know who Lachlan is? That's a very unusual name. Lachlan Murdoch?
Mr. Murdoch, we call him.
I believe, and you should -- you call him -- and Rupert is probably going to be in the group. I think they're going to be in the group. A couple of others, really great people, very prominent people. And they're also American patriots. They love this country. So I think they're going to do a really good job.
I'm a little prejudice with TikTok because I won the -- I did so well with the young voter, and by the way, Charlie helped me a lot. Charlie also said, you should get on TikTok. So, I think I did that, but others said that too -- and did amazingly well on TikTok. And we got record young voters. Nobody's ever seen anything like it. As a Republican, typically, if you look back to Romney, which wasn't so long ago, the level they did with young voters was like very little.
We won with young voters. We did so well with young voters. And I think a big part of that was TikTok.
And because we've got the new show, I downloaded TikTok for the first time.
Oh.
Would you just help me make my first one really quick?
Sure, go ahead.
It's going to be really quick.
Go ahead.
It'll be part of the show. I'm going to just open it up, my most recent -- no followers, no posts.
Well, that's not good.
Well. [Laughs]
Let's see how we do. So, Peter Doocy here in the diplomatic reception room where it sounds like President Trump is pretty close to saving TikTok. Do I have that right?
And I'm working very hard to do it. And also to save Peter's show -- - [Laughs]
-- because if we don't do this show, maybe he won't do so well, but he's going to do great.
I'm going to -- I'm going to post that right there.
OK. Oh, good. Wow.
OK. It's out there. Well.
That's good.
OK, moving on. Lot of improvements to the White House --
Yeah.
-- since you got back, including out in the Rose Garden patio.
Yeah.
One of the most famous photos and videos of your first term in that space, when there was still grass there, there was this kid who came.
The lawnmower.
The lawnmower. He said he charged you his regular rate, which was $8 to mow the Rose Garden. Have you thought yet about what the going rate is going to be now that there's a patio for neighborhood kids to come and shovel the snow?
Well, I think we'll work that out actually. But we do like to have kids come up and do that. That was a cute little example of it. And he loved mowing the lawn. He was very good at it too. But it was -- it was quite nice.
The Fox coverage of Charlie Kirk's funeral is going to be starting right after this program. This week, 58 Democrats voted down a resolution honoring the life and the legacy of Charlie Kirk.
Terrible, terrible.
What does that tell you? Does that tell you that things in this country are going to get worse before they get better?
Well, it tells you that they're deranged, they're sick in so many different ways. Look, we just voted successfully in the House, but the Senate doesn't have enough votes, Republican votes, to a continuing resolution, keep the country open. We're doing so well. We're setting records in the stock market virtually every day.
Everything is going so well. And the Democrats want to close it down. They want crime. I mean, if you think about it, they want crime, we don't. They want open borders, we don't. They want -- everything they want, they want men playing in women's sports. They want transgender for everybody as far as -- I don't know how they get elected.
I don't know how they get any votes. We should have a tremendous midterm. We -- I don't know -- statistically, the president loses the midterm for whatever reason. But we have a great presidency. We have crime down. We have everything that people want. Taxes way down. We give the biggest -- we just got approved the biggest tax cut in the history of our country, the biggest regulation cut in the history of our country.
I think we're going to have a great midterm.
So, because the show is "The Sunday Briefing," unfortunately, the press secretary, I don't think usually works on Sundays. So, can you brief our audience, one big thing that they need to know about for the week?
I think the biggest thing going on is what's happening at the United Nations. And I'll be going there. I'll be making a speech and I'll be talking about the good and the bad. We have some wars that were settled, like seven. I settled seven. I have one or two left. I got to get Russia Ukraine, and it's horrible what's happening.
The hatred between Putin and Zelenskyy is very substantial. It's a lot of -- there's a lot of bad blood. And, of course, Gaza is a basic disaster. We've got to get that taken care of. But the big thing will be that I'm going to be speaking at the United Nations, and I hope to do a good job.
[Commercial break]
Something that we're going to try as we near the end of our time, something we're going to try with this new show with every guest, and you are the first guest, is, I'm going to -- I'm going to try out a name. Let me know what you think. "Doocy's Half-Dozen." Short questions, short answers.
Go ahead.
OK. First one. You go to a mediocre restaurant, how much do you tip?
I -- I usually tip, because if I don't, I end up with a lot of publicity that that I didn't tip. But I get good service. They give me good service.
Let's say you went out for a bite in Washington, D.C., right now. How much money is in your pocket?
I'd say about $200.
Two hundred bucks?
Probably only $200. I'm not traveling too heavy.
Favorite TV show not on a news channel.
I -- I don't get to watch very many. I mean, look, my favorite shows would be anything having to do with sports. And -- you know, like watching football. I watched the Yankees last night. They're doing very well since I went to the ballpark last week. Very well. I think they're going to be OK. But I love the sports.
I love the fact that the Ryder Cup is coming up on Friday. In fact, I'm going out there on Friday.
I saw Bryson Dechambeau says that you saved the Ryder Cup because of a -- intervening with a dispute with the Long Island Railroad.
Well, we kept the railroad going. That helped, because it goes out to Bethpage. You know, they're playing at the Bethpage Black. And, yes, I -- - I kept the railroad going. That's -- I would imagine that's a couple of fans, to put it mildly. They get out there by the railroad.
Two more. If you could eat only one thing for a week, what would it be?
Forever?
Just for a week.
Oh, for a week? Probably steak. I like steak. I like a lot of foods, but I think steak is very good.
And last one. When you were a kid, what kind of a car did you always want?
I always wanted to have a Ferrari. Sounds strange.
Did you ever get a Ferrari?
I did. I actually had a Ferrari for a while. Now I buy American. I buy American. I love our American cars. And you know our car -- I don't know if you know what's going on with the -- we used to -- we were the capital of the world for cars, right? And 52 percent of our car manufacturing was stolen from other countries, Mexico, Canada, Germany, China, Japan.
They're coming back. They're all coming back. The numbers are incredible. So, we're going to be manufacturing a lot of cars.
And I counted wrong, half-dozen is one more question. What's one thing on your bucket list?
To make America great again. To make America so great, like it's never been before. That is my only thing. That's what I live for. I want to turn this country around. We've been abused by other nations for years. We've been taken advantage of by everybody. We've been laughed at, and we've been scoffed at. Very simply, to make America great again.
Thank you very much, President Trump.
Thank you. Thank you very much.
Really appreciate it.
Good luck with the show.
Thank you. Off to a good start.
Yes, you're going to do very well.