Interview: Stephen A. Smith Interviews Donald Trump for His Online Show - November 12, 2026

This is Stephen A. Smith. I am with you right now inside the White House, the famous Roosevelt Room, and I am here with the president of the United States of America. Mr. President, thank you for doing this.

Thank you.

You promised me that you would do it, and you kept your word.

I did. I did.

I really appreciate it.

No problem.

Before I even start this interview, let me say that I just did a show at an HBCU, Tuskegee University, and the ladies in the administration, they wanted me to extend a personal thank you to you --

Good. That's very nice.

-- when you basically eliminated debt of HBCUs back a few years ago in the price of $1.6 billion at least. So want to thank you for that. They wanted to say, "Make sure I extended that thank you to you."

That's very nice. Thank you.

Sure. Let's get right to it because I got a lot of tough questions to ask you. We sit here today in the aftermath of the midterms and what happened. What happened, Mr. President?

Well, number one, I wasn't on the ballot, and if you look at the numbers that I had just a short time before, they were a record. Every one of them was a record number. I won Texas in a record, I won Florida, I won Alabama, I won virtually every state of the states we talk about by a record number. What happened?

I guess they probably, well, a couple of different answers to that. When you look at what's going on in Alaska where you have two Dan Sullivans running, shouldn't be allowed, when you add them up and they actually added another person, so they put two people on against one person. That's an unfair thing.

And I think some people would say there were some disparities that shouldn't have happened. But beyond that, I would say that maybe the war was not unpopular as a war, but unpopular because of the fact that the gasoline prices were higher, the oil prices. And I actually thought that that was something that people would be able to handle pretty well.

It's not a big price to pay for stopping the number one state sponsor of terror, which is the Islamic Republic of Iran, and stopping them from having a nuclear weapon. And we've done that, and it'll end soon, but we've done that. And I really thought that that was something that the other candidates could wither.

I think I would've done fine, but they weren't able to do that because to the voter, I think gas prices went up and that seemed to be, I think, the biggest impact.

But that doesn't seem to be what your own party is saying. I interviewed Governor Ron DeSantis last week on my show. Obviously, I've spoken to several Republicans. And then you look at some of the numbers, net loss of eight seats with Alaska still uncalled. Gubernatorial seats, Republican lost five governorships in Georgia, Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, and Texas.

House Republicans are projected to lose more than 40 seats, and from a state legislative standpoint, Democrats flipped more than 500 seats. So you said going into the midterms, "put you on the ballot."

I did. I did.

So how can it not be that you were not on the ballot?

Well, they didn't do it. They didn't put me on the ballot. The people didn't believe in the candidates, perhaps. Look, I won the state a short time before every state we're talking about almost in records. Ohio was a record. I won by many points, like 14, 15 points. In Florida, I won by the largest vote in history.

In Texas, I won by the largest vote in history. Again, Alabama. So many I could name them. I think it's over 30. I have the highest, Alaska, I had the highest vote in history. I had so much, and I think I still have it. You saw with the rallies. I mean, the rallies were packed. We'd have 15,000, 20,000, 25,000 people at every rally.

But isn't it possible that people might have liked you, but they may not have liked the candidates you endorsed? Or is it one of those simple situations where the price of groceries, the price of gas, and so on and so forth, those kind of things, the cost of living, affordability became an issue America felt you didn't address because --

I think it's both.

-- you were preoccupied with the war?

Yeah. No, I think it's both. I feel I had to do what I did in Iran. I think historically, that's going to be a great decision, I hope. But short term, I guess it is tougher politically. I knew that. I mean, I had this thing going so perfectly, and it's still going. Look, we have the highest stock market we've ever had.

Now, it's interesting that the day after the election, the stock market lost $3 trillion in value, and that tells you that people aren't in love with the Democrats because they were voting on Democrats. And that affects 401(k).

But your approval rating was lower than theirs, though. Your approval rating was lower than the Democrats.

Well, I have an approval rating on CNN of 99% in the Republican Party, and I have an approval rating on, they compared myself, Abraham Lincoln, and Ronald Reagan. And Lincoln was at 8%, Reagan was at 14%, and I was at 56% or something like that. So I think my approval rating is good, but I wasn't on the ballot.

When you're not on the ballot, you don't pull them in. Don't forget, I was on the ballot three times, and every time I was on the ballot, we won.

But, Mr. President, you said put you on a ballot and now you're saying --

I did.

-- they didn't.

They didn't.

That means they didn't listen to President Donald Trump.

Well --

That's not what we know when it comes to you. When it comes to MAGA, when it comes to your supporters, I mean, they've spent the vast majority of the last decade listening to the things that you have to say.

They did, they did.

So when you told them to put you on a ballot, now you're saying they didn't listen to you?

Well, I say that they maybe didn't like the candidates. Look, I mean, I understood.

Did you like them?

Some of them I liked, some of them I liked less, but I thought every one of them was better than the Democrats in terms of policy.

But I'm talking about did you like them better than the other Republicans that they would've gone against? I'm thinking along the lines of a Ken Paxton compared to Senator John Cornyn in Texas.

Well, I think Cornyn would've done badly. I don't think he would've done very well. I think Paxton didn't do too well, but I don't think Cornyn would've done any better. I mean, I understood that. The base liked him better. Look, they had a race, and he won. It's not a question. I did endorse him, and he won after I endorsed him, but Paxton had a race against Cornyn, and the Republicans put him out there.

And when they put him out there, he didn't do as well as perhaps he should've done.

Why did you endorse Paxton to begin with? I mean, his record coming into it wasn't that great. I know you say as an attorney general, but he had a relatively stained past to be kind. And there are those that would ask why.

He had issues. We know he had iss- --

I mean, he had issues. Why him?

But he was a good attorney general, and I had problems with John Cornyn in the past where he was not supportive of me in a couple of things that I didn't like. So I decided that I'd go with Paxton. I don't think Cornyn would've done, I have nothing against Cornyn really, but he was very disloyal to me early on. He was disloyal at certain parts when it perhaps was maybe a good thing for him to be, when I wasn't in as much favor as at other times, but he wasn't for me. And I remember that.

I have a very good memory.

One of the things I brought up, and I'm going to get off Paxton, but one of the things I brought up, I'm going to use him as an example because I don't believe any candidate that refuses to show up for a debate spanning 12 years deserves public office. I just think, excuse my language, I think that's a punk move.

And that's not something anyone will ever accuse you of. You're debating anybody.

No. Anybody.

You showed up all over the country.

I'm here.

This is the, you're here right now. It's what you do.

I'm with you.

Yet you're endorsing people that are running from the public. That's not the Donald Trump that I know. And for the record, just so we can remind everybody, you and I have gone back decades now. We've known each other for a long time.

We've know each other. I think we liked each other.

Yeah. Yes, absolutely.

So he should have done the debates. I thought he should have done the debates. I thought it was a mistake. I thought it was close enough that the debates were very important.

So what that means --

And others, too. Others skipped the debate. A lot of them thought if they get my endorsement, they don't have to debate. I think getting the endorsement with some hurt them because, it didn't hurt them, but they didn't work as hard as they should have worked.

What about people who look at it and they say there's two things that caused the Republicans all these seats. It's the war with Iran, and it's your tariffs. They blame that. And I even heard you mention something about your tariffs along those lines. What role do you think that played in the GOP losing as much as they did in these midterms?

Well, the war is just something I had to do regardless. I knew the war would be, wars are always very difficult when you have elections, but I had to do it. It should have been done long before me by other presidents. It should have been done a long time ago. The SS Cole, 400 people killed, so many people.

Well, even recently, they killed 75,000 protesters, whoever heard of that, much more than 75,000 now. That was as of two or three months ago. It's an evil empire, and we've knocked the hell out of them, and they won't have a nuclear weapon. We've taken that away, and we'll make sure we take it away. That's why I'm there.

Why is it still going on? Why haven't they been finished? Because I've heard you say you could take them out. You can end this. Why haven't you?

I could end it immediately, but at the request of the nations that I'm looking to protect, we are doing it a little bit longer way, a little bit more civilly. Saudi Arabia has asked me to please just let it be the way it is now for a while because they're disintegrating. Qatar, if you look at that, Kuwait, UAE, Bahrain, all of them would rather, would much prefer the waiting period.

We put a very big financial hurt on them and they are, look, they have 300% more than that of inflation. They have no money. They haven't paid their guard. They haven't paid their soldiers. They haven't paid their police. And it's a nation that's in serious trouble. So they've asked me to do that, and I'm doing that.

I'm not sure I agree with it, but we've taken them largely out. As you know, their navy's gone, their air force is gone, their anti-aircraft is gone, everything is gone. Frankly, their leaders are gone for the most part. Their leaders have been --

But that's the reason you --

-- wiped out.

That's the reason we're still there, that's the reason we're still in this war because of what you just said.

Yeah, that's the reason because the people that we're looking to protect, and that includes Israel, the people that we're looking to protect, which is basically the Middle East, and we've had great relationships with them. They're tremendous investors in our country. They spend trillions of dollars in our country.

The people that we're here to protect would rather have me do it the way I'm doing it now.

I'm going to say this, Mr. President. I'll take you to word, but I don't believe that that's all that there is. I'm going to ask you this question because I watched you on 60 Minutes and particularly when it came to the issue of hating your enemies and Nancy Pelosi's name was mentioned, James Comey name was mentioned.

And I'm thinking about, as you said, look at what they, as in the Democrats, tried to do to you in terms of throwing you in jail and things of that nature. I'm thinking of along the lines of, well, they tried to throw you in jail, Iran tried to kill you. Vengeance is not something that you mind exacting against those you perceive to be your enemies, one would say.

I don't think you would deny that. So if that's the case, how much of a role does that play in the United States still being in the position that it's in with Iran, knowing how much you hate them because they've tried to kill you?

Well, it's a human reflex. I mean, I feel that way. I know you would feel that way, too. I think I know you well enough to say that. You're probably not a lot different than me in that way. But no, it's certainly if somebody treats you differently, let's say nicely as opposed to the opposite, I hate my opponents.

It's not a question of opponents. I hate certain people. I don't hate all my opponents. I respect a lot of my opponents, but there are some that I think were way across the line, and I have a certain hatred for them. So do many people. I've heard it said about [Inaudible] that he never hates. Well, there's a lot of hatred in the world and when you get treated the way I got treated by various people, I won't use names, but various people politically, and I survived.

I became president again, and we have a country that's hot as a pistol. And by the way, speaking about your tariffs, without tariffs, we'd be almost a dead country. We have right now thousands of plants being built all over the United States, and that's only done to avoid tariffs. If we didn't have the tariffs, we wouldn't have any, if I said right now, "I'm going to stop the tariffs," all of those plants would stop construction immediately.

I'm going to come right back to the tariffs, but I still want you to finish answering about the hatred that you feel for Iran. They've got a billboard in Tehran right now talking about killing you.

Yeah.

That has nothing to do with why you're still there.

They're an evil enemy. They've killed many Americans. They've killed many American soldiers, sailors, as you know, with the SS Cole, but other than that, they've killed 75,000 protesters recently, and it's much more than that. They're a very evil group of people, and I certainly, I don't hate the people of Iran, but I think their leadership has been a horrible, horrible thing.

It truly is the number one state sponsor of terror in the world. Everybody said that. That's not a phrase used by me. It's a phrase given by many people that know what's happening, including the United Nations. And --

So you bombed them twice.

-- when I say hate, I certainly don't love them. They have -- they've killed a lot of American soldiers.

But like you've said, you've basically disarmed them, you've obliterated them to some degree. At least that's what you say. Okay, fine.

No, no, no, no. It's not what I say.

Well, [Inaudible]

It's what happened.

Okay.

Okay? I mean, you just take a look. You sound like the New York Times. They try and justify everything. It's what happens. Look, they are a very bad group of people, the leadership I'm talking about. They're violent. They hate us. They say "death to America" constantly. They say "death to Israel." They say "death" in many cases to the Middle East.

Look, they attacked five countries that weren't even their enemies, and they attacked them, which was the biggest surprise of that war, because they went after Saudi Arabia, they went after UAE, and they went after Qatar.

Okay, so let's put it this way. If it wasn't for the other nations, particularly in the Middle East, that don't want you to do that, would you have already taken them out?

Yes, I would. I would have. Yeah.

And by taking them out, that means what? What exactly would you have done?

Going further than I went. We've gone very far. We've attacked them pretty far. But we, for the most part, left their bridges alone. We took out one big bridge because they behave very badly, and we've let their electric manufacturing capability survive, and we haven't attacked their energy at all. We haven't attacked their energy.

If I want to take them out, I hit there. In one day, their energy's gone. In one day, their bridges are gone. And in one day, their manufacturing capability is gone. It would only take me three days, one day each.

Let's go back to the tariffs, because you brought that up, and I brought that up. Kansas is a state you lost. First time --

No, no, I didn't lose. I won Kansas in a record number. I got the highest --

Okay. I'm talking about the midterms. I'm just talking about the midterms. Turned over first time since 1932.

Because again, I'm not on the ballot. I went, I made a speech for some people, but I'm not on the ballot. If I was on the ballot, I think it would've been a different situation.

But in the Midwest, you're talking about tractors and what have you. It was at $4 per gallon for diesel fuel, and now, it's over $6.

Yes, but that's because of --

People are using that.

That's because of the war. But remember this, under Biden, gasoline was higher than Trump. Under Barack Hussein Obama, gasoline was higher than Trump. And they didn't take out Iran. I did. I did something that they were not willing to do. In fact, Obama gave them a path to a nuclear weapon. He said he signed the JCPOA.

It's a disastrous deal, one of the dumbest deals I've ever seen. That was a path for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. It expired three years ago, by the way, if I didn't terminate, but I terminated before that. It was a short-term deal. It gave a path for Iran to have a nuclear weapon. If Iran had a nuclear weapon, they would use it, Stephen, immediately.

So with that being said, basically what you're saying is the tariffs, the war, even though obviously it contributed to an elevation in prices, creating affordability issues, at least in people's minds in the United States of America, you're saying at the end of the day, you have no doubt that you did the right thing and you wouldn't do anything differently?

Well, look, can you say no doubt? Look, there's a possibility that they wouldn't have used, possibility. I think it's a small possibility that they wouldn't have used the nuclear weapon that they were two weeks away from having, in which case, I guess I would say I shouldn't have done this. But I think the probability, the strong probability is they would've used it, and they would've wiped out the entire Middle East, and they would've gone beyond that.

I know my customer. My whole thing in life is deals. Even the presidency, that's a deal. You have to wheel and deal and everything else. Someday, you may try it. But my whole thing is deals. My whole life has been a big deal. And I know people, and if you don't know people, you wouldn't know how to make a deal.

And I will tell you, these are very vicious people. They're very violent people. They were trying to get a nuclear weapon to use it, and I bombed the hell out of their sites. Now, we have a site called Pickaxe Mountain, which I may do or may not do. They haven't been very active there, but if they are, we'll bomb that one, too.

But we bombed, they would've had a nuclear weapon within, that was over a year ago now, the B-2 bombers. They would've had a nuclear weapon, and they would've used it. So if that's the case, that makes oil going up actually pretty small amount. I thought oil was going to go much higher. If you look today, I'm taking out more oil through the Hormuz Strait than they did before the war started.

You and I spoke weeks ago, and thank you again for hosting me to the dinner here, myself with Bill Maher. We won't bring him up. But here's my question to you. Back then, you told me, you said, "Trillions of dollars are coming into America. You'll see, you'll see."

It's true.

The American people are saying, "When are we going to see it? We haven't seen it yet."

Well, it takes a while to have the plants open. Look, right now, they just announced massive car companies are coming in. They're leaving Mexico. They're leaving Canada. They sold all these companies. They sold 60% of our companies. Mexico, Canada, if you look at South Korea, mostly Germany and Japan, those five, but others also, they took our car industry and they cut it in half, but more than half, and all of a sudden, we're importing cars from all over the world, and we don't have our workers.

Our auto workers were, I did phenomenally in Michigan. I won Michigan, as you probably know, and I won the auto workers because they knew exactly what I was saying. And what I've done is we have auto plants now being built all over the United States, including Detroit, where they're doing massive expansions of existing plants.

Without me, all those, we would be losing the rest of our auto plants. I also saved the steel industry. Without tariffs, it would be impossible. And the reason is, and it seems so simple, but I really believe that people are smart, but sometimes, they're just bad people. They just don't want it to be known.

Or could it be --

The reason is that they were coming in and dumping steel in the United States and our factories were all going bankrupt. We were down to almost nobody, nothing. I saved U.S. Steel. I made a merger. I worked out a merger saving U.S. Steel, which used to be the biggest company. That was the big company of the day that when you hear about the Googles and the Apples and all these big companies, the big company used to be U.S. Steel, the biggest company in the world for a long period of time.

It was reduced to nothing. Now, it's thriving. It's doing great.

Well, that's not the message the American people received. Why didn't they receive it?

Well --

Because you're the master messenger.

-- because, no. Yeah.

How come they didn't receive that message?

Because you have fake news that doesn't want to report the message. Now --

But, I mean, it's gotten to the point where you've been saying fake news for years, but somehow, some way, you were able to get your message across when you ran in 2016 --

People don't --

-- 2020, 2024, et cetera. I mean, why now?

Well, I just think that it's just a point in time, and I think it had to do maybe with the war, but I don't think it was the war as much as what the war did. It lifted up gasoline prices. I'm disappointed in people because I really think it's really a very small thing to pay to get rid of a country that would absolutely, in my opinion, use nuclear weapons on us, on others, but also on us. And by the way, if it's others, that pertains also, you're killing millions of people.

They would kill millions and millions of people. But the tariff thing has made this country so rich. We are building, people are leaving now. Tariffs were used against us by China and others. Now, we're using them much better than anybody ever used them. And we have, somebody's going to be president in two years, and they're going to say that person is an incredible genius because we have factories opening up, and they're starting now, but they're opening up at levels never seen before.

Look at our jobs numbers. We had the best job numbers we've ever had. Look at the numbers from last week.

Manufacturing jobs.

They were expecting 20 jobs -- 20,000, and it turned out to be 165,000 jobs for the month. Nobody's ever seen numbers like what we're doing, and that's because of tariffs. Now, the Democrats say tariff, I always say that tariff is a word that needs public relations. It's the best thing that ever happened to us. It's made us strong again.

It's saved our job. We would be a country with, the factories were all leaving under Obama. Obama --

But it's been a bit- --

Obama said, "We will never be a manufacturing country again." So last week, it came out that exporting, the exporting is the number one we've ever had, number one month we've ever had. That's manufacturing. Obama said that. Biden didn't say anything because I don't think Biden knew too much about what was happening, if you want to know the truth.

But Obama said it, and we were losing our country under Biden. We were losing our country. If we had to go through another year, I don't think we would've had a country.

What do you --

And we're thriving. Just so you understand, we're building hundreds and hundreds of factories, plants.

But you can't --

You know the entire medical industry is coming back.

Mr. Pre- --

During COVID, we learned something that we don't make medicine anymore. Do you know that Pfizer, Merck, Eli Lilly, do you know they're building hundreds of billions of dollars worth of plants now? You know why? Because of tariffs. I said, "You've got two years to build your plant. After that, we're going to charge you 300% tariff.

First year, no tariff. Second, you can keep bringing it in from China, Ireland, England. First year, no tariff. Second year, 10%, very small. Third year, 300%. You have two years to build your factory. They're building like crazy. And what's going to happen? We're going to make all of our own medicine. We're going to make all of our own steel.

We're going to make all of our own aluminum.

These are commitments --

We're going to use our own lumber.

-- in writing that's coming to the United States? You know for a fact this is going to come? This is not just people giving you your word?

It's already built. They're building it.

All of these, I'm asking you this --

No, no. These are factories that are under construction right now. They're spending hundreds of billions of dollars building factories that are under construction. And if you look at the job numbers last week, the job numbers are incredible. The job numbers are people have never seen, the construction numbers.

You know why? Because we're leading in SI by a lot, and data centers are very important, by the way, but people are going to start to understand that, and people are going to start participating in data centers financially, and that's going to be good. But we're leading China now in SI. We're leading everybody.

We're leading the whole world.

I have to interject because --

And our car industry --

I got it. I got it.

Our car industry is coming back.

Here's where I'm coming at with you. You can't have it both ways. You can't say you weren't on the ballot and all of those changes took place, but give out these numbers.

I can have it both ways.

I'm saying, give out the, okay. You're Donald Trump.

It is both ways.

But give out these numbers, give out these facts that are clearly beneficial to Americans --

I did.

-- but Americans didn't receive it that way during the midterms.

I gave them out not a lot different than I'm giving them out to you.

I'm thinking about the man that rolled down the escalator.

I'm giving them out --

I'm thinking about the guy that walked into the Black community before the 2016 election, and you looked at folks and you said, "What have you got to lose?" You ask that question.

The Black community is the biggest beneficiary of what I've done. I did criminal justice reform.

Yes, you did.

I did things, I saved the historically Black colleges and universities. They were out of business. I have a list of things that I wrote here --

Read the list.

-- and I said --

Read the list.

I'll read the whole thing.

This is your, well, I'm just saying --

You have the time? I'm going to read it. Ready?

I've got nothing but time. Read the list.

The Trump administration awarded a record one-time investment of $438 million to historically Black colleges and universities. They were ready to go bankrupt before I got this done.

Okay.

Okay? You know that. "Historically Black colleges and university in, in September 2026, the Department of Education announced another $174 million," that I personally approved, "to HBCUs, bringing the extra funding above what Congress approved to more than $612 million over a two-year period," money that the Democrats fought me on, $612 million.

That's the HBCUs, right? "In April 2025, President Trump signed an executive order bringing the HBCU initiative back to the White House where it was taken out by the Democrats and recreating President Board of Advisors." So I have a board of advisors of the HBCUs, the presidents of the colleges. The Democrats didn't do that.

They didn't want that. And they treated them badly, by the way. I don't understand how any Black person that votes for a Democrat, I don't understand. "President Trump's historic part to SAVE America Act. The SAVE America Act safeguards Black voices, ensuring illegal votes don't drown out the disenfranchised Black communities." It's a big deal. "Thanks to President Trump's the Trump Accounts initiative, 100% of Black newborn babies now have exposure to the stock market, closing a longstanding fiscal divide." And they're getting a thousand dollars from our government when they're born.

Okay?

Governor Wes Moore spoke about that.

No, think of that.

Of Maryland, yes.

Oh, it's very popular. But I did that. The Democrats, they voted, by the way, do you know that 100% of the Democrats voted against it. "President Trump's Working Families Tax Cut secured no tax on overtime, benefiting millions and millions of Black workers eligible for overtime benefit. President Trump secured a tax-free $1,776 Warrior Dividend of which the Black soldier is a big percentage of our military, got $1,776 as a dividend." 1,776, right? "The Trump administration lowered the backlog of veterans waiting for VA benefits by 70%, reformed the VA loan program." And largely many of these loans are going to Black soldiers and Black ex-soldiers from the military.

I did that. Nobody else did. "President Trump named Alice Marie Johnson, the Black great-grandmother whose life sentence was commuted and ultimately pardoned --"

Eventually pardoned.

-- by President Trump.

Yes.

And we made her the pardon czar. So there's a woman --

You do --

-- who was in jail. Wait a minute. This is a Black woman who was in jail for 22 years, and her name was brought to me, and I said, "What did she do?" She was involved in the sale of marijuana, very lightly involved. She was on a phone conversation. I said, "How many years was she given?" "50." I said, "Wait a minute, you mean she's got to serve another 28 years?" She was 22 years when she was presented to me. I was so impressed with her.

I made her the pardon czar. She's a fine woman. I'm sure you met her, Alice Johnson. And it was a sadder story. She spent 22 years in jail. She had another 28 years to go with no commutation, no anything. I mean, I saved her life, and I made her the pardon czar. She got a tremendous power of pardon because I asked her, I said, "Alice --" She's a fine woman.

I knew it immediately. I said, "How many people like you are in jail?" She said, "Many." I said, "Well, you were in the same jail for 22 years, right? How many people are like you? What percentage?" She said, "25%." I see. Okay. So there are bad people, too, because I didn't want her to say everybody's perfect.

It's prison, right?

Yes.

She said, "No, there are some very bad people, but there are also some very good people that did nothing wrong." I said, "I want you to give me a list of all of those people. We're going to pardon those people." And we've done that, largely done that. "The Trump administration expended," and this is really big deal, "expanded Medicaid access to new gene therapies for sickle cell disease and sickle cell anemia, a painful inherited blood disease that falls hardest on Black Americans in states covering about 84% --"

Mr. President.

-- of Medicaid. Well, wait a minute.

Okay. I got something to say.

The Democrats wouldn't do sickle cell anemia, and I did it. "President Trump's Working Families Tax Cuts made Opportunity Zones permanent." I did Opportunity with Senator Tim Scott, a Black senator --

I understand.

-- from South Carolina.

I want to get to a point, though. First of all --

Oh, no, but I have three pages of this.

I understand it. You talked about what the Democrat --

You wish you didn't ask me this question.

No. No, not at all. I just don't want to take all my time on that, but I got you.

I'd rather do that.

I do remember, well, I got some more questions. I do --

Murders fell 18.1% in 20- --

Okay. Mr. President, Mr. President, Barack Obama gave over $2.9 billion, $2.4 billion to HBCUs, 2009. You did about $1.9 billion in 2019.

Excuse me, excuse me --

Biden came in and did over $17 billion when you take everything into account.

They were going bankrupt during my administration. The money that they gave was stolen, and it didn't fund. They were going bankrupt. They came to me. I got to know a lot of the head people from the various colleges. And I said, "Tell me, how come after three years, how come I see you every year?" They said, "Because they want us to be beggars." These are the presidents of the colleges.

Of the HBCUs.

About 50 of them. And I got to know them because I'd see them every year. Once a year, they came down looking for money. The first time, I didn't see anything wrong. I didn't think anything was so, then the second time, I was a little surprised. I said, "How come you're here again?" And the third time, I said, "How come I've met you again?" They said, "Because they want us to beg every year.

The Democrats demand that we come back every single year. I said, "Well, I'm going to get you 10-year financing." Now, the only bad thing is they actually became friends with some --

You did it $255 million per year.

-- as you know.

Yes.

And I said, "I'll never see you again probably because I'm going to get you 10-year financing." I got them financed, and I got them more than they wanted. Barack Obama did nothing for it, and Biden did nothing for it. All they did was the 19- -- I guess it was the 1996 crime act, which was the worst thing that ever happened to Black people.

That was the worst thing. That was under Clinton.

That was under Clinton in 1994 --

And it was the worst thing --

-- the crime bill with Clinton and Biden.

And what did I do? What did I do? I did criminal justice reform. That's bigger than all of this stuff put together. I did criminal justice reform at the request of a lot of Black journalists. One in particular that I told you about, I think he's a disgrace because he was very unthankful. They came to my office.

He was very thankful.

They had no chance of getting criminal justice reform. They had many senators that would never have voted. And they came. They made their case to me. They've been trying to get it for 25 years, and I got criminal justice reform done.

You did it.

And I did that, and everybody acknowledges I did that.

Hold on, but you're talking about Van Jones --

I got no credit for it.

Hold on, hold on. You're talking about Van Jones, who you asked me to call. I called him. He said he has thanked and thanked and thanked you time and time again --

Never thanked me.

-- on camera, off camera. He knows, he said for the record, he knows that he came to you, and you were the one that got the five Republican senates inside of an hour to help.

That's good that he said this.

But he said all of these things.

All right. That's good.

He's giving you thanks for that. So let's get that out of the way.

All right.

But when you talk about the Black community and how they're feeling about it, obviously, there's a feeling that Obama did his share, Biden did his share.

They didn't do anything.

They know you did your share.

Excuse me, they did nothing.

But then they look at the modern-day --

Criminal justice reform, criminal justice, that's the biggest thing there is, right?

Yes.

Because Black people were put in jail --

Not the biggest thing.

-- like Alice Johnson for 50 years that somebody else would've not even gone to jail for.

Well, the biggest thing is employment. And you've got Black women, over 300,000, lost their federal jobs. Obviously, you told me, you said, "But they're flourishing in the private sector."

They all got new jobs.

You said, "They're flourishing in the private sector."

That's right. They are flourishing.

They tell me that's not true.

It's true.

That's what they say.

And they're getting more money. Look, you can't have a federal government where you have 10 people to do one job. The federal government, and if I wanted to leave everybody in the federal government and the system, you'd have a country that would fail. Those people, for the most part, went out and got better jobs, better-paying job, and they liked the job more.

They love going to work as opposed to working for the federal government where you sit around doing nothing.

But --

Somebody had to do something about it, and I did it. Black women, Black men, and I did very well with the Black men.

Black men, you did Black men, you did well with them in 2024. They didn't do so well in the midterms.

They didn't vote for me in the midterms. I wasn't on the ballot. I was on the ballot in '24. Again, I wasn't on the ballot. It's a big difference when I'm on the ballot. All three times that I've been on the ballot, I won big.

You campaigned everywhere for everybody on the GOP.

I helped --

I mean, you were all over the place.

And you know what? They --

And you said, "Put me on the ballot," plus you campaigned.

They would've done worse. If I didn't campaign, they would've done worse. You had a lot of very close elections, but like we did great with Byron in Florida. Byron.

Byron Donalds, yes.

Yeah, in Florida. He's a great guy. He's a Black man. I got, he needed --

There's a Black U.S. senator in the state of Mississippi for the first time since Reconstruction, Mr. President.

All right. I don't know the gentleman, but I give him credit. And you know what he did? He campaigned on lines. I give him a lot of credit for this. He campaigned on lines. I heard it the other day where I had a rally there, and we had lines that went 10 miles long, and he campaigned on that line telling everybody on the line what a good job he did.

I give him a lot of credit for that. I don't know.

You say something. I got a question you're going to, you say you weren't on the ballot. Let me ask you a question, Mr. President. Let's say hypothetically that, because I don't want to hear about circumventing the 22nd Amendment of the Constitution and running for a third term, no, let's just speak in hypotheticals.

If you could run for president again, so could Barack Obama, what would Donald Trump do if he had to square off against Barack Obama for the presidency of the United States?

Well, I got --

What if that would happen right now?

I got many more votes than he got, and I got many more votes in the states, and I have most of the state records of the big states. If you take a look at Texas, I have the all-time record. Florida, I have the all-time record.

Are you saying you would beat Obama?

Yeah. I think I'd beat him easily. Yeah.

Easily?

I think he's highly overrated. Yeah.

Oh, my Lord. How is Barack Obama overrated?

I just think that's just my opinion. I think he's overrated. I didn't think he was a good president. I thought he was a divider.

A divider?

Yeah.

And what would you classify yourself as being, sir?

As a person that brings people together.

And you bring people together how exactly?

Through success. Because our country is so successful and you're going to see the results pretty much starting now because of the trillions of dollars. We have $22.2 trillion be invested in the United States, and --

Billion or trillion?

Trillion. Trillion.

Okay. I'm just making sure.

We have $22 trillion. It's the biggest number ever in history by many times, not just by a little bit, by many times. And the worth, other than the hit we took the day after the election where $3 trillion was lost, we've created $25 trillion worth of value worth, if you call it worth, between stock markets and values.

The worth of the United States gained in a short period of time, less than two years, over $25 trillion. Under Biden, it was losing money. I mean, you're going to, I'll tell you what, I don't think this country would've survived had Harris gotten in, Kamala. Had she gotten in, I think this country would've failed.

What we've done to turn this country around is incredible. And one other thing, the border. People were pouring into our country. It was like water. I stopped. For the last 17 months, think of this, for the last 17 months, we had zero people coming into our country illegally. Go ahead. What are you looking for?

Because, I'm looking, I got it right here. I want to ask you a question about Stephen Miller.

Okay.

Because he's your new chief of staff.

Yeah, he's a good man.

I don't know him. I'm not going to comment about him. I know that I don't like things that I've read about Project 2025, but that's a subject for another day.

He wasn't involved in it.

Yes, sir. But I will ask you this about Steve Miller.

He wasn't involved.

Let me ask you this. I'm thinking about a guy and Stephen Miller that was essentially, I wouldn't say the architect, but he was very heavily behind everything that transpired with immigration. There is no question that people look at what you did with the border and nobody can refute that. I've been on a record stating that.

But on the border --

We've got 18 months with not one person coming in through the southern border illegally, meaning no criminals, no murderers, no drug dealers, no people from mental institutions who were pouring into our country. By the way, should I put this away now?

You can put that away now --

Because I have another two pages.

-- because I got my own thing to read right here.

I have another two pages.

Let me give you --

I could read for another 10 minutes.

Let me give you some background about Stephen Miller because you know it. So I'm going to regurgitate this. "Leading supporter of Trump first term, zero-tolerance immigration policy in 2018 resulting in thousands of family separations, press dramatic reductions in refugee admissions, champion administration's immigration enforcement expansion supported by approximately $170 billion that Republicans allocated in the Big Beautiful Bill, developed and defended the administration's executive order that restricted entry by nationals of several Muslim-majority countries, advocated for penalizing legal immigrants who received public benefits and making it harder for them to obtain citizenship, and in the second term, pushed ICE to make at least 3,000 immigration arrests per day." I want to say for the record, I've asked Stephen Miller to sit down with me and interview me. He has agreed to the --

I can defend that record.

He's agreed. But I'm asking you, please defend that.

I can defend that record. So we had people in our country that if we didn't have ICE, they would still be here. They were murderers. So we had thousands and thousands of murderers brought into our country. Many of them murdered more than one person. Those people had to get out. We brought them out. When you talk about detention, Obama is the one that built the jails.

You know the jails for the kids? They all said, "Trump built it." And then somebody got up and said, "No, actually, they were built during Barack Hussein Obama." And Obama built those jails. They gave me a bad rap with the jails and all of a sudden, and these are jails for children. And all of a sudden, it turned out that it was Obama that built those jails for the children.

We have now gotten out some of the worst criminals, Tren de Aragua, which is a gang that makes our gangs look like nice people. We've gotten out some of the worst people in the world out of our country, murderers, rapists, the worst people, the worst drug dealers anywhere in the world, the biggest drug dealers in the world.

They came into our country. They're gone. Some of them are so bad we actually put them in our jails. I don't want them in our jails because I don't want to have to afford them for the next 50 years. But we have murderers that were so violent and so bad. You look at Tren de Aragua, they make the Hells Angels look like the nicest people on earth and the Hells Angels actually support me. So I have to be very careful.

I want to get last question, last couple of questions. Number one, legacy, because I'm thinking about Stephen Miller, I'm thinking about your dealings with the Democrats over the final two years.

Well, I made the borders strong.

I understand --

You just said nobody else could have done it.

Yes. I'm talking about the streets --

The border was an open wound. The world's criminals were pouring in.

But nobody's questioning you on the border. They're questioning what was happening in the streets of America with ICE.

I --

And as a result, when you take Stephen Miller into consideration and how he's going to have to deal with the Democrats as your chief of staff --

Yeah, you're right, but I got rid of the murderers. I got rid of the drug dealers. I got rid of really bad people.

Okay. So I'm saying moving forward, because people obviously did what they did during the midterms, and you have the Democrats to deal with. I'm thinking about the legacy of Donald Trump, what it was when you first arrived. What do you think it's going to be since you got two more years in office?

I think it's going to be, and I actually said this on 60 Minutes, he said, "What would be the legacy?" I said, "I think it will go down as somebody that made America great again." I've made America great again. We have a strong country. We have never been stronger. We have a tremendous industry being built.

All of those people that you say with the jobs are all going to have great-paying jobs, and they're going to be working in plants and factories and hotels and everything that are all under construction and being built. We have the largest investment in the history of the world. There's never been a country with $22 trillion being invested, never been in a short period of time.

Democrats are not saying this. They're not saying this.

Well, they don't say it because they failed. Look, our country was dead two years ago under Biden. Our country was dead. We had a dead country. Our country was gone to hell. And I say it all the time, leaders of the world tell me, but the king of Saudi Arabia told me a short while ago, he said, "It's amazing.

Two years ago, your country was dead. We thought it was dead. They didn't want to invest. They didn't want to invest at all. Now, you have the hottest country anywhere in the world. We are the hottest country. You're hotter now than you were two years ago. Let me tell you, you're doing very well. Are you going to run for office?

I'm haven't decided yet.

I would keep your life the way it is. You know what?

Yes, I like my life.

You'll find it very nasty if you do it.

You told me that weeks ago, and I totally believe you. Before I let you get on out of here, shifting, Jensen Huang, Nvidia, resigned as CEO.

Sad.

Your feelings about that.

Well, he's a tremendous talent. He did something that nobody else, you have China and these people, they copy. They pirate so much. Here's a chip that's so complex, so brilliant that you can't copy it. I mean, it's beyond copying because of their level of genius. What he's done is incredible. He built an incredible, Nvidia is unbelievable.

Should he have stepped down?

Well, the big thing is, was the woman a spy? And I don't know if that's been determined yet, but if the woman was a spy, yes. If the woman was not a spy, perhaps, it would be different. But I can tell you this, somehow, he'll end up in his feet. I mean, I know him. I know him pretty well. I always thought of him as a fine man.

I spoke to him yesterday. He's going through hell. What he feels most badly about is his wife and family. That's what he told me. In strongest, he called me as the president, I'm president and he called me, and he said, "What I've done to my wife and family is --" That's what he talked about.

Can he be replaced?

Well, you know the expression, "Anybody can be replaced." So it's very hard to replace him, but I had an idea this morning that I sort of just released. Tim Cook, he just sort of semi-retired from Apple. He's done one of the greatest jobs in the history of business. I think if Tim Cook, who built Apple, if Steve Jobs were around, Apple would never be what it is today.

Tim Cook took a lot of these brilliant ideas and designs and everything else from Jobs and others, and he made it into one of the great companies of the world in a fairly short period. I think Tim Cook would be a great candidate to run Nvidia.

What about you over your last two years in office? What are you going to do dealing with the Democrats? Is there anything that you'd change? Is there anything that you're going to do differently? Are you willing to work with them? I know you said you have --

I have.

-- you're willing to, but?

So I'm going to be vetoing a lot of things that they're going to send me initially that are bad for the country. And I think eventually, they're going to call in, they're going to say, "Let's make a deal," and we'll be able to make deals on health care, on drug prices. Again, I took the highest drug prices in the entire world, Stephen.

We paid the highest. You've heard that for years. We were screwed by the entire world, and now, we pay the lowest drug prices in the entire world. I used tariffs on that, by the way. I said to companies and countries, first I had to get the companies, but they weren't worried because they said they'll never get the countries.

I went to the countries. I went to France and Germany and all these different places by telephone, in some cases in person, I said, "You're going to have to double and triple your drug prices because ours are 10 times what they should be, and we're not going to do it any longer." And they said, "No, no, no." And I said, "That's okay.

I'm going to charge your country massive tariffs until such time as you make that change. And every single one of them made the change. So we went from the highest drug prices anywhere in the world to now, we pay the lowest drug prices anywhere in the world.

It sounds like you're doubling down, Mr. President.

That is going to have a huge impact on health care and other things, and I'll work with the Democrats on that.

It sounds like you believe that you have been right all along. You're not budging one bit. You're going to double down, which means that the Democrats and you, it's going to be more chaos over the next two years.

Or they may work with me because I think they want to see good health care. We have terrible health care.

What about immigration reform? Anybody could do it, you could do it.

It's possible. I mean, look, it's possible. You're --

You're willing to keep yourself open to that?

We're not going to negotiate it now, but there are things could be done with immigration that would be very positive.

Mr. President --

Thank you very much.

-- thank you so much for this.

Thank you, Stephen.

Appreciate it.