President Donald Trump spoke with Brian Kilmeade in a wide ranging interview about accepting the results of the election, mail in ballots, Hunter Biden, next week’s debate moderated by Chris Wallace, Michael Bloomberg paying off felons debts in Florida so they can vote, nominating a Supreme Court Justice to replace Ruth Bader Ginsburg and the latest 2020 polls.
Full transcript
BRIAN KILMEADE, FOX RADIO HOST: So, let’s welcome in the President of the United States. Mr. President, thanks so much for your time.
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Well, thank you, Brian. Hi.
KILMEADE: I’m doing good. I guess you have to be heartened by what you’re seeing in the polls. The Washington Post-ABC poll comes together and they have you up four with likely voters in Florida, dead heat in Arizona and a big increase in Hispanic support.
What’s going on?
TRUMP: Well, that’s the first time in four years that I’ve ever had a poll that had me up, ABC-Washington Post. They had me 12 down four years ago with a week to go. And then they had me even the day of the election. But, they had me 12 down with The Washington Post-ABC poll, I have never had a good poll. Almost as bad as Fox, Fox is one of the worst of all.
But, the Washington News (sic) is a terrible poll. Oh, that’s nice, they have me up in Florida, which we are. And I think we’re way up in Arizona. You said Arizona, but I think we’re way up in Arizona, too. But if they have us even in Arizona or up a little bit in Arizona, I guess they have us one up in Arizona, then I would say that that’s a first, because I’ve never been up anywhere.
I — if — if they did a poll on Alabama, where I’m 38 up, they would say it’s even. So, I’m heartened.
KILMEADE: Right. Well I’ll tell you what, the one thing is pretty clear. You’re heading in the right direction, your camp is heading in the right direction, closing everywhere. At the same time, you can’t salt away Chicago — excuse me, Chicago — Georgia or Iowa yet and you need both those in your column.
TRUMP: Oh, I think that Iowa will — we’re way up and I think that in Georgia we’re way up, from what I’m hearing. I mean, I’m hearing Georgia’s good. But we had the same thing last time.
Georgia’s in play and, you know, we won it like immediately, easily. And Iowa we won by 11 points, and I’ve done nothing but do good for Iowa, you know, the farmers have been incredible with — with me.
KILMEADE: Right.
TRUMP: I think that — I mean I’ve only seen positive polls in Iowa. Have you seen a negative one? I haven’t.
KILMEADE: No, I saw a — I saw a dead heat yesterday. But just that — those are just polls.
TRUMP: I don’t believe it (ph).
KILMEADE: It — it shows a trend.
TRUMP: Sleepy Joe doesn’t believe in ethanol, he doesn’t believe in anything. I don’t — I don’t see it. But, you never know. You never know.
KILMEADE: So, you’re going to be at Cecil Airport —
TRUMP: There’s only one poll that counts, as the expression goes.
KILMEADE: Right. You’ll be at Cecil Airport today in Jacksonville, Florida around 4 o’clock.
TRUMP: Right.
KILMEADE: So, you can still get those tickets there online. We’ve got a great affiliate, WOKV, is excited, I understand.
TRUMP: Oh, good.
KILMEADE: They’re getting a lot of people who are excited to see you. Just a quick thing on the Fox poll, if you met them, you would like them. They just have a science and approach to it. I know you don’t agree with, but I — they’re great people. Just real quick, yesterday you created —
TRUMP: I might like them, but they’re incompetent. Brian, they were one of the — the most far off of all polls. They don’t like me, I can tell you that. But — so you know, what can I tell you. The worst poll is usually Fox.
Fox, Washington Post, ABC. That’s why when they have me up it’s sort of shocking. And then you have some good polls, Rasmussen has been one of the most accurate. They had today — I think they come out with 52, that I’m 52 percent nationwide.
KILMEADE: Wow. With approval. So, Mr. President, yesterday you created some news, as you usually do. One of the things you said when asked about if you lose the election will you accept the result.
You said, well, we’re going to have to see what happens. You know, I’ve been complaining very strongly about the ballots and the ballots are a disaster. Many think you are saying we’re going — you’re not — if you do lose, you’ll never, ever leave. That’s not what you’re saying.
We just spoke to Lindsey Graham. He said, we have to — we have every reason to contend anything that might be controversial. And I’ll paraphrase, he said if it gets to the Supreme Court and they decide Joe Biden won, Joe Biden won. Do you agree with that?
TRUMP: Oh, that I would agree with but I think we have a long way before we get there. These ballots are a horror show. They found six ballots in an office yesterday in a garbage can.
They were Trump ballots — eight ballots in an office yesterday in — but in a certain state and they were — they had Trump written on it, and they were thrown in a garbage can. This is what’s going to happen.
This is what’s going to happen, and we’re investigating that. It’s a terrible thing that’s going on with these ballots. Who’s sending them, where are they sending them, where are they going, what areas are they going to, what areas are they not going to?
KILMEADE: Right. And —
TRUMP: When they get there, who’s going to take care of them? So, when we find eight ballots, that’s emblematic of thousands of locations perhaps.
KILMEADE: But people just get concerned about a constitutional —
TRUMP: And it’s a very (inaudible) very serious —
KILMEADE: People get concerned about a constitutional crisis if you or Joe (ph) —
TRUMP: Well, remember crooked Hilary Clinton a week ago, she said to Joe Biden, don’t concede under any circumstances, do not concede under any — never concede, OK? Now, nobody does a story about that, right? But she said that last week. You covered it.
KILMEADE: Right.
TRUMP: And the words were don’t concede under any circumstances. Well, it’s OK for her to say that, but if I say, well, I want the ballots to be fair —
KILMEADE: Right.
TRUMP: — they make a big deal out of it. Not — it’s not right, it’s just the same old double standard. It’s — I look at Hunter Biden today where he stole millions of dollars, stole millions. His father should leave the campaign because his father was in on it. His father knew everything.
His father — far more than we thought in Ukraine, far more than we thought in China and now other countries are at it. And look at what’s going on. And the newspapers don’t even want to write about it expect The New York Post has it on the front page, which is great. Good old “New York Post” is great. They’re actually —
KILMEADE: Well —
TRUMP: They should get — they should get the Pulitzer.
KILMEADE: Well, I’ll tell you what, I know it’s going to be brought up. Ron Johnson, the Democrats are questioning his integrity. I don’t really know many people who had done that before.
But he said that he investigated over a period of time into Hunter Biden’s relationship with somebody who was close to the former Mayor of Moscow on down. It’s very complicated.
TRUMP: Yes.
KILMEADE: It’s worth the read. On the ballots real quick —
TRUMP: Well, the mayor’s wife of Moscow gave him $3.5 million cash to Hunter Biden.
KILMEADE: So —
TRUMP: OK? And that’s a very powerful position, and he’s a very powerful guy, gave Hunter $3.5 million, his wife.
KILMEADE: But do you — so do you —
TRUMP: I mean — and they don’t — and Ron Johnson, this is what the Democrats do, they scare everybody. Nobody’s got guts. Nobody has any guts. They scare everybody, that’s why they’re not prosecuted like they should be. They’re very good at it.
They scare — they don’t scare me but they go after me like crazy — they go after my kids, they go after my family. They failed in Washington; they send it to New York. They say go after him. It’s a disgrace. They are really a disgrace. But they go around scaring everybody. Ron Johnson had guts. Other people don’t have guts.
And the Republican Party is just sort of developing a little courage. But here’s a guy who stole millions. His father was in on it. Consider Ron Johnson — consider this, consider what Ron Johnson has done is incredible because he had courage, and he found all the stuff that people were hearing about.
And instead of saying thank you very much, they call him corrupt. I mean, it’s like unbelievable. No, it’s Joe Biden is corrupt because his son got the money, he knew it and he knew his son was getting all this money from China, from Ukraine and other places.
But we’re not talking about the numbers that we heard about, we’re talking about millions. But now Russia’s involved. They say I have a relationship with Russia, which I don’t and didn’t. I didn’t have a relationship. He got $3.5 million from Russia.
KILMEADE: So, Mr. President, let’s move onto another area which kind of relates to this. You spent an hour with Chris Wallace, and you spent probably another half hour off camera. It was a hundred degrees, you did an hour on Fox News Sunday, Chris Wallace is going to be the moderator there. In what role do you think that experience will play in the success that you may or may not have on Tuesday for 90 minutes?
TRUMP: No role, I mean, I’ve done many interviews with Chris. I have Chris’s all time record in ratings, numerous times actually, but I get good ratings when I do Chris. So,Chris likes me because it’s all about ratings, your world is about ratings. If you don’t have ratings, you do very well. If you – I’d do you anyway, but you do very well, but if you don’t have ratings, you can forget about that business.
So, I’ve always gotten very – but I have his all time record by far in ratings. And Chris is good, but I think I would be willing to bet that he won’t ask Biden tough questions. He’ll ask me tough questions, and it’ll show – it’ll be unfair, I have no doubt about it. But he’ll be controlled by the radical left. That’s what – they control him.
KILMEADE: Yes.
TRUMP: Because they’ll be concerned. I guarantee you he won’t – and I have a lot of respect for Chris, I do, I have a lot of respect. His father was actually a friend of mine, as much as Mike could be a friend of anybody. He did me, I think twice on 60 Minutes and they were both good, but – which was shocking because Mike very rarely did good. I have the honor of having – one was a phenomenal piece actually, people couldn’t believe it.
KILMEADE: Mr. President, and it’s on YouTube, Mr. President, I will tell you for sure he is not controlled by anyone, Chris Wallace.
TRUMP: OK.
KILMEADE: But —
(CROSSTALK)
TRUMP: Let’s see, then he’s got to ask tough questions of Biden.
KILMEADE: That’s true, do you think that you could —
TRUMP: Because added it — well, I had it last year where ABC was asking Hillary Clinton these little powder puff questions and they were going after me. I said, I thought I was debating one person, not two.
KILMEADE: But does it give you an advantage? When you – one of the categories it says, the Trump and Biden records. You know what Chris is – Chris went after you, not went after you, but to – questioned you on your record. And Joe Biden does not have that experience with Chris Wallace specifically, or I think even the Biden camp would say with anybody.
So, do you think that gives you an advantage?
TRUMP: So, Biden advantage (ph). No, I think I’m the one without experience, I’ve just been doing this for a few years, he’s been doing it for 47 years plus. And he has a tremendous advantage, really, if you think about it, but I have a much better record than he does.
I’ve done things, the best employment numbers, the best economic numbers, the best of everything. Now we’re doing them again, you know, we close it up, we saved millions of lives, now we’re doing it again. But no, I mean, the guy with the advantage is Sleepy Joe Biden because look, he’s been doing it for 47 years.
Now, he has a situation coming out where his son and him because it’s not the son, it’s son and him, he knew everything, stole money from Russia. This just came out, 3.5 million bucks they got. And he was in charge of Russia. And then you wonder – then they say that I’m soft on Russia; I’m actually the toughest there ever has been on Russia. I guarantee you Putin would say that, I guarantee you that Putin would say that behind the scenes he tells his people with the sanctions and all the things that I’ve done and the pipeline to Germany.
KILMEADE: Did your (ph) – your former people?
TRUMP: What?
KILMEADE: Your former Director of National Intelligence, Coats, said that he thinks that, he doesn’t have proof, but he thinks that Russia has something on you.
TRUMP: Dan is a stiff. Dan would sit there all day long in a meeting, and he would never say anything. All of a sudden he becomes this guy. Dan was not suited for the job. Dan was a very low key guy, I can’t even believe he’d say a thing like that but that’s OK. Dan was not a – he was a mistake, he didn’t do anything. He was a stiff.
KILMEADE: Right.
TRUMP: He was a stiff. I — if somebody says about me like that, I have – at least I have the privilege of hitting them back. Dan was – they ran that department, now we have somebody fantastic, John Ratcliffe, and before that we had somebody, you know, on a temporary basis —
KILMEADE: Rick Grenell.
TRUMP: Rick was so great. I mean, what he revealed, and this took place during Dan’s tenure. Dan didn’t report anything. Dan just did whatever the — the deep staters wanted him to and Rick Grenell went in there, he cleaned the — you know, he largely cleaned out the place and now John Ratcliffe is doing a good job now.
Dan — Dan was recommended by somebody, he just wasn’t a good recommendation. It — it — he didn’t do the job. He didn’t do the job.
KILMEADE: Right. Mr. President —
TRUMP: A lot of things took place that he should have been — he should have revealed about the previous administration. He didn’t reveal that they spied on my campaign. He didn’t reveal that.
KILMEADE: So, let me ask you about, you’re going to be in Florida today in Jacksonville, but Mike Bloomberg —
TRUMP: Yes.
KILMEADE: — made some news when he decided to pay all the debts of all the felons in Florida, making them eligible to vote.
TRUMP: Yes, sure.
KILMEADE: Now, the Attorney of General of Florida was just on Fox and Friends and said they’re going to do an investigation, because he’s not just doing this, that she believes she’s going to investigate whether she’s actually telling — if he’s pushing them how to vote, not just making them eligible to vote.
TRUMP: It’s a criminal act. It’s a — it’s — it’s – hey, look, Mike Bloomberg got on stage and made a fool out of himself, Mini Mike, and he blew almost $2 billion, couldn’t answer the first question.
He was hit by Pocahontas like nobody’s ever been hit. Well, I get hit like that all the time. You have to be able to respond. He choked and he couldn’t talk. And he’s dying to get back into the Democrat Party, so he’s putting up money. But the problem is, it’s totally illegal what he did. I guess it’s a felony. He’s actually giving money to people — he’s paying people to vote.
He’s actually saying, here’s money, now you go ahead and vote for only Democrats, right? You vote for Dem — or vote against Trump, because you know, because I reveal things about Bloomberg, and he didn’t like it. And there’s a whole thing about his company that comes out and that people that are talking about.
You know, he did a lot of things while he was a mayor of New York City to build up that company, and people should look at that. But, Mike — what Mike did with this was, you know, it’s politics 101, let’s say, but — but what Mike did is — it’s a total criminal act.
KILMEADE: And they’re going to take a look at it.
TRUMP: They don’t go after them, because you know, Democrats get away with stuff. But, I think Republicans are getting tougher. Republicans have to get tougher. We have better policy, but we — we are — I mean, we have some unbelievable warriors, like Jim Jordan and others that — that have been — Mark Meadows has been incredible. He’s doing a great job, by the way.
KILMEADE: Right. Mr. President —
TRUMP: But, we have the people that — you know, it’s just a different — it’s just a different kind of a thing. What happened, by the way — and — and I didn’t see one story in the major papers about Biden’s son and Biden stealing $1.5 million from Russia.
KILMEADE: The Ukraine story did not get much play yesterday, no doubt about it. Breonna Taylor did. Her death is a tragedy, everybody knows it. She did nothing in the house, was shot six times by three officers, who we understand had a no-knock warrant, but did knock. When they were fired upon, they fired back, these — the 12-person grand jury came back and said, only one officer will be charged with three counts and it was not for shooting Breonna Taylor.
There were demonstrations from New York City, where 2,000 people came out, but the big one was in Louisville, Kentucky. The National Guard was called out. Two cops were shot. Where were you — what do you think as we watch this again, a city burn after a verdict?
TRUMP: Yes. Well, it’s a Democrat governor. He’s a good guy, I spoke to him last night, and I said, whatever we can do we’ll — we’ll get in there and do whatever you want. They called up — he called up his National Guard, which was a very good move and so I think he’s doing it right. But I said, if you need any help, we’ll get — we’ll close it down for you if you want.
All of these people I say – call us, but I think he’s going to do well. I think – he’s got a lot of, you know, force in there as opposed to like Portland where they’re afraid to call up anybody, although they’re getting a little tougher after six months of being beat up.
But it’s a Democrat governor but we are – we’re working with him in one way and in another way we’ve told him, I told him, we had a very good call last night, and I told him that if he needs any help, if he needs unlimited manpower or man/womanpower, we will be there.
KILMEADE: So, Mr. President when you see situations like this from Kenosha on down, even though there seems to be an organization behind, there’s some real sense of distrust in the justice system among African-American – in the African-American community. No one’s blaming you, it’s been there.
How do we bring the country together to unite and try to get this solved and address everyone’s concerns while — without burning the cities down, without the violence? How do we do that without vilifying police? What role do you – can you play in that process?
TRUMP: Well, a very big role. Look, I went to Kenosha, I was the one that stopped the violence, I’m the one that has Wisconsin and all of these states, Florida, and Texas and every state virtually.
By the way, New York’s Finest endorsed me. They’ve never endorsed a presidential candidate before, they didn’t think it was something they should be doing, they endorsed me. Chicago police endorsed me, Florida endorsed me, everybody. I mean, all law enforcement endorsed me. In Kenosha, I saved it because fortunately after a short while, a number of days, they asked if we would get involved, if we – we went in and stopped it very quickly. Just like we did in Minneapolis, unfortunately that was two weeks before they asked us to come in.
Every place we’ve gone – we were going into Seattle the following day, they knew that, we let them know and they gave up. So, they took back Seattle, it’s the craziest thing.
KILMEADE: On the cop issue I get it and I think they really feel as though – they feel honor for your support but on the race issue —
TRUMP: OK, you ready?
KILMEADE: — I think you — yes, ready. Tell me (ph).
TRUMP: So, we were doing it. It was really being done and I’m now going to the Supreme Court, so I have to get off a little bit soon but —
KILMEADE: I know you got to run.
TRUMP: — but let me just say I’m going over to meet with – to pay my respects and see the justices I guess, but I have to go. Just so you understand, we were having an unbelievable success until the China plague came in. People were calling me, Democrats like you wouldn’t believe. We had full employment; we were down to less than 3.5 percent unemployment, 160 million people working. Ever body had a job, everybody was happy, companies are pouring in, everything was good.
We were beating China like a drum. Everything was good. And then the plague came, and we had to close it down. And now we’re opening it up but we closed it down, Brian, we saved millions of lives. We would have lost two and a half, three million lives. We’re 200,000, a little more, it’s terrible that – but we would have lost millions of lives. You see this – if we would have just kept it open if somebody didn’t make the decision. I did the ban on China, I did the ban on Europe, all of that, but we were – for the first I’ve seen in 30 years, people were calling me that would never have called a Republican president.
We were starting to get there and you know what the answer was, success. We were having such success, the country was coming together.
KILMEADE: Right, I know you’ve got to run.
TRUMP: And then we got hit with the plague.
KILMEADE: But I just — on the Supreme Court Justice where you’re going right now, what would it take for your nominee not to be Amy Coney Barrett, it seems you already met with her —
TRUMP: Well, I don’t want to say who it is. You don’t know that it’s her. She’s highly – I mean, she’s an incredible person, brilliant and everything else. I mean, it is a woman, I’ve had — I have five women that I’m very much looking at. I have — I think in my mind I have one that I — I like them all. I mean, to be honest, I could put any of the five. They’re all genius but —
KILMEADE: Will you have a meeting in Miami with Barbara Lagoa?
TRUMP: I don’t really know yet, maybe, maybe not. I don’t know yet. But there’s been tremendous false reporting. Just not intentionally or anything but they have a — they have me meeting with people that I really wasn’t meeting with. But I’ll be making a decision on Saturday, and it’ll be announced at 5 o’clock.
And you’re invited and a lot of your media friends are invited. And I think it’s going to be a tremendous thing for our country, and I think it’s going to go fast. The Republican Party is extremely united. I think it’s going to go very, very quickly. Very, very quickly.
KILMEADE: Looks like Lisa Murkowski could be onboard or more open to doing this now —
TRUMP: Looks like it. Well, I heard that. That’ll be nice. That would be a nice thing. I think it would be very hard to vote against this person.
KILMEADE: Right. So, your staff doesn’t get mad at me —
TRUMP: I think it’d be very, very hard (ph).
KILMEADE: So your staff doesn’t get mad at me, I’m going to get you out when they ask me to. But tonight Jacksonville, Florida, if you want to see the president in person, Cecil Airport, 13365 Simpson Way, big open area.
TRUMP: Brian, we’re having rallies the likes of which nobody’s ever seen before in Pennsylvania, in North Carolina. The other one — the other night, you see pictures of these. People don’t —
KILMEADE: Right.
TRUMP: — report that but that’s OK. We have rallies of 25, 30, 40,000 people and the only thing that stops it is the size of an airport.
KILMEADE: Well, we covered most of it. Mr. President, have a great day on behalf of our audience. Thanks so much for your time. Best of luck —
TRUMP: Thank you —
KILMEADE: — the rest of the way.
TRUMP: — Brian.
KILMEADE: You got it.
TRUMP: Thank you very much, Brian.
KILMEADE: Yes.
TRUMP: Appreciate it.
KILMEADE: President of the United States.
