Interview: Jake Sherman of Punchbowl News Interviews Donald Trump - August 6, 2026

All right, President Trump. Welcome to Fly Out Day.

Thank you.

Uh, here to talk about Congress.

Good.

We have 89 days until the midterm election, something you've been focused on. But let's start with SAVE America Act. Uh, and the Senate and John Thune, the leader of the Senate, doesn't look likely, can't guarantee it doesn't look likely. The budget resolution's getting on the floor this week. They're trying to wrap up a lot of business.

Um, that resolution does carry the blueprint for the SAVE America Act. Thune says it doesn't have the votes. You seem to think it does, or you sh- -- they should try or do something. He's been pretty pointed on this, Thune. He says he doesn't see a pathway to 50, 51, doesn't have 60. Democrats aren't voting for it. What's the disconnect between you and Thune?

Well, we have no disconnect. I think we have a good relationship, but, uh, I view that as a very important thing. It's a voter ID if you just even take the ballots out of it. You know, the ballots are very important, but we do that another time. Voter ID and it's, uh, proof of citizenship. And I figure you can't get any more basic than that.

In other words, we wanna see your citizenship. We wanna make sure that you're a citizen to vote. Uh, we'd like photo ID just to make sure, because the elections are rigged in this country. The elections are a mess in this country. And that was proven in 2020, and it's been proven elsewhere. Look at, look at the recent election that took place with the, uh, Spencer Pratt in Los Angeles.

All of a sudden, I mean, they came from nowhere. It looked like he was in the runoff or easily in the runoff. The other one was, the third place was a woman nobody ever heard of. She's crying, "Oh, I didn't make it. I didn't." She didn't make it by a lot. All of a sudden, she surged. Unknown people don't surge, and she surged after the election was over.

And, uh, she ended up getting in the runoff. He didn't. Look, we, we're like a third-world country in many cases, in many states. Third-world country. So I think that, uh, I think it's very important. SAVE America Act is a very important thing. Uh, John's trying. He's trying hard. I really believe that. But, uh, if he doesn't get there, it would be unfortunate.

He says, "Why don't you get the votes for it?"

Well, I can probably do that --

[Laughs]

-- but I have a couple people that, uh, I won't do so well with. You understand why, right? They're no longer in power --

Well --

-- as soon as they leave on January 20th.

Should y- -- should he put it up for a vote either way?

Yeah, I would. I, 'cause I'd like to see the people that wanna vote against it. I wanna see the people, both Republican and Democrat, who vote against. 'Cause mostly it's Democrats. I mean, we have most Republicans, in all fairness. We'll have a few. We'll be a c- -- you know, like a couple short or maybe one short, uh, which we shouldn't be anyhoo.

What, what Republican is gonna vote against it?

I could tell you there's a couple that said. [Laughs]

I know. I know the new ones. You don't have to tell me. I know the ones --

Right.

-- and I find it hard to believe. But you have all the Democrats that are gonna vote against it. Every Democrat is gonna vote against voter ID.

They have, five times, to be clear.

Well, they do it over and over, and I think it should, I think it should pay a price during the election, for the election. Um, every single Democrat is opposed. But not only that, they're opposed to, even better, the Great Big Beautiful Bill. I like that term better than the One, I like the Great better than the One.

One Big B --

But the Great Big Beautiful Bill is something that they all voted against, every single one of them. So they voted against, you know, no tax on tips, and they voted against, uh, social security, no tax on social security, no tax on overtime. Uh, car loan deductions. All these things, these incredible things, they voted against everything.

Uh, they vote against transgender all the time, the mutilization of your children. They vote against open bor- -- they vote in favor of open borders. They vote totally in favor of open borders. These people, it's the craziest thing. So I like having their, uh, hands go up voting against all of these things, but when you vote against, uh, as an example, when you vote against the SAVE America Act, you're voting against, uh, fair voting.

And when you think that they're voting against, uh, citizenship, I wanna see a citizenship. These are things that, that nobody can understand when they're voting against voter ID. And, you know, it's very interesting 'cause in New York, the other day, they were talking about the food store, and you see they wanna be licensed, they want you to be licensed in order to buy --

Mamdani's, yeah. Yep.

-- a loaf of bread. Uh, maybe the same things also in New York, and these are people absolutely don't want anything having to do with elections. In other words, you can just walk in no matter who you are. But when it came to shoveling snow, did you see that? You had to get two forms of identification to get licensed to shovel snow.

But to go in and vote, you don't need anything. No, it's no good.

Do you, so you have a government funding fight coming up September 30th --

Yeah.

Which is just, you know, it's five, six weeks away, whatever it is. If it doesn't get done now, do you want, do you wanna push for it in a government --

Look, I'm gonna say whatever happens happens. Uh, it was set up so that it would be before the election, and you could very well have a closed country because the Democrats are gonna vote entirely against it. They're gonna vote against it.

Well, they're for, t- -- they're, it seems like they're for it. Yeah.

B- -- but they're, they're in favor of closing down the country. They're in favor of clo- -- look, I'll go a step further. I'd like to see a termination of the filibuster.

But you don't have the votes for that, right?

Oh, that's one I really can't pu- --

But why, I mean, w- --

That's even a step --

It's, it, you, you say Democrats will do it. They tried, but then they weren't --

Well, because you know why? You don't have, you don't have Democrat votes right now, but f- -- if they get in office, 100% they'll terminate the filibuster. You know that?

Well, they tried. They weren't able to last time.

Well, uh, but those two people are now out of service.

It's true. That's true.

They're doing other things and no longer politicians. And they wouldn't have been able to get elected in the, yeah, they couldn't have gotten the nomination. But, uh, and look, it's incredible. Termination of the filibuster, so good. And you have most Republicans in favor, and then you have some old-line people that they actually believe, some of the Republicans actually believe the Democrats won't do it, and I would s --

And I'm one, I, I actually don't think that, I think there are a lot more people who are against it than it seems publicly.

I think the Democrats will do it in the first hour, day, and if it's their really slow week, it'll be done. And then you know what happens? You have two more states, so to speak, right? You have DC and you have Puerto Rico, you have four more senators, you have eight more congressmen. You have 23, because the real number they want is 23 Supreme Court justices, that's their real number.

You know, they talk about 13. Who wants 13? You know, somebody was arguing about that. Who wants 13? You're gonna pick 13, a lucky number, 13.

[Laughs]

You build a building, you don't th- -- show a 13th floor [Inaudible] So, so all of these horrible things are gonna happen. I, I really believe you have a couple of people that believe, and I can't, I'm very surprised that you believe that. So you think that --

I think that there are a lot of, I think that there are a lot of people when push comes to shove, are not gonna be there to blow up the filibuster --

Well, we'll, we'll make a gentleman's bet, okay?

[Laughs] I try not to bet on, I don't bet on politics.

And you know what? I hope I lose.

[Laughs] Do you, the Pentagon, as part of this budget resolution, the Pentagon is in line to get $60-some-odd billion dollars. If they don't get that in short order, which is, you know, what you want --

Yeah.

You want this thing to happen.

And we're doing so well, and to, you know, have to break it up a little bit.

What would it mean to, if you didn't get that money, if the Pentagon didn't?

It's, it's not good. The Democrats are kamikaze pilots right now.

But this is Republicans too right now. To be clear, the budget resolution it is.

It's not even believable that it's Republicans, okay?

But it is.

Not many, but it's a few Republicans, yes.

Um, let's talk about Blanche, Todd Blanche, your Attorney General nominee.

Sure.

Um, Bill Cassidy, Lisa Murkowski are on the fence. You think he's gonna be confirmed?

All I can say is that he's a great gentleman. He's a great person. He's great at what he does. Everybody agrees with that. Um, people think he's incredible. If they don't agree to do what they should do, it'd be very sad. And, uh, we'll all survive. Todd will survive.

You'll keep him in as acting --

Yeah, sure. He'll be acting.

Yeah.

But why should he be acting when, and, you know, if he was a marginal per- -- everybody agrees, he's fantastic. He's great, he's fair. He's a fair guy, not a radical flamethrower. Uh, yeah, he's gonna be acting and, you know, we'll try it again.

I wonder if you feel any, like, because a lot of these people who are against him were b- -- who have given you trouble on him are people you endorsed against, right? I mean, you have Cornyn and Cassidy. Uh, Murkowski, you kinda --

Essentially all of them.

Slack. Yes. [Laughs] Right. So --

Murkowski I was against?

Yeah.

I'm against Murkowski. I think she's, I do more for Alaska than any, any president in history. No president's done for Alaska what I've done. She's, uh, she's not good.

You don't re- -- do you regret any going against these people? It makes your agenda harder to get through.

No, look, I don't regret it. You do what you have to do.

Yeah. Uh, would you, do you want Thune to serve another term as leader?

And just so you understand, they voted to impeach me.

No, I, I was there, yeah.

[Inaudible] In all fairness, you think that I'm gonna support somebody that voted to impeach me?

Yeah, no, I hear, I --

You know what, MAGA, my beautiful MAGA base, the greatest people on earth, you know what they'd do if I voted in favor of somebody that voted to impeach the person that they love and I love them? Uh, they would not be happy.

Do you want Thune to serve another term as leader? Do you think, would you support him?

Well, I don't wanna get into that necessarily, but --

Why?

I, I'll tell you --

A lot of people are thinking about this is a big issue.

Look. I get along with him. It's unfortunate that he doesn't have the vote.

But do you actually get along with him?

Uh, I do.

But you clearly disa- -- I mean, you have big disagreements with him.

I do. I do have disagreements. I believe strongly in terminating the filibuster. And by the way, getting Save America Act approved immediately and about 400 other things in every hour of every day, boom, boom, boom, you get whatever you want. You get --

Democrats would do it too though, right? They'd get --

Well, they're gonna do that. They're gonna do that. If they get in, they're gonna do it very quickly. I mean, you're wrong on that one.

[Laughs] We'll see.

They're gonna do that so fast. And I say, as long as we all know that they're gonna do it, I, I'm so shocked to hear you. But as long as I know that they're gonna do that, you do it. I would do it whether they did it or not. I would, we would get, in the next two and a half years, we would get things that nobody ever dreamt of. We would been in, be in office for the next hundred years.

And I'll tell you what, if they get in, I may be the last Republican president.

Let's talk about the House.

If they don't get smart, if the Senate doesn't get smart, I may be the last Republican president. That's a big statement.

Yeah. And I'm not sure it's right, but who knows? We'll see. Uh, let's talk about the House. Um, the, uh, Mike Johnson will probably remain speaker if he, if he keeps --

He should.

If he keeps the majority. So if he loses the majority --

Mike Johnson is working with a majority of two, three. We've had it one. We've had it, like, if we're one heart attack away from losing the House.

And in Congress, that ain't hard.

And you know what? We get a lot of things passed.

Yeah.

He's great. We work together great. He's a fantastic person.

If he loses there, it's gonna be an interesting thing. The internal battles. If he loses, who gets the blame? I mean, Steve Scalise, Tom Emmer, Jim Jordan --

Great people.

Look at it.

Everyone's great.

But you want, you want Johnson to top House Republicans either way, no matter what happens?

Well, I don't think there's even a though of anybody challenging him --

Well, I don't know. I mean --

Huh?

Well, there could be.

Well, I didn't, I haven't heard it. I think I'd know. I think he's done a great job.

[Inaudible]

And, and again, remember this. Look, remember this. We have a majority of sometimes one.

That's true.

Okay? It drops down to one. But let's say when, when we have three, we're in Clover, okay?

[Laughs] Right.

And I think right now, we're at two or three. Uh, I think he's done a very good job.

Your critics on the Hill, uh, Republicans, say privately, you don't really care about Congress. You don't care about losing the majority. You'll do your thing either way. You're president. You could do executive orders.

No. That's not right.

Is that not right?

Yeah. It's not right. I'd love to win. I'm gonna, I'm fighting hard. I just got back from a trip. Uh, I was d- -- in California. I was in Nevada, all over the place.

Yeah.

Uh, no. I'm gonna fight. We have a, uh, I don't even call it a mini convention, but it is, I guess.

In Dallas, right?

It's a mini convention in Dallas. That was an idea that I had. I think it's gonna be terrific. We're, we're gonna fight hard. We raised a lot of money. I raised a lot of money to, to, for just this purpose. I'll put in a lot of money.

Right.

It's very important for the country that we win, because you have people getting in office right now who will destroy this country. Your person in, uh, Michigan that won the other night --

Abdul El-Sayed?

He is, uh, a disaster for the country. Got a good line of stuff. I watched him. He speaks well, speaks okay. Seen better. But I'll tell you what, uh, guys like that get in, they'll destroy this country.

You said yesterday, you spoke ab- -- you just talked about Nevada, and you said yesterday, gas prices have, and correct me if I'm wrong. They might go up again a little bit, you said.

No, no. That's only if I have to do another hit.

Okay. So, I mean --

They'll only go down, or if we make a deal, they wanna make a deal. And they wanna make a deal. Look, it's obvious. They don't wanna be hit. Okay? They wanna make a deal. So we'll see.

'Cause you're seeing that nervousness on the Hill about that.

It'll only go up if we have to do another hit.

Johnson says, has said in the past, um, if Republicans lose the House, it'll be the end of the Trump presidency in, in some, in some --

Well.

To some degree.

Uh, yeah, to some degree.

Mm-hmm.

Still have tremendous, I have great blocking power, so they won't be able to do anything. In other words, they won't be able to destroy it.

You can veto, right?

No, no. I have great block. I'm a great blocker.

[Laughs]

And, uh, you know, they'll be putting horrible communistic type things in front of me, and I'll be just saying, "No, no, no." But I'd rather do, I'd rather be a positive force than a negative force.

You've acknowledged a bunch of times that, you know, it's tough for the party in power to keep the House majority. It's a difficult thing, right? It's, It only happened --

It amazes me, actually. So I've done a lot. I mean, you know, I am very consequential. You look at the Great Big Beautiful. You look at all of the things that we've done, you could make the case that nobody's done so much in a year and a half.

So where's the disconnect? Why are, why are they down on the generic ballot? Why, like, why, what do you think?

Well, let, let me just say it, a- -- and this is what nobody understands. Nobody understands it. Uh, the president in power, Republican or Dumocrat, as I call it, uh, the president in power always loses. It's the craziest thing. Two times.

'96 and '02.

A win two. Uh, they were a little unusual time.

Yes, they were.

There's a psychology down deep that nobody can explain.

Well, people want a check on power, I think, right?

Well, they maybe want a check on power, but when you have a, somebody doing a great job, I did the greatest tax cuts, the best tax cuts, biggest tax cuts. You look at no tax on tips, no tax on Social Security, um, no tax on overtime, uh, the deductions for buying cars and all the things. We have more money being invested in the United States now than at any time in history.

I rebuilt the military. I mean, the things I've done. So even if you did a great job as president, they seem to lose. That's the only thing that I have going against us. For some reason, if, the president, whoever it is, Democrat or Republican, loses on the midterms.

Do, how do you handicap it now?

And by the way, that's over the last hundred years.

Yes. It's, it's a, it's --

It's not 50. It's 100 years.

How do you handicap it now, House and Senate?

I think we're gonna win, but, you know, I, I look at, I'll be honest. I look at these, this, not everybody was a bad president. We've had good presidents. And even good presidents, they tend to lose the midterm.

That's fair.

So I don't know what that is. Other than that, I'd say we should win easily. Now, I think they also, they're hurting themselves, because we don't want communists in our country. You got a lot of bad candidates on the other side. Uh, and it's one thing to win in a radical left area, you know, uh, that, uh, an area that tends to be very, uh, much on the Democrats' side.

But, uh, I don't think you can win on a general election with that. I just don't think the people are ready for it. I don't think they'll ever be ready for it.

Do you, y- -- MAGA Inc., the super PAC that you, that your allies control has a lot of me- -- money, and a lot of people --

Not my allies. I control it.

[Laughs] Okay.

Yeah.

You and your allies.

$800 million.

Are you gonna spend it in the --

You know, it's funny. Nobody ever, of course. I'm gonna do. Yeah.

You're gonna spend it in the midterms.

Uh, I could spend it on pretty much anything I want I'm gonna spend it for pol- -- I'm gonna help Republicans.

This midterm?

I mean, so when you say I don't care --

No. I didn't say that. I said some people say that.

Yeah. Look, I mean, I could do a lot easier. I didn't have to be away in Nevada yesterday. I didn't have to be in Los Angeles yesterday making speeches. I didn't have to be supporting all the people. I have a lot of, you know I have a busy schedule. I said to somebody, "Wait a minute. You, you don't understand.

I won. [Laughs] I'm not campaigning." Now, that's the other thing. I get a tremendous vote. I have records in many of the states, the most votes ever in Texas, and Florida, and many, many states, Alabama. You can go through them, many, many states, uh, the most votes ever. The question is, and they're asking this question, and I've had some great polls recently, real polls, but they're great polls, uh, if I don't run, will those people go out and vote?

And that's the one thing I can't tell. I'm gonna ask them to, but I'm just watching guys like you and your very talented people. Uh, the question is, will they vote? 'Cause a lot of them are very angry at Republicans, to be honest with you. They're --

Why is that?

Every Repub- -- I don't know. I mean, they're angry at Republicans, but they're not angry at me --

Huh, that's an interesting thing, why, why though?

They're not angry at me, but they are angry at Republicans.

Everyone's always angry at Connor [Laughs]

And there are some, there are some, uh, areas that are basically Democrat, but they're Trump, like Pennsylvania. I win Pennsylvania easily. Uh, I win other places easily. Look, I won Michigan easily. I did well with Michigan, did well with almost everything, to be honest. I did well with everything.

But it's a good point, Mike --

Now the question is --

Rogers lost when you were on the ballot.

Yeah uh --

And now he's up again.

Well, he lost when I'm on the ballot and I won big in Michigan. Uh, but I happen to think he won.

Okay. Well, that's --

No, no. I think, I think it was a rigged deal. I think they rigged him out of it, but he's a very good candidate. I think he should do well. Uh, if we believe in polls, I actually sort of believe in polls, but I --

Polls were terrible in the Democratic primary.

They were terrible in that primary. But if we believe in the poll a little bit, let's give it a little credit. They say he does better against Abdullah. It's Abdul, but I call, it's the actual name is Abdullah, and then it's much longer than that.

Right.

But if you believe in the polls, he does better against Abdullah than he did against the young congressman.

Yeah, [Inaudible] Should Warsh, Kevin Warsh your Fed Chair avoid a rate hike before the election?

Well, it's up to him a little bit, but not completely. You know, he's got a board that's very political.

Right [Laughs]

The United States should pay the lowest interest rate in the entire world.

So you think that he shouldn't hike rates before the election?

Uh, it's not totally up to him, it's up to a board. I think he's great, I won't be criticizing him. But I've said many times, you know, in the old days, 20, 25 years ago, call it the old days. If you announce good numbers, the interest rates went down because you were a better credit.

Credit, right.

Makes sense, right? Now it's all becocked. Now it's all a different thing. If you announce great numbers, everybody's depressed because we have great numbers, they think what you're gonna do is raise interest rates. But in the old days, when you announce great numbers, interest rates went down. So I wa- -- I wanna go back to those days.

You know, we make many countries, elite countries, you know? Take a look at Switzerland. We have a $39 billion deficit. I can wipe out that deficit in one stroke of the pen, and they're no longer an elite country. Yet they pay one half a percent interest. They're the lowest ones. And all I have to do is say, I don't want any of your watches, you know?

I mean, I don't want any of your, your goods. And we save ourself 39, 40, $41 billion dollars. And they go from being elite to being very troubled. Fortunately, I'm a nice person, okay? But just so you understand, they're paying a half a point, we're paying much more than that. In the old days, we were also, uh, uh, the lowest interest rate.

We should be the lowest interest rate again, because many of these, uh, countries that are very low on interest rates, they're only low because of us, because we're willing to subsi- -- we're subsidizing many of the world countries, many of the most elite countries. I use Switzerland as an- -- you know, it's very elite.

I looked at the interest rates, they're paying the lowest interest rate. Well, without us, they would be, they would have nothing but problems. We give them, we hand them on a plate, $40 billion. They have. So we have a deficit, because I call a deficit a loss, some people don't. Some people think, oh, well, it's not really, you know, they come up with.

To me, it's a loss. We hand them $40 billion a year. Without that $40 billion, they're no longer elite. And we should have the lowest interest rate anywhere in the world.

Do you, you had a meeting with Hakeem Jeffries a long time ago. You, I don't think you've had many more conversations with him since then. Maybe you have. Um, what's your, what's your read of him?

I think he's a nice guy. I mean, I did, he was here.

Yeah.

We had a good meeting. I was in, you know, look --

He's harsh on you. He says, I mean, he --

Well, he's harsh because I'm harsh on him, you know. I'm sure he wouldn't be so harsh. I've said bad things about him --

Could you do business with him, you think?

Yeah, I think so. Look, the people harshing me, I'm harshing them, it's part of the, huh, the world, you cover it very well and you cover specifically Congress. You see a strange group of people.

[Laughs]

But I, I'd probably get along with him very well. I got, you know, I had, I met him essentially once.

Yep.

Uh, I think I'd probably get along with him very well.

Just a couple more questions on policy. AI, uh, big issue that Congress has had, is basically nowhere on, uh, and they've, they can't get their act together on AI.

Well, in one way that's good or one way that --

Uh yeah, you could argue it either way, but what do you think a date --

You'd wanna regulate them out of business.

What do you think of the, the big question that we have all the time is what is gonna be the political impact of data centers? I mean, I know you've taken action. Congress is gonna try to take action. It's gonna be, in the next 10 years, a big political issue.

So the way you look at AI, uh, whoever wins AI just wins. It's that big. It's bigger than the internet by many times. It's gonna be bigger than anybody ever thought possible. Not even imaginable how big. I saw Texas the other day sort of is against data centers. I think it's a mistake. Uh, and I'm not taking positions here.

I just think it's a mistake because there are other communities that want it. When a community wants it, it means a lot of money's gonna come into that community.

Unsightly, potentially.

Well, I don't think they're unsightly. I mean, I'm looking at some of these data centers, the most incredible buildings I've ever seen. They go for two and a half, three miles. They're three miles by three miles.

They're necessary for the technology, there's no question about that.

Well, I think they are tremendously important for the economics. I mean, it's, uh, this is, for Texas to say no to data centers is a mistake in the sense that it could be bigger than oil. I mean, data centers could be bigger than oil. You have the Texas oil. And there are a lot of communities that want it. But more importantly, and, and bad for us, they have a lot of countries that want them.

And if we turn off on data centers or we turn off on AI, we are leading. Because of me, we're leading AI. Remember this? I came up with an idea that was great idea. Nobody though it was serious. They actually, they didn't even believe it. They didn't even put in plans with it. I said, "When you build your data center, I'm gonna let you build your own electric sources, your electric generating source."

Yeah.

They said, "Well, that's too good to be true." They didn't believe me. It took them a month to realize I was serious, and I'm gonna get you fast approvals. Lee Zeldin is great. And now when they build a plant, they're building, they're becoming like a utility, a public utility.

[Crosstalk]

So they're building a big portion of the building as now their own generator. So we're not taking that from the public. We're not taking it from the grid. And then at a very cheap price, and maybe for nothing, they're taking their excess electricity, which will be a lot, and they're putting it back into the grid.

Now, if I didn't do that, we wouldn't have one building being built in this country 'cause we have an old grid that's tired, it's exhausted. And these things, the one thing they need, they need a lot of electricity. The word is electricity. They need more electricity than the entire nation uses for everything.

Think of it. If you took your electricity output for everything, they need more than that number, and sometimes people would say twice that number. It's hard to believe. That's, it's, it's unbelievable. But they're building their own plants. They're not gonna be taking it from the grid, and they're gonna be actually giving it back.

And very importantly, those communities are gonna make a fortune where they have the new data centers going. So if I were a governor, I would want data centers so badly, I'll cut taxes. I mean, taxes are gonna go way down because this is a tremendous source of income.

Two more quick questions.

And we can't let China beat us at this. You know, a lot of people think that the, the campaign that's being put on is being paid for by China.

A lot of people do think that.

And you, we have President Xi coming here in a couple of weeks, and we're gonna have a great time, but I'm gonna talk to them about it, but I don't blame them. You know, we do things and they do things. But a lot of people think that because they are losing to us in AI.

One of the, uh, one of the things that Congress is wrestling with now is crypto. A big crypto bill is on the, is on the, uh, on the agenda. Um, Democrats want to impose ethic res- -- ethics restrictions and limit your ability to conduct cryp- -- your family's ability to conduct crypto business while you're in office.

How do you feel about that?

Well, I'll tell you, it's very interesting 'cause Nancy Pelosi, nobody ever did that with her. And I'm not, I, I believe crypto is very important because if we don't have it, China's gonna have another thing. You know, they all want it. Okay? And we've done a great job on it. I have. We've done, biden all of a sudden at the end became very strong for it because he saw I was getting all of the business.

I did it for a lot of reasons. One of them was politics for a lot of people. Like they say 100 million people worldwide and a lot of people.

Right.

And then Biden saw what was happening, I was killing him, and he all of a sudden loved crypto. But I do it very simply because we can't let China have it or Japan have it. Other countries really want it and we dominate in it. So to me, it's very important. But they wanna do a bill. And in the bill, they want me to be different than everybody else on the --

So you're against that, it would sound like.

Well, I don't mind putting it in a blind trust. I don't run myself anyway. I let my kids run it. But, and I never even talk, I never talk to them about things. If they wanna go into it, you know, they're not involved in government. I don't talk to 'em about government. I haven't talked to 'em about much other than to say, "I love you, kids." You know, they're good kids, but, uh, we don't wanna see China take over crypto.

I don't wanna see China win with AI. AI and crypto. Crypto's a big deal. I mean, I see it more and more, where people are playing, paying with Bitcoin and, uh, you know [Laughs] they, they don't even know about cash anymore. That takes a lot of, that takes a lot of pressure off our dollar. It's a good thing for our country.

But if China took over crypto, which they would love to do, or if China took over AI, which they would really -- So we are leading with AI on China. Nobody thought that was possible. The reason was energy, because he can create, he, he's an amazing guy. China can create unbelievable amounts of energy, and they use coal, and they use oil and gas, and they use, you know, they make a lot of windmills, but they don't use too many windmills, because they're smart, 'cause wind is a disaster.

It's, as a --

Yeah, I don't, I don't understand your obsession with that, but it --

No, no.

[Crosstalk]

I, you know what my obsession is? I want the country to be successful. We subsidize all of this --

Right.

-- wind. You shouldn't have to subsidize energy, number one, but wind is a very expensive --

Republicans --

-- form of energy.

Republicans are against you on that too, but let me --

Well --

I'm gonna --

-- that's because they don't understand business.

-- um, last question for you. If Democrats do take over the House, it's just gonna be investigation mania, you know? They're gonna do oversight. They could impeach you again. I mean, do you think they will?

Well, a lot of people are saying I'm one of the greatest presidents ever.

They're not saying that, though.

Well --

[Laughs]

Yeah, but they know when they see the results. Look, we have, right now, more money being invested in the United States than at any time in history, more money than any country has ever had being invested. We're at numbers that nobody e- -- we're building more factories, plants, uh, and not, I'm not just talking about AI. AI, yes, but auto plants, plants of all kinds.

Uh, Toyota just announced they're coming in with the largest plant anywhere in the world. They're leaving Mexico. They're leaving Canada. People are leaving, uh, the car companies are leaving Germany. They're leaving Japan. They're all coming here, because of tariffs, because of my very smart use of tariffs, because I'm a --

But will they impeach you --

I've always been a great businessman.

-- do you think?

Uh --

They'll be --

It's hard to believe they could, but --

They'll be all over you. There'll be subpoenas flying.

It's a very unfair thing, yeah. It's a very unfair thing. You know, when I was, uh, president, and I made the statement a lot about Hillary Clinton, they wanted to impeach her. They wanted to destroy her. And I said, "You just can't do that." And then I get in there and they, uh, tried to do the same thing with me, and they were vicious.

So I guess they might be, but --

Are they more vicious than Republicans?

I think the Republicans are too nice, actually. I think the Republicans are much nicer. I think the Republicans are much more gentle than the Democrats. I think the problem with the Democrats, they have bad policy. They're smart. They're vicious. Uh, but they have really bad policy. Open borders, let the whole world come into our country.

Let prisons be emptied out into our country. Uh, the transgender mutilization of your children. That's fine with them. All of these things are there, but men playing in women's sports. They want men playing in, they have horrible policy. Uh, they love crypto. They love AI. But they don't like it if I'm involved in it, because if I'm involved, they're like [Laughs] as president, look, I've created the greatest market ever.

Nobody could believe that we're leading substantially, China as an example, in AI and in crypto. And that's because of me. Uh, Biden was against all this. I don't think Biden had any idea what, what it was, what it was. But our country, right now, is doing better than it's ever done. You know, when I see polls on the economy, I should have, I should have 150%, not 100%.

[Laughs] Well, yeah.

Because we have the greatest, this is the golden age of America. What's being built now in this country has never, ever been built, and we're really, we are literally in the golden age of America, and, uh, I think people are starting, I actually think people are starting to see it.

We'll see. 89 days. We'll see if they do.

It's gonna be very exciting.

Thank you, Mr. President. Appreciate --

Thank you very much.