Interview: Benny Johnson Interviews Donald Trump for His Podcast in Florida - October 30, 2026

Here we go. All right. Uh, Mr. President, this is your first election ever without Charlie Kirk. What should the American people be thinking about this moment and Charlie's legacy? And what are you thinking about?

Well, it's just one of the saddest things that's ever happened in politics, as far as I'm concerned. He had a great future, maybe a presidential future. You never know. I used to talk to him, Charlie, you're going to be president. But he was more interested in getting me elected, getting other people like us elected.

And he was just a tremendous guy and we miss him. You know, you -- I think we're always going to miss him, special.

We're here in the great state of Florida. There's a lot of patriots here, a lot of Cubans that hate communism.

Right.

Uh, what are the chances that the Castros are going to be in charge of Cuba over the next two years?

Well, I would say it's not going to last much longer. Look, it's a failed country. We're going to get people back there very soon. Look at what we did with Venezuela. And it's going to work out very well. It's something we're going to finish off one and then we're going to maybe take a look at the other.

But Venezuela has been tremendous, and now we're in a place called Iran taking away their nuclear weapon. They're never going to have a nuclear weapon, and that's working out very well. Their navy is gone, their air force is gone, their anti-aircraft is gone, their leaders are gone, everything's gone, but we'll finish that off.

But we're watching Cuba very closely, and we have Marco looking at it extremely closely. His parents were from Cuba, and that will work out definitely with these two and a half years, before that actually.

You mentioned Iran. There's a lot of rumors about the G-20 at Trump Doral in December that you might be bringing Russia and Ukraine together, maybe some type of larger peace deal, peace agreement. Can you give us an update on that?

Well, I think we're getting very close to making a deal there, and I haven't been saying that. I wasn't saying that initially. The hatred was tremendous between the two leaders, as you know. But I think there's a real good chance we're going to have that one worked out also. We're working out a lot of deals.

Yeah. All right. How about the deal with Ilhan Omar? The toughest question in politics, did you marry your brother? This is a real heater. Uh, the Barack Obama administration confirmed that she did, in fact, marry her brother, according to the New York Times. Are you going to be signing her deportation order?

Well, they confirmed it, and then they didn't want to do anything with it, so they sort of dropped it, which is not surprising knowing him, Barack Hussein Obama. No, it's a serious problem. And when you look at Alaska, what's going on out there, that's pretty serious. I think they go hand-in-hand. You watch.

All right. Uh, Barack Obama is on the campaign trail; he's going after you. And he said that you've decorated the White House like a Cheesecake Factory and Saddam Hussein cheesecake factory. Any response to Barack Obama?

Well, you know, he doesn't understand, I would say, quality. He doesn't understand cleanliness. He doesn't understand we don't want broken windows in the White House, we don't want broken moldings in the White House, on the exterior especially, and we've made it beautiful again. We brought it back. And, you know, the White House is a symbol of our country, a very big symbol, maybe the number one symbol, in a certain way.

And we don't want a White House with cracked stone all over the place, with bad -- no paint, with missing paint, missing sidewalks, broken sidewalks, broken stone. No, we -- we've made it beautiful. It's more beautiful than it was in 1792 when it was built, and people get that. People get that. He should have done something because he left it a mess.

He built that presidential library. What do you think about the look of that?

Well, it's not the most beautiful thing I've ever seen, but I wish him luck. Look, I -- I have nothing -- well, you know, he's been going around -- I cannot understand, when somebody goes out and hits you on fixing up, cleaning up, fixing up windows of the White House, there's something wrong. No, not a fan of his architectural taste.

Elon Musk just invested $1 billion in Skydance. They own CNN. And so Elon Musk is technically a part owner of CNN right now. Do you think Elon Musk should run CNN?

Well, I like it certainly better than what we have right now, although they did do a poll that I was way up on Abraham Lincoln, so I guess I can't be that angry. But, uh, he's a good man. He does -- he does good work.

Uh, is Nicki Minaj going to be the next press secretary?

That's a good idea. I think I'll have to think about that. I'm going to think about that. How about you? You'd be pretty good, too.

Uh, we are looking at the landscape culturally and we're seeing major changes. Uh, LeBron James, uh, fought with you a little bit in your first administration, and then LeBron James is now standing for the national anthem the moment you tell him stand for the national anthem. And, uh, he changed real fast.

That was pretty impressive.

Well, I just didn't appreciate what he did when he was doing practicing -- practicing his golf swing during the national anthem. That wasn't so good. I don't know what what's happened since then. Are you telling me that he's been acting a little bit differently?

Oh, yes [Inaudible] straight.

Oh, good. Wow. That's nice. I'm glad to hear that, actually.

Uh, Kamala Harris is hitting the trail as well. Any advice to a Republican running against Kamala Harris maybe in 2028? She is leading the polls.

I heard just a little while ago she was leading the Democrats fairly substantially. I would say that, uh, we'd be very happy if she were the candidate, but who knows? I don't think it's going to happen, but it might. You never know. Uh, we're going to be very strong. We have a very, very good group of people.

I think we're going to have a very powerful -- this party is getting better and better all the time. We're going to be very, very powerful, very strong. The country is doing better than it's ever done. There's never been a time like it. We have never -- you see the crowds. Look at the crowd inside. There's never been crowds like that for a midterm election.

So a lot of good things are happening. I think we're going to have a great Tuesday.

Yes. And the final message for Republicans, last question.

Just be smart, be strong, love your country and just keep going on the same path that we're on and we're going to make this country greater than ever before.

Thank you, Mr. President. Thank you.

Thank you. Great to be with you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, man.