Interview: Alexis McAdams of Fox News Interviews Donald Trump in New York - August 14, 2026

It's only 20 miles, right, from New York City, but it feels a lot different when you're out here in Nassau County. People are saying to defend the police, not defund the police. But when you go into New York City with the mayor and the governor of the state, it's a little different. What do you say to them?

Well, it is, but we did well everywhere. But this is a special place for me. We have Bruce Blakeman running for governor. He's gonna do very well. Could win it. He could really win it. He's great for law and order and all the things that people want, and a fantastic politician who's, uh, loved out here. And I have a feeling he's gonna come away with a victory.

And so I'm out for him and all the congressmen that are running, and congressmen and women that are running, and they are a great group. They have fought with me all the time, and we've been, we've had a lot of victories. We've had tremendous victories.

Uh, Mamdani has had a different take though on law enforcement, so has Kathy Hochul. They, in the, they put something out this morning, Kathy Hochul did, the governor, talking about how within the next two weeks, if there is law enforcement that works with ICE and cooperates with ICE on enforcement, they will have legal action against them.

What can you do to protect law enforcement who do work with ICE?

Well, it's actually incredible when you hear that, because we're setting records all over the country with law enforcement where we're involved. And sanctuary cities, New York is a sanctuary city, it's a disaster. It, uh, sanctuaries protects, basically it protects criminals of the purpose of a sanctuary sur- -- city.

So I don't know what they're doing. Uh, the crime rates are not good. A lot of the crime rates that are good, we brought them down. You know, we helped New York a lot.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, they don't wanna talk about that, but we helped New York a lot. But we could, uh, we could have virtually, if you look at what we did in D.C., and Memphis, and other places, we bring it down to almost nothing. And we could do that in New York. We could do that also very, s- -- very easily in Chicago and L.A. All we have to do is be asked if the governor would call, or if the mayors would call.

And, uh, every place we've gone, we brought it down 40, 50, 60%, sometimes more. D.C. is like one of the safest cities right now. Washington D.C., our capital, is now one of the safest cities in the country. And a year and a half ago, it was the exact opposite.

Another thing that the mayor, um, which I know you said he was charismatic when you talked to him, people were, you know, you, you did --

Well, I know.

Yeah, you did meet with him.

He calls me, and he's a very nice man, but I just disagree with his policy. I really like him. He's a nice person, but I disagree with his policy. He's driving rich people out. The rich people are the ones that are paying the taxes. And you're not gonna have any money to pay anybody with.

What about the pied-à-terre tax? They said when they rolled it out, uh, you know, and it went to court and they did put a pause on it, that's kind of being fought out in court. But what do you think about the pied-à-terre tax and how can you stop it from going into effect for New Yorkers? And it's not just the rich New Yorkers who are on the list.

So what's happening with the pied-à-terre tax is people will leave the city. They'll leave the state. They're gonna go to Florida, Texas, and all the other places that they go. North Carolina, South Carolina. They're going all over Tennessee. But they're gonna leave, and they're gonna, uh, the money that you get from the tax is so small compared to the taxes you're gonna be losing by people fleeing.

And that's what's happening. They're gonna be fleeing.

How can you stop it? Like, can you look, can you do anything about it in federal court? I know you said your team was looking at the pied-à-terre.

You start by getting somebody that changes his policy. I mean, it's a terrible policy. They're driving out businesses, they're driving out people, they're driving out not even rich people, they're driving out the middle class. You're not gonna have anybody left to pay any taxes. And if you don't pay taxes, you know what happens?

Squalor. Squalor, filth. And you know, filth is already happening when you look. I mean, it always takes place. Uh, I, I say death and gloom and filth. That's what you end up with in these blue cities run by, you know, the blue, look, run by the Dumbocrats. And I call them Dumbocrats because their policies are so dumb.

They're so basic and they're so dumb. You can't drive people out. You can't, the people that are paying the taxes are leaving. You're gonna have nobody left that pays.

Have you --

When that happens, you have a disaster.

Recently, I know when you go around D.C. and you see the cleanup process, you've a, been excited about that. Have you seen, kind of the, a difference since Mamdani's been in office, with the streets, with homelessness, with crime, with policing?

I mean, I hate to say it, and I'm not here that much, but I get reports, very strong reports, and it's not clean. It's gotta be clean. You know, when you look at what we did, and I take a very personal interest in D.C. because I live there, and it's the capital. It's immaculate now. It's clean. The grass, all of the tents are gone.

Ev- -- ev- -- people can't believe it. It's just different. And it's got very little crime. Uh, the crime is down 84%, 88%. People have never heard of numbers like that. It's now become, okay, a year and a half ago, nobody wanted to go to a restaurant. Everybody was afraid. They'd always take an Uber and then they'd get robbed even in the Uber, was a disaster.

We moved out 5,000 career criminals.

Mm-hmm.

They're gone. We brought them back from, mostly from the Biden open border policy. They came in from Venezuela and a lot of other places. Uh, we have now one of the safest cities in the country, and the, D.C. was one of the most unsafe, most dangerous cities in the country. And we're very proud of it. But it also looks good.

The graffiti's gone. Although we did, we, we, had --

[Crosstalk]

What's the- -- that woman was just arrested?

World War II Memorial. It's beautiful. All renovated, really nice, because we've done that. 82 of them. Monuments, fountains, all of these. Uh, and some person went crazy and started spraying red graffiti all over it.

Uh --

It's terrible.

AOC has said recently, when you're looking at kind of the policing and the defund, and how people are trying to shift, uh, the, s- -- some Democrats are now trying to shift away. So she said the other week, AOC, woke one was crazy. She's trying to back away from those comments. Why do you think she's trying to do that?

Is she gonna run for president?

I think so. And, but if you really look at it, uh, they're all saying the same thing. They're all trying to dis avail themselves from saying about crime and all [Laughs]. They're, uh, [Laughs] "We love sanctuary cities." All of the things that they said they're now trying to dis avail. I think you're gonna see sanctuary cities start to end, because sanctuary cities are a disaster.

And somebody like her, she was big for sanctuary cities.

Mm-hmm.

Uh, they cause crime. They cause crime. Uh, no cash bail. You look at the no cash bail. That's when it all started, no cash bail. Somebody kills somebody and they just say, "All right, go ahead. Come back in two weeks."

Do you think people will forget those things? I mean, p --

No.

And, and how, how do you remind? I guess going into the midterms, if people, if Democrats are trying to back away from those woke thoughts before the midterms, how can you remind people of that?

Well, they're gonna be reminded anyway, and you don't have to remember too much. You know, you're talking about elections that --

Mm-hmm.

-- if you win by 10%, it's supposed to be a landslide, right?

Mm-hmm.

So you don't have to remember too much. But people know the woke. I mean, they know the woke. And the woke will become woke again as soon as they get elected.

[Edit between parts of interview released]

One thing on Michigan really quick, just, that's a huge Senate race. I know you are backing Mike Rogers, who --

Yeah.

-- when you look at the polling, he is leading El-Sayed. One of the things that El-Sayed said is that, um, you know, he said controversial things, but one of the things that's really sticking to Michigan since they love football is that he thinks football is tied to slavery and he thinks it's toxic masculinity.

What do you think about that?

Well, it's a very place, when you have Michigan, it's a very bad place to be saying it. They have a [Laughs] great football team and a number of great football teams up there that the people love. I would say that that's a big mistake to be saying that, but he said a lot worse, frankly.

Hm.

He said a lot worse. I mean, he wants, uh, defunding the police. You know, they, all of these statements, how do you get elected? And then now they're just trying to take everything back. You know, defunding the police, all of a sudden they don't wanna defund the police. And I right now have thousands of police out there waiting, and I'm telling you, they will not be happy if I said, "Ladies and gentlemen, let's defund the police." [Laughs] I think this would not be good.

They are very happy right now. They're all screaming, "Trump, Trump, Trump." I could turn that off very quickly. Just say, "I'd like to defund [Laughs] the police, everybody." So I don't think people forget that.

Mm-hmm. One thing on Iran, and then I know you gotta get going, but I just wanna ask you, um, General Jack Keane has been on Fox recently, and other experts talking about how they believe that it's possible that right before the midterms, Iran's gonna become more aggressive because they think you're not gonna hit them back as hard before the midterms.

What do you say about that?

We're capable of really destroying the whole place. We don't wanna do that. Uh, we, uh, have got economic sanctions against them like nobody's ever had before. Uh, they're not paying their soldiers. They're not paying their so-called police --

Mm-hmm.

-- you know, their police. They have a police force that's not getting paid. Nobody's getting paid. They have 350% inflation. And we're sort of watching and we'll see.

Hm.

We really control. Now we totally control. We, we own, in the true sense, we own the Hormuz Strait.

Mm-hmm.

And we only allow boats to come in if we want them to come in. No boats are coming in for him. We haven't had one boat come in since we've been there for Iran. And what it means is hundreds of millions of dollar, dollars every single day they lose. So I think we're doing very well there. We're doing it in a very professional manner.

We did it with Venezuela a little bit differently. Uh, we could go in. I mean, if they hit, we would hit back a hundred times harder.

What if it's right before the midterms? Do you care?

Well, it could be, but I, you know, people are looking at gasoline prices. That's all they're looking at. They like the fact that I'm stopping this lunatic nation from having an atomic bomb. The, the, if you look, look, they cannot have nuclear weapons.

Mm-hmm.

It's very simple. And I say it all the time. They say, "Well, you know, we could get out of the war." I said, "Is it okay for Iran to have a nuclear weapon?" "No way. We don't wanna --" As soon as you hear that, you know, everybody agrees with it. Uh, we are doing really great with the Hormuz Strait. Uh, we have a blockade that is like a wall of steel.

Nobody's ever seen anything like it.

Mm-hmm.

And we're doing very well in Iran.

Um, last thing. Is Karoline Leavitt replaceable?

Uh, no, she's not. I, she really isn't. She's standing right over there and she's done a great job. [Laughs] But --

You have somebody in mind?

She found out she likes her children more than she likes Trump. I'm very concerned about that.

It's a lot to juggle, right? And you said you support that going back. Is there somebody you have in mind that you'd like to see up at the podium to take over?

We'll say you, how about you?

[Laughs]

She could do the job. [Laughs]

Good.

I think so. What do you think, Karoline? I like it. I've always liked you. That's why I'm doing this. I don't do this that often. I get off. I make a speech. Here I come off and we see Alexis. You have done a great job.

I appreciate it. Thank you very much. Anything else that I didn't ask you? You wanted to make news --

Well, you know --

... in this interview?

We just had a report that drug prices have gone down, prescription drug prices, more than at any time in 65 years.

Mm-hmm.

And we had another report that for 15 months now, it's a record, no illegal has come into this country. Trump --

[Crosstalk]

It's amazing to see that. You used to see it all the time and that now that you've made those changes to the border, you don't see all those crowds coming through.

We had millions of people pouring in from jails, and from, uh, drug dealers and everything else and, uh, just, uh, murderers. I always say 11,888. That's the number I was given. [Laughs] But these are murderers, 11,888 murderers. Now we have nobody coming in illegally.

Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you very much.

Appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you. Good luck.