[Joe Kernen interviewed Donald Trump in the Oval Office on July 2, 2026. The video and transcript were released later that day. The following transcript was provided by CNBC. It was cross-checked and confirmed for accuracy, though minor style errors were fixed. Video and transcript courtesy and copyright CNBC.]
Mr. President. It's great to see you.
Thank you.
Thank you for having me in this incredible place. And --
It's a nice place.
Happy, happy Independence Day, and Happy Semiquincentennial.
Yeah, that's true.
If I got that right.
Thank you.
We, 250 years, and I just want to start flying at about 40,000 feet, and just, which you've done in a pretty nice plane lately, by the way. I saw that. What's so amazing about this, this country, in your words, for the last 250 years? It's, you always say, like, like never been seen before. There's never been a country like this that's ever been seen in the history of --
Well, a lot of people don't understand that right now, we are in a Golden Age. You understand it very well. You cover it very well. We have more factories being built today than ever before. We have more people working today than at any time ever in the history of our country, and people making more money than they've ever made.
I'm not talking about rich people, I'm talking about people that have like normal or normalized jobs, more money than they've ever made before. 401(k)s are up at levels that they've never seen before, up 80 and 90% and the stock market's at an all-time high. I think it's 81 days out of a short, you know, year and a half, 81 days, we have 81 records, so nobody's ever seen anything like that.
Or if, if it backs up, something, taking a record basically --
Well, if it backs up, we won't talk --
The S&P, NASDAQ, or the Dow. Dow, another all-time high --
But you said, if it backs up, hopefully it won't, but --
Well, on any given day --
If it does, I will not be talking about, I'll be talking about another --
But an unbelievable quarter, unbelievable first half of the year, your first term, we saw, I think, if, depending on what you measure it from, either 80% from election day, I think 70% from from inauguration.
First term was great. First term was --
This, it's very, it might even be at a faster pace.
This is better. So the first term we had the most successful four years, including the Covid, you know, when you include that, when I handed it off, it was literally, I mean, you look at the numbers, we had the highest market in history. First term was was great financially. This is, I think, blowing it away.
I think this is going to blow it away.
So we had the jobs' number a day, which is weird because it's Thursday, but the markets aren't open tomorrow, but 57,000 jobs were below expectations, but and I think there were some revisions, but the job market has been stronger than people anticipated. However, you know, we had $90 oil at 67, 68 today --
Right.
And 57,000, would you say that gives Warsh, the new Fed chairman, who you chose, more flexibility to cut because for a while we thought the next move might be a hike. Now it's, the stars are aligning. Would you say for him to cut?
Well, he's got a board that maybe is a little bit hostile, and you know, unfortunately, and maybe a board that wants to do the wrong thing. So I don't know, he's a, he's a great guy and a great pro, and I know where he'd like to be, but he has to do what he has to do. I really think that I would love to be able to get back, you know, in the old days, probably, maybe before you started thinking about these things, but if you go back 20 or 25 years, when you announced great numbers, the stock market went up. When you announced bad numbers, the stock market would go down.
Today, it's the opposite. When you announce good numbers, the stock market goes down, sometimes really way down, depending on how good the better they are that work, because they have this phobia, they have this horrible derangement syndrome about inflation and growth can be good for inflation, not just bad for inflation, and it's a shame, any time numbers are announced that are not so good.
I wish I could flip it the old way, that when you announce great numbers, because otherwise it's almost like they want to kill strength, they want to kill success. You announce good numbers, I want to, like, you have a couple of countries, India is one, doing very well, but it's at 7, 8%. Others, take a look at Japan's numbers, I mean, they're doing very well.
She's very good, she's doing a good job, a friend of mine, but they're allowed to go up. We're not allowed to go up. If we go up, they want to kill it. There's no reason we should stop at 4%. We should be at 12% and 13% GDP. And I hate what happens where in the old days we would be, that's how we built the country.
Now you announce positive things, and they want to bring it down by raising interest rates, and it shouldn't be that way. It should go back to the way it was.
You mentioned that Warsh might not determine his other people on the Fed, obviously, so has Lisa Cook on the Fed. The Supreme Court ruled on Monday. I'm not really sure exactly whether it was on the merits or whether it was procedure, but I think you said that --
Procedure.
Yeah, you're going to take the appropriate action when the time comes. What, what, what could you do to get rid of --
Get her off.
How would you do it at this point?
By winning the case. They sent it back, not based on the merits, they sent it back on process and procedure. So we'll start the process and we'll do perfect process and perfect procedure.
Speaking of the Supreme Court, you're allowed to fire, except for the Fed, you're allowed to fire people at other federal agencies, which for you and your term would make a big difference for you, but my question --
It was by far the biggest slaughter, as they call it --
Of the SCOTUS rulings --
It was by far the biggest of all the decisions and all of the cases and all of you know what they just announced, so this has been going on since 1932 where they took the right away from FDR. They took it away, which was, you know, you think of FDR, that doesn't happen, but it did. He fought very hard to get it back.
In fact, he wanted to pack the court. He was willing to pack the court. There were his justices, and this has been going on since 1932 and I won it back, and there are those that say this is one of the biggest decisions handed down in decades --
You know that --
Bigger, bigger than birthright citizenship, bigger than anything.
What if a Democratic, the next time a Democrat is elected president, and you've, the executive branch has all this expanded power that you've gotten.
Well, then they've got it.
Don't you worry they'll undo some of your policies at that point.
I can only speak for myself. It's necessary --
About what's now, and --
Yeah, I mean, look, it's necessary. It's actually an honor to have won that, because every president since FDR has been trying to get that back, and I got it back. That's a big deal, you know, that's, checkpoint.
Along the same lines, if the Democrats take the House, and you know, I want you to succeed as president.
Thank you.
I want, I want a businessman --
Yeah.
To run the country, and all along you entered as a billionaire businessman, which was unprecedented. I think George Washington owned a lot of land, but no one's ever, think JFK had a trust fund, but, but no one's ever been as wealthy as you, and you obviously know how to run a business, and that, I think, informs the way you run the country, obviously.
Now many people argue business experience is needed in government, and we've seen the stock market in the first term and the second term, I think, I think it's been rewarded to have a businessman in there. So, I think we shouldn't be surprised that your businesses are doing well. But how would you counter critics that say you're using the presidency to enrich yourself and your family?
Well, in a lot of ways, if you think about it, the stock has gone up so much. The stock market today, it's up 500 points, it's up to almost 53,000. You know, I watched your show, and you had somebody on, one of your brilliant analysts, and they said, if I had won the election, they said, if President Trump could get the stock market to anywhere near 50,000 that would be an unbelievable achievement.
And that was over four years. In other words, at the end of his term, four years, if he could get anywhere near 50,000 that would be, well, it's at 53,000 --
Right.
Just a couple of points short of 53,000 right now, and that's essentially after a little bit more than a year.
But do you worry that if they take, if the Democrats were to win the House, that there's going to be endless investigations of you and your administration?
Well, you know, I don't do anything having to do with my business. My kids run it. I put a lot of money, I had a lot of money, and I have a lot of money and I've always made, I've made money, you know. I'm a business person.
Right.
I'm a really good business person. I've made money, I've made a tremendous amount of money, more than I would have ever thought I would have made. And I let people invest it. I don't even speak to, I don't even know who they are, but it's given to big firms like that are on your show all the time. My son Eric handles it. I don't talk to him about things such as this.
I think I'd be allowed to. I'm not sure even what the status is, but I don't.
Well --
And he gives it into these like semi-blind trusts, or blind trusts, where people invest. There was a story today about Jensen Huang, who's fantastic, NVIDIA, and that I have some stock. I think it's very small. I think it's one of many companies that one of the big Wall Street firms invests in, and so they said, oh, Trump has some stock in there.
But --
I don't care about that.
How about crypto?
You know why I don't care?
Yeah.
Because I have a much bigger purpose. You know, this, this is the Oval Office. It's a much bigger purpose than whether or not I make money. As an example, the president is the highest paid person in government, and you know, by some standards, he gets a lot of money. I don't. I'm the only president they say that's ever given up my salary, I gave up my salary.
Right.
I don't get a salary, I gave it up, and that's a lot of, you know, by some standards, that's a lot of money.
But making money in the stock market that makes sense. So, as far as crypto goes, and I'm just wondering, you, you didn't divest your business, you have your sons running it.
Right.
I think vice presidents and presidents aren't subject really to conflict of interests, laws, but there's this, this notion that you need to be aware of conflict of interest. There was a large sum of money made in crypto. Did you know that your family business was going to engage in crypto? Did you have anything?
Well, I was here before, I was there before I was in office, but the way I view crypto's a little differently, we have to be at the top, otherwise China's going to take it over. Like, for instance, AI, we're leading substantially in AI over China and everybody else. I mean, we're leading. When I was with President Xi three weeks ago, he greeted me, and he, his first words, I mean, literally were, "Wow, you've really done a great job.
You've really," because this country was dead, we had a dead country. Now we have the hottest country in the world. And the way I look at AI, or the way I look at crypto, is if we're not going to do it, China's going to get it, most likely China --
No doubt.
Or somebody else. Japan is, somebody else, and I want to, it's a big industry, crypto, if you call it an industry, but it's a big deal, and crypto is a big deal. You look at it the way it's grown over the years, you have believers, you don't have believers, you know, whatever it is, but it's a big deal, and anything we do, I want to be number one in, and we're number one in crypto, and we're also number one in AI.
In the disclosure this week, the amount of money that you and the family made in crypto, it was an outsized number. I was just asking, did you, or you know about the crypto ventures?
No.
So, so that was just something --
By the way --
Yeah.
I could know about it.
What I've said, right.
I didn't, I mean, there's nothing illegal, there's nothing wrong with it. I could know.
There's a specific, I think it's, remember Title 18, Section 208 from Congress, you, the Vice President, and you do not have, you would have to recuse yourself --
You know I didn't even know that. How do you know that --
You would have to recuse yourself on every decision that could, running the country that could have anything to do with you, so it just isn't feasible to do it --
Well I feel badly in a way for my kids, because every time my kids do, if they invest in a stock, or they go and do a bill, anything they do, because the presidency is so powerful, so big, everything, if they buy a cupcake company, well, the energy to make the cupcakes is sort of like, how's my energy policy, so therefore you have a conflict.
Almost anything they do, if they want to buy a truck, if they want to buy, you know, if they buy an energy efficient truck, they have inside information. So it's pretty tough in that sense. I tell my kids, stay away from as much as you can stay away from, but they also have a life, you know. They, we were doing business long before I ever thought of, you knew me a long time before I thought of even running.
You knew me before I even thought about running for president.
I did. I knew you before --
And we did a lot of businesses --
I knew you before you were married to Melania, I think.
Yeah, that's right. But I did, you know, I've made a lot of money over the years, and I think one of the reasons that I got elected was we have a business person, and if you look at what's happening, we're beating everybody, we're beating China, we're beating every single country. We're the envy of the world, and AI, whether it's good or bad, we have it --
Let's talk about that --
And we are leading by so much, we're, you know, I'm letting all of these big plants. Everyone said, well, we don't have the energy to compete. I came up, and this was something I'm proud of. I did it myself. I said, I came up with this idea. I let each plant build their own electricity. They become a utility, but these massive plants that are being built, they can't go off an old grid, so we wouldn't have anybody.
We literally wouldn't have anything. We need double the energy, double the electricity that we have right now to do that, just that one AI industry. So I let the plants, as they build these billions and billions of dollars of plants, I let them build their own electric generating plants, and they build them on top, they build them on the side, they build them separately, and we have nothing but electricity.
If you really look, we have more than anybody. If I didn't come up with that concept, we wouldn't have, we would not be in first place. We wouldn't even be, we'd be in last place. We wouldn't have any. We don't have enough from the old grid.
What about taking --
So I'm sort of proud of that.
Reportedly, Sam Altman is discussing giving the government a 5% stake in OpenAI. Is that -- is that possible? And is that true? And would other AI companies do similar things, or would you like them to?
Well I did something with Intel --
Right.
That a lot of people don't know about and talk about, but it was, I, you know, they had problems with things, and they got hurt badly, because no president ever charged tariffs, and Taiwan literally took 100% of the business, almost. Mostly Taiwan, but South Korea a little bit. But mostly Taiwan. And I said, boy, if I was president, that would have never happened.
Taiwan would never be in the position they're in. Now, of course, you know, they're a little bit of a tenuous position, and I have them all moving back. They're all moving back into this country. We have -- we're going to have 40 to 50 to 60% of the chips, I think, by the time -- or pretty close to the time I leave office.
They're building chip factories in Arizona, in particular, the biggest company in the world is building. They're leaving Taiwan -- meaning to build this -- they're building their biggest plant, and I think we're going to have a big percentage of chips. Right now, you know, we had virtually nothing. We didn't make chips anymore.
And Intel came in. They had a problem. I said, I can solve your problem, but I want 10% of the company. They said, what? I said, I want 10% of the company. And he agreed to -- and the stock has gone through -- so I think we made 60 or $70 billion in eight months. Do I get credit for that? No. Somebody said that's not very American.
I said, no, I think it is very American, actually. And I've done that with other deals where --
I think they had a loan anyway from the Chips Act and they announced --
Well -- yeah.
Now it's better to have equity than a loan, you would think, for the country.
Well, they -- it worked out well from our standpoint.
Right. That's what I mean, yeah.
We really had no investment. We had -- what zero investment we made about, I guess, $70 billion in a period of eight or nine months. But that's a great thing. What's happened is Intel has gone through the roof. You know, it's one of the hottest companies, and they've done a great job.
Has -- is Chinese AI -- is it catching up, and do you need -- are there some new restrictions you're thinking about that would make sense on technology --
Well, you need some guard rails, but you want to do as little as possible. You want to be good. We have -- when we think there's a bad player out there, there's a little danger, we stop the player quickly and effectively. We had a recent case where we did that. But you have to be -- look, you have to be in the game.
AI is bigger than the internet. I've never seen anything -- you know, the internet was a big deal. I think this is much bigger than the internet, and I'm basing it on numbers. I'm basing -- I've never seen anything. Look, I went through the internet thing, and I watched, and I saw it grow very effectively.
But this could be bigger. If we're not competing, and if we're going to compete, because I really think whoever's number one is going to really win the race. And right now, we're substantially number one.
The -- I'm trying to do as much as we can.
You can go ahead.
I hope that's okay.
If he needs a little more time, just relax. I'm not Kamala. They give her -- they give them four minutes, and then start screaming at them.
That housing bill --
Don't be nervous, okay?
I'm only in the Oval Office with -- no I'm not.
He's been my friend for a long time, and he's a good man too.
In a few days, it's going to become law one way or the other -- the housing bill, right? You going to sign it? Will it become law? Where do you stand on that? Is that -- I know you called it -- I don't think you were necessarily anti-housing bill. You called -- because you think what's really important is --
SAVE America Act, yeah.
Is SAVE.
So, I think the SAVE America Act is the most important thing that we have -- that we'll have before us. And maybe for many years back and many years forward. It's voter identification with a photo, so you look at somebody. Yeah, that looks like that guy. Voter ID, it's proof of citizenship, and it's no mail-in ballots, except for the military.
We're very generous on this. If you're sick, if you're just not feeling well, you can get exceptions. If there's a disability, there's some problem, or if you go on vacation. But you can't send in millions and millions and millions of ballots where you swamp the place. And it's so corrupt. We're the only country in the world that does it, so it's those three things.
I also had no men in women's sports, but we won that yesterday in the Supreme Court. And I also had no transgender mutilization [sic] of children, and frankly, we will win that too. So I took them out --
You let the housing --
So I have the three things.
Will you let it go, though? Housing?
Well --
You wouldn't veto it would you?
So nobody knows more about housing than I do. I made billions and billions of dollars with housing. And I know exactly what they've done. They maybe made zoning easier, but maybe they made it tougher without knowing. You know, it's very complex stuff, but the housing bill is fine. There's a lot of Democrat points in there that I don't even think are good, but it's fine.
But I've made the case, I'd rather not sign anything until we sign the SAVE America Act --
You think through reconciliation or --
Because SAVE America --
Or filibuster or --
Because if you do SAVE America, you're not going to have cheating --
But practically, how do we get there on SAVE America? What would you like Majority Leader Thune to --
Well, I would like them to get it passed. What I'd really like is for them to --
Filibuster.
Kill the filibuster. Terminate the filibuster. When they terminate the filibuster, then they'll immediately prove -- approve the SAVE America, and 100 other things. You could sit down all day long and just vote, and you'd have it. And the sad part is, we probably have five or six senators that won't vote for it, Republican senators and all of the Democrats.
So their policy is no good the Democrats. I call them the Democrats, because their policies are so bad. But, the one thing they -- unfortunately they stick together. They don't have --
Well, we'll see --
And Mitch McConnell.
We will see. The Democratic party's got their own issues right now. We will talk about that a little later, too.
They do, but it is a different kind of issue. When they vote on something --
Yeah. Oh they -- like the --
Look at the Supreme Court justices. The three Supreme Court justices, every vote it's for or against, it's 100%. I don't think they had any dissension. Where's our people? Yeah, no. It's almost -- and I've said it -- Republicans want to show everybody how they're not controlled, how they're so honorable, whereas the Democrat justices and judges, by the way, and judges -- they get up, Barack Hussein Obama appointed me, and I'm voting for him.
Republicans don't do that. And I'm amazed. I'm not saying it has to be a loyalty test, but it's much different. The three justices vote as a block. I think I can remember one time, but very, very seldom do they not vote as a block. Whereas our people, and we have six, but they move around a little bit, and they -- for instance, birthright citizenship.
I should have won that. That wasn't meant for billionaires from China bringing a child over, becoming an American citizen, and far worse than that, much worse than that.
The last word is not out on that either.
It was a terrible -- I'll tell you, the worst vote was tariffs. I'm doing the same tariffs, but I have -- now it's much tougher. Joe, I stopped eight wars because of tariffs -- India, Pakistan. I mean, I did so many -- I stopped eight wars. Everybody acknowledges it. And five of the eight were stopped because of tariffs.
I said, if you keep fighting, I'm going to put a 200% tariff on your country. Said the same thing to the other. I did it with India and with Pakistan. 11 planes were shut down. They were going to war and they are nuclear nations -- strong nuclear nations. And the Prime Minister of Pakistan said President Trump saved at least 30 million lives by stopping this war.
You know what has been a really good indicator of what's happening in the war in Iran, or whatever the conflict -- is oil. And regardless of what we hear from whomever has the stage in Iran -- you've pointed out we don't know who's talking at any given time, there's different factions --
Well, we killed one group --
And then another.
We killed the second level --
But 67, $68 oil.
We're down to lower than we were before.
It shows you that probably even though we have these skirmishes on both sides -- and I don't know whether that continues. I don't know whether you can tell me whether that continues -- have you been close to doing more than just a reciprocal move on them?
Well, I think I've done much more than reciprocal.
Right, but you want diplomacy. You want diplomacy at this point.
Look, I built the military my first term. I'm using it in my second term. When I went in, otherwise we wouldn't have -- and that's after Biden gave so much away in Afghanistan. He just said, leave it. We left brand new military vehicles, we left tanks, we left airplanes. These people are crazy. They don't know what they're doing, and there was no reason to do it. Getting out of Afghanistan was fine, but they should have kept Bagram, the Air Force base.
They could have kept it very easily. We would have gotten out with dignity and strength. We shouldn't have been there in the first place, or we could have won. I would have won it. I would have won it, or gotten out, but I would have won it. But they just teetered around. You know, it's interesting. So we're in the war, and it's really the denuclearization of Iran.
This is not a war per se. This is the de-nuking of Iran. You can't let them have a nuclear weapon. And I'm doing it for three and a half, four months, right? Look at Venezuela, that was a one-day war. And we've gotten our money back many, many times over for the cost of the war. But in a certain way, I'm doing just as well with Iran.
It's a much bigger, more complex situation. Our relationship, by the way, with Venezuela is great. They're doing better than they've ever done with oil. The big companies are moving in, and we're getting a good chunk of it too, as we should. But with Iran --
What if they jerk you around -- what if they jerk us around again with either the Strait or with the -- you know, they know the midterms are coming --
Well, yeah. Because they've had their own way for 47 years. Like if you're a spoiled child and you've had your way for many years with your parents, and all of a sudden they come down hard on you, it takes you a little while to get used to it. They've had their way for 47 years. They pushed everywhere. They were known as the bully of the Middle East.
They pushed the countries around, and they pushed the United States around, because we had presidents that weren't willing to do -- look, Barack Obama paid them to try and keep them in line. Gave them 1.7 billion in cash. You remember that, because you reported that. They put it in a beautiful 757 Boeing.
They took all the seats out and they stuffed it with green cash from Virginia, Maryland, and DC. The banks had no money left. They literally took every -- and they delivered it to Iran, and they took out satchels and sacks of money. In addition to that, they paid tens of billions of dollars and you know what they got?
They got a lot of nuclear research, and a lot of weapons, and a lot of missiles, and an enemy. They actually went on the other side, and how a Jewish person can vote for a Democrat is beyond me.
Well, let's talk --
Because I've been the best president in the history of Israel, and they acknowledge -- and by the way, in Israel I think I was at 99% or something, but Joe, you can't let Iran -- whether it's Israel, the Middle East, or not -- you can't let Iran have a nuclear weapon. And when you say maybe I'm a little bit nice, no other presidents even thought of doing what I did.
So, in my first little while there, I ripped their military apart. They have no navy, they have no air force, they have no radar, their leaders are all dead. And they elect -- not elect -- they raise new leaders. They're all dead also. We're on the third set of leaders, and we actually get along with them.
I think they're much more rational. By the way, I think that's regime change, but I'm not looking for regime change. I'm looking for something very simple. They cannot have a nuclear weapon. Or if you want to see market disruption -- so think of it. The oil today is at $68, the market is up to almost 53,000. The S&P, they said the S&P would never hit 7000. Never.
I did that in 10 months. They said I would never hit it during my term. They said I'd never hit 50,000 during my term --
We spoke --
And nobody else would --
You asked me if I --
But Joe, and they said nobody else either. They said if I could get to --
This is a pragmatic end. I said that to you when you asked me -- that this is a pragmatic end. You're not going to be in a forever war --
That's true.
And there are other concerns, but --
Joe, wait just a second. We were in Vietnam for 19 years, we were in Afghanistan for like 10 years, we were in the Korean War forever. We were in -- I don't even mention World War I and World War II, they're biggies. But you know what? Stuff like this could have led to it. But we were in many, many years in every war.
I've been there for four months. And what have I done? I've defeated them militarily. They're totally defeated militarily. They have some missiles left, we could wipe them out too. And I hit them three times last week very hard, because they sent a drone into a ship, I hit them. Then they did something else, and I hit them.
I hit them three nights in a row, the week before I hit them two nights in a row, very hard. And we're negotiating, and we'll see whether or not. I think they've agreed to just about everything we need.
Now, do you -- I'm going to switch gears completely, and we have assets left over there. If necessary, you're willing to do what's necessary.
We have all the assets. Now they are just waiting --
And you're not anticipating another full --
Joe, I did a blockade that was essentially not a blockade, it was a wall of steel. We have the great Navy, the greatest navy in the world. These guys are unbelievable. Not one ship got through to Iran. They have 300% inflation, they're making no money. So we're going to take some of the money, and we're going to buy them.
They need food. They need corn, and wheat, and soybeans, and we're going to have exclusively our American farmers provide that. Assuming we get to the position where we should get to. I think we're going to get there. They have -- their strength is gone, their bravado is gone, although they keep a pretty good friend -- the one thing they do have is fake news.
The New York Times said the other day that Iran is in better position now than it was four months ago. I said, wait a minute, their military is gone. Their inflation is up to 300% from 5%. Their leaders are gone. Their second row of leaders are gone. Some of their third row of leaders are gone. Their generals are mostly wiped out.
But they said that they are in better shape today than they were four months ago, before we attacked. Now we were very strong. And you know, look, I always said I don't want to be a president with a depression on his resume. I don't want to be Herbert Hoover. Of almost all presidents, and some have been bad, some have been good, very few have been great, but I never want to be Herbert Hoover.
Because Herbert Hoover was the president that probably took us into the Great -- the Great Depression, the Greatest Depression. Led the whole world there. He raised interest rates, and he raised taxes simultaneously. I guess he was trying to do something, but that didn't work out too well. By the way, you know what took us 30 years to get out of it. FDR didn't get us out of it. There's a picture right there, FDR, nice picture.
Took us years to get out of it. I don't ever want to be in a depression. I don't want to be a president that oversees the great worldwide depression. That was Herbert Hoover, and it was a terrible thing, and he made a mistake. Now, if I want to be the tough guy and close up the Strait for the next years, where 21% or whatever it might be, 20% 21% of the oil never comes out, and you can't get oil anymore -- you know, what a lot of people don't know one of the reasons it only went up -- it went up to like $115 If you remember.
And I've seen guests on your show where they go, oil will be $350 a barrel, and there'll be a depression, because at 350 there's a depression. It's automatic, it goes with it. I said we got to do something. We did something nobody knew. Every night, we were taking ships out through the South, which is the furthest point from where they have their little weapons, and they were going along the coast with no lights for a month and a half, a lot of ships came out.
We had one night where we took 22 ships out. That's a lot of oil. Those are big ships, some of them are really big ships. And in a way, they had courage going out. But our navy took them out. We escorted them out, and nobody knew. The lights were off, everything was off, everything was silent. We blew up Iran's radar, they had no radar, they still don't. We blew it up again the other night.
They had a nice new radar, they were all set to go, and we blew it up last week. They have to start all over again for a third time.
I'm going to switch. Have you talked --
But Joe, that kept, I think, other things, too --
It never went up as much as --
But you don't think of it, we, did we ever get above 115 --
It never went up as, it --
Think of it.
Originally it was at 115, it came down quickly --
No, but they thought it was going to go to 300 --
150, some of the stock markets were up there.
If you have 300, then I become Herbert Hoover. I don't want to be Herbert Hoover.
Did, have you spoken to Elon since he became a trillionaire and --
I haven't. You know, I wrote him a note. I said, "Congratulations, very good. I have a very good relationship with Elon. Elon and I had a little dispute because he backed me 100%. He liked me, still likes me. But I did a little thing called the electric mandate. We're not going to have an electric mandate where everybody has to have an electric car, where your beautiful son, standing over there, is mandated to have an electric car, if he wants gas generated or gasoline generated, or a hybrid.
And I made so many speeches that Elon was there for many of them, and I'd always say we will not have the electric mandate, but when I actually did it, Elon was not thrilled about that, and I can understand it, but he's doing good.
Yeah, he's moved on. Do you think, have you talked to him about donating SpaceX to something you might want to talk about, donating SpaceX stock to Trump Accounts?
Well, I think that he will do that? Micron, which is a great company --
I saw that.
Just did it. Michael Dell is a fantastic guy, he did 6 billion 250 --
You're ringing the bell next week or something for --
And I'm ringing the bell right here I think. They're gonna have a bell, and it's New York Stock Exchange and NASDAQ. I said, what do you mean they don't do both?
You're invited to the NASDAQ, if you want to --
Well, they, well, that's interesting. It's very interesting. No, they're doing it together. It's the first time --
I don't know if I can do that. I have a --
No, but you know what they're doing?
Yeah.
I was surprised they're doing it together. New York Stock Exchange, I think Jeff is coming in and the head of NASDAQ is coming in, and we're doing it together. See, it can happen.
That that's --
We're doing it. See this spot right here, the bell is going to be right there.
That brings me just back to 250 and and how you think you can set us up for, for the next 50 years, and one of the things I think is, I, you know, Secretary Bessent talked about the Trump doctrine, there were, there were five things, and I think we got to have national capacity here for anything we need, we need to have, we need to be able to get it here, reciprocity, we can't be, you know, it can't be flowing one way to --
We can't be stupid people.
We got to write the rules for the new technology, which is what that's AI. Dollar's got to stay strong, we need financial leadership, but maybe most importantly, it's all got to flow up and down to every American needs to participate --
That's right, right.
In the prosperity here. Trump Accounts, I think it's the big leap towards, I mean, it's a novel way. We haven't even considered it in the past. Might be the most powerful, instead of just transfer payments.
It's a beautiful thing. It's a child has had no money, and when that baby becomes a man or a woman, they can have hundreds of thousands of dollars, maybe more, but they can have hundreds of thousands of dollars, because we're seeding it, and guys like Michael Dell and Susan, his wife, they were so, so strong for it, but think of it, he's putting up 6 billion 250 million, that's, that's tremendous amount of, I don't care how rich you are, that's a lot of money, and he wants to do it again, and others are so again, I just spoke, literally just spoke yesterday to Micron.
Hot company, great guy, what a great guy, and he said we're putting up 250 million into the Trump Accounts. So many companies are doing it, and I mean kids that won't have any money when they turn 18 or 21 have a chance of being sort of rich. It's an amazing thing, and it's been very successful.
Do you have a favorite president, or do you think there's a period that was so formative that, have we lost our way in any respects --
We have --
You think at this point.
We have. We've had some very bad presidents. The president has got tremendous power in this country, even before the decision that I got slaughter to go with the slaughter decision, which is an interesting name, but that's a very powerful decision. But it gave a lot more power to the president, but it has been a strong presidency, not just me. It's been a strong presidency.
It's considered a strong office, you know. Other presidents are not considered a strong office, even if you're president, you can't do as much. But now, with this additional, I mean, it's, it's very special. We are respected again as a country, maybe like never before. A year and a half ago, we were laughed at. They're not laughing anymore.
They respect us. The King of Saudi Arabia told me, and I said this numerous times. He said it, but many people said it. He said, President. A year and a half ago, America was dead. They thought it was dead, and right now you have the hottest country anywhere in the world, and we do.
Well, let's hope for another 250 like that.
Thank you.
We're on a good start. Thank you, Mr. President.
Thank you Joe very much. Great job.
Thank you. Happy Semiquincentennial --
Happy something right? Thank you.
You're welcome. Thank you.