Fmr. President Donald Trump joined Brian Kilmeade to discuss the upcoming Republican National Convention, his current take on abortion and marriage rights, NATO, and his current opponent in the 2024 Presidential Election: Joe Biden.
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Brian Kilmeade [00:00:00] Joining us now, president, Donald J. Trump. Mr. president, welcome back.
Donald Trump [00:00:05] Well, thank you very much, Brian. Big rally last night, I will say.
Brian Kilmeade [00:00:08] I know it was good. I thought it was significant that you had the vice president. Kind of a, excuse a vice presidential finalist. Marco Rubio, introduce you. It makes sense because it’s so Florida congressman. But what did you think of his speech? What did you think of, what do you think about him now, knowing that it’s only going to be days away from making an announcement?
Donald Trump [00:00:31] Well, it’s very good. And we have some great people that we’re looking at where we could, as they say, deep bench. But Marco is great last night, very popular. And he’s certainly one of the people that we’re looking at. You know, over the next week or so, I’ll announce I’d love to do it during the convention. You know, the old days, they did it during the convention and it kept the convention very exciting, actually. So we’ll see about that. But, pretty soon we’ll be announcing we have some great people, as you know. You know.
Brian Kilmeade [00:00:58] All of us, right? You got JD Vance. I was going with Governor Burgum and North Dakota, and then you have Tim Scott. Those are the four finalists. Should I expand that at all? If I’m thinking comprehensively about what’s on your mind?
Donald Trump [00:01:12] Well, you could, you know, I think I’m pretty well set in my own mind, but, you know, you got some good people, and I have changed a little bit, but they’re all great, and anyone would be fantastic. Anyone would be a lot better than, laughing. Camilla. She’s terrible. Camilla is just terrible. You know, she was in charge of the border. She never went there. Right. And she was in charge of trying to get a little piece action going for Ukraine. That didn’t work out too well. He went to war instead of peace. It was warned instead of peace. That wouldn’t say she did do well and that now the whole group is a disaster. Biden is a disaster. Not a good guy either, because he weaponized government and he’s a bad guy. He’s a crook and he weaponized government. And, you know, somebody told me, I feel sorry for him because at the debate he was so pathetic. They said, I feel sorry for him. I said, don’t feel sorry for him. He’s a bad guy. He’s absolutely a bad guy. And he’s destroyed. This country has absolutely destroyed this country. So I said, don’t feel badly for him.
Brian Kilmeade [00:02:14] Mr. President. Also, when you talk about a finalist for this, I’m wondering if it factors in that Joe Biden not might not be the nominee. And if does that factor in who you pick? Because a lot of people think it’s got to be Kamala to be number one. She goes and picks a battleground state governor like Shapiro or Whitmer. Does that change your thinking? Maybe you need Virginia and you might want to go get a Youngkin.
Donald Trump [00:02:40] I don’t think it does, you know. I’m quite sure a lot of them are waiting for that. You know, for the ax to fall. And frankly, you know, I’m I’m amazed that I, you know, I hope he can carry it on. I just assumed we planned for him. But whether we planned for him or anyone else, the planning, I think, is the same. It’s a policy that the Democrats have open borders, high taxes, high interest rates, being weakened on foreign aid. I mean, look at how bad their left at by everybody. This guy is walking around being laughed at by the leaders. I know all these leaders that he’s being laughed at by the leaders of foreign countries. It’s ridiculous that he’s our president, but he’ll probably stick it out. He looks like he’s going to stick it out. And it’s an incredible phenomenon. And nobody’s ever seen like. And he can’t put two sentences together. But is the incredible phenomena.
Brian Kilmeade [00:03:36] Mr. president, is in your interest. Is it easier, is that a better opponent for you than anybody else? Joe Biden, is it? I’ll give you an a quote from David Axelrod. He said Trump’s not talking anything about Biden’s bad debate. He’s not running a blitz in campaign ads about the bad debate. Lara Trump last week said that it would be an affront to democracy if Biden were not the nominee. Why is he doing that? His conclusion is that you want Biden to be your opponent. Is that the right conclusion?
Donald Trump [00:04:05] No, I don’t care if it’s him or somebody else. It’s also policy. It’s more about policy than anything else. And these radical Democrats are all radical. Everyone that they’re talking about is a radical left lunatic. And whether it’s Biden or whether it’s somebody else, I think it’s the same. They want open borders. They want all the things we just discussed and much more. No. No more, gasoline powered cars. They want you to go all electric, which don’t go far and made in China. Very expensive. They, you know, they want, you know, as an example, I say it it’s almost embarrassing to even say it. They want men playing in women’s sports, and I want the opposite. So, you know, I mean, it’s.
Brian Kilmeade [00:04:50] So it’s policy is not the.
Donald Trump [00:04:51] Opposite philosophy. It’s actually Brian and opposite philosophy, what’s good and true and right. They almost want to in all cases they want the opposite. The green new scam is is costing us trillions of dollars. It’s ridiculous. They’re wasting money. Right. And they of course tremendous inflation. And we’re going to stop all that.
Brian Kilmeade [00:05:12] So I’m Ian Bremmer I think, you know for the president of Eurasia Group said NATO allies, more and other countries are very concerned about what it would mean if Donald Trump were to become president, given his stated policies on Russia, Ukraine and NATO and the EU, should they be concerned?
Donald Trump [00:05:31] No, they should be happy because you wouldn’t have had Ukraine attacked. If I were president, you wouldn’t have had it. My, you had a very good relationship with President Putin. We get along very well. That’s a good thing. Not a bad thing. By the way, the fake news is. Oh that’s terrible. Don’t forget, I was the one to set up the pipeline. That was the biggest thing that ever happened economically to Russia. I stopped it, Biden came in and he approved it. I mean, you tell.
Brian Kilmeade [00:05:57] Him to be tougher.
Donald Trump [00:05:58] On Russia.
Brian Kilmeade [00:05:59] And now they stop.
Donald Trump [00:06:00] Sanctions that that. I had sanctions that he never had. I had what I did with Russia was very tough, but I got along with Putin. You wouldn’t have had you wouldn’t have had Ukraine attacked by Russia. If I were president, you wouldn’t have had Israel attacked on October 7th. If I were president, you wouldn’t have inflation. If I were president, we would have had a much different country. This would be a much different country, because right now we’re a failing country. We’re a mess.
Brian Kilmeade [00:06:28] But, Mr. President, in terms of NATO, the serious people that believe that you want to get out of NATO is that would you want to do.
Donald Trump [00:06:38] Now I just want them to pay their bills. We’re protecting Europe. They take advantage of us very badly. Not so much worse. I tell you what. Very badly. You look at China. It’s. You know, China is terrible, but I straighten them out. And then we had Covid, and I had to focus on other things that we did an incredible job. We got it back. We saved the country. This country got into a massive depression. If I weren’t president and I gave him a stock market that was higher than pre-COVID when Covid first came in. And what he’s done to the economy is horrible because of inflation. Costs have gone up at a level I think it’s close to 50%, not 20% or 25.
Brian Kilmeade [00:07:23] So you’re not looking to get out of negative.
Donald Trump [00:07:25] They don’t they don’t include you know, they don’t include the real costs okay. When something really goes haywire like interest rates, they don’t include that in the course of inflation. But what they’ve done with inflation and what they’ve done to this country by allowing millions of people, I think 20 million people will be the number by the time this guy gets out. Hopefully, November 5th is going to be the biggest and most important day in this of our country. But you’re talking about 20 million people, many coming from institutions, mental institutions, insane asylums, coming from jails and prisons all over the world. Do you know that other countries have the best crime numbers they’ve ever had because they’re criminals into the United States, not just South America. They’re sending all of their criminals, Brian, into the United States. We’re going to have a problem, and we’re going to get them out. Yeah, but this is what they’re doing.
Brian Kilmeade [00:08:17] And I think that there’s a lot more sentiment now to get rid of sanctuary cities in their word in 2016 when you ran because we got 67,000 in New York. I want you with President Biden said about NATO last night. And he says allies are paying cut 31.
Speaker 3 [00:08:31] The year 2020. Here I was, the year I was elected president. Only nine NATO allies were spending 2% of their defense GDP on defense. This year, 23 will spend at least 2%. And some will spend more than that.
Brian Kilmeade [00:08:48] So he’s taking credit for that, should he?
Donald Trump [00:08:53] Of course he shouldn’t. They’re under attack with me. There was no attack. Everybody felt comfortable. And I took in billions and billions, hundreds of billions of dollars. Stoltenberg, the secretary general, said Trump did something. I didn’t think it was possible. I took in the money that he’s spending right now. If I didn’t take it in, they wouldn’t even have NATO to fight Russia. It was me that took in all the money. But they felt comfortable because frankly, they weren’t going to be attacked. They knew Russia would never attack as long as I was president when he became president, of course, they’re paying right now. They’re under attack. If they didn’t pay right now, the United States, if they were smart, would say, well, I’m sorry we can’t protect you because they have the money to pay, but he makes a big deal out of it. Think of it. They’re under attack. He is such a dumb president, it’s not even believable. Of course they’re paying. They don’t want to be attacked. They don’t want. They want to make sure Russia, the United States, stays right behind him. Russia doesn’t attack them. Right. But, drill easy to get money when you’re at war with Russia.
Brian Kilmeade [00:09:58] Understood. Yet? So. So they have sanctions on Russia and the people that are going around those sanctions are India. Who? Modi is a friend of yours. Yesterday, the day that Vladimir Putin rockets a children’s hospital, he gives them a bear hug. Does that bother you?
Donald Trump [00:10:17] Who knows what he knew. And frankly, I do get along very well with Modi. I get along with most of the people. That’s a good thing, by the way. Not a bad thing. It’s a very good thing because we want to stay out of wars. You know, this this fool. All we have is a president. He’s a fool. He got us into Ukraine because of him. Israel was attacked down. The Middle East is blowing up like it. Like you haven’t seen it in a long time. I took everyone out. I got out of the Middle East, I wiped out ISIS. I rebuilt our military. I wiped out ISIS in four weeks. It was supposed to take five years. I knocked out ISIS in four weeks. Got rid of the worst terrorists in the world, right. And did a job. This. This country was safe, and the whole world was safe. Look, if you look at Viktor Orban, who’s the the big chief, the big boss over there, you know that Hungary. He said the only way the world is going to be safe is, is Trump comes back as president said when Trump was back, as he used a different word, I wouldn’t use it, but that’s okay. He said China was afraid of him. Russia was afraid of him. Everyone was afraid of him. There was no war at all. We had no war. We didn’t have Russia and Ukraine. They weren’t even thinking about it. Right. We didn’t have to take a look at Taiwan. That’s going to be next. Take a look at what President XI of China is doing with Taiwan. Right. We are we are really in very we’re very close to World War three, all because we have an idiot president.
Brian Kilmeade [00:11:43] So let’s look at the Middle East. If, with the Iran has a new president. They are supposedly very in a very short time, about to get a nuclear weapon. Does Donald Trump, President Trump, if you take over in January of of and you hope to does does he allow Iran to get a nuclear weapon. What would you do at this point?
Donald Trump [00:12:04] Iran should not have a nuclear weapon. They should have never been in a position where they could have had. If I were president, they wouldn’t even be thinking about a nuclear weapon. And now they are months away from getting one because Biden doesn’t have any idea what he’s doing. He’s grossly incompetent and he has no idea. Iran should never be allowed to have a nuclear weapon, and Biden should never have allowed them to get this far their way. Their way advanced. No. They would they would have never even been thinking about nuclear weapons if I were president. That’s the one thing. And I would have made a deal with Iran. We would have made a deal with Iran within one week after the election. But after the election, why would they make a deal? They said, oh, we’re going to deal with somebody else. We’re going to start dealing now with a stupid person. And that’s what they’re dealing with. Would you be? They’re very close to having they’re very close to having a nuclear.
Brian Kilmeade [00:12:53] Or would you be holding back weapons from Israel like President Biden is doing now?
Donald Trump [00:12:59] Is just got to finish the job. The answer is no. But Israel has got to finish the job.
Brian Kilmeade [00:13:06] Which means getting sinwar and wiping out.
Donald Trump [00:13:08] Going to do the job. They’ve got to finish the job. Knows that too. But Biden doesn’t know. You know Biden. If you look at the Palestinians, they can’t stand Biden. He’s being hit by every side. Nobody likes him. Israel doesn’t like him, and the Palestinians don’t like him.
Brian Kilmeade [00:13:30] Understood.
Donald Trump [00:13:30] He has no idea where he is. Nobody has any.
Brian Kilmeade [00:13:33] Did you see?
Donald Trump [00:13:34] They didn’t have any idea.
Brian Kilmeade [00:13:35] Did you see a big dip? You haven’t seen.
Donald Trump [00:13:37] That? Very. You’re dealing with a very low IQ individual. You do know that?
Brian Kilmeade [00:13:40] Well, after three now, you hadn’t seen him in three and a half years and you saw him at 2020. Had two debates. What was the difference between the 2020 for Joe Biden and the 2024 Joe Biden?
Donald Trump [00:13:54] Well, I thought he wasn’t good at the debates. I thought I beat him badly in both debates. Some people said I was too aggressive in the first one and should have let him talk more, which I probably would agree with it, but I beat. I beat him in both debates easily by every standard and second debate. He was saying things that were crazy. He talks about energy. Remember the last question? I said, it’s Perry Mason time, you know, meaning he said he admitted something that he should have never said. But no, I think, I mean, he was worse than this one, but, I don’t know.
Brian Kilmeade [00:14:31] Do you think he was?
Donald Trump [00:14:32] Maybe something’s wrong, maybe something I look, he has the delegates. He’s allowed to run. They’re not going to stop him. He’s allowed to run if he wants to. The only thing that can stop him, if he decides he he can’t do the job.
Brian Kilmeade [00:14:44] Couple thing.
Donald Trump [00:14:45] That’s a big admit. You know, if he decides he can’t do the job. Yeah, that’s a very big, that’s a very big statement. He shouldn’t have been doing it anyway. Look, he’s done a horrible job. We’re in wars all over the place. We have inflation, the likes of which no one’s ever seen before. We’re not respected on the world stage. We had the most embarrassing event in the history of our country, Afghanistan. Not that we got out because I was getting out, but I was getting out with strength and dignity. The way he got out was so embarrassing to our country.
Brian Kilmeade [00:15:15] And we seemed.
Donald Trump [00:15:16] Like, yeah, we should. You know, that was one of the major reasons Putin went in when Putin saw how incompetent Emily and all these guys were. He said, this is a great time to go in and take Ukraine, which is, by the way, the apple of his eye.
Brian Kilmeade [00:15:32] So a couple of things. Just looking at Nikki Haley yesterday, she said, I’m giving I recommend all my delegates go to President Trump. And they said, are you are you going to the Republican convention? And she says, I have not been invited. Is is from we are understanding. Are you have you not invited her and would you want to invite her. Is that an oversight or intentional.
Donald Trump [00:15:53] Well, I’ll take a look at that. I mean, I have heard that this morning, so I’ll take a look at this.
Brian Kilmeade [00:15:59] So you would like to see her go?
Donald Trump [00:16:01] I don’t know, I’m going to take a look at it. I want to say I know she gave her delegates over. You know, there was a lot of bad blood there, and she. She stayed too long. She was being soundly defeated at every place, but she just wouldn’t leave. And so we had to continue onward for two extra months, which was ridiculous. And she was doing badly. She was losing badly. But, I mean, her mistake was she continued on. She just, you know, keep going. I had that the first time, too, you know, I had, a gentleman from Ohio continued, and he just wouldn’t, you know, just kept going. He wasn’t getting anything. He wasn’t doing anything. He wasn’t getting any votes. But he continued on. There’s a time to which you leave, you know, Ron DeSantis left right after Iowa. She should have left right after Iowa. She came in third. She didn’t come in second. Ron came in second. But he left after Iowa because he said there was no you.
Brian Kilmeade [00:16:58] You’re still a little angry that she stayed there.
Donald Trump [00:17:00] There was no way. So I just say this, you know, I wish she didn’t stay so long.
Brian Kilmeade [00:17:05] Right. But do you think she helps you with moderates? That she had a group of people that maybe are hard for you to get?
Donald Trump [00:17:12] No. They’re not going to vote for Biden. Biden is a low IQ president, but they’re not going to vote for him. They’re going to vote for Trump. And, you know, all the polls that show that we have very big numbers, I think bigger than the polls. I mean, I, I watch Fox, I watched, yesterday it classic John Roberts. Except, you know, Fox always tells me you can’t use recipes. And I sent them these great polls. My people do and they won’t use them. And then John Roberts said, oh, the Democrats sent us a poll. This is a poll. And it had me like leading Biden by one. We’re leading by huge numbers. Well, but, you know, they put on John Roberts, puts on a poll. I guess it was John Roberts. He puts on a poll where it was given to them, leaked by the Democrats, of course. What does he think? What does he think they’re going to leak him? Well, it wasn’t even a real poll. Nobody ever heard of it.
Brian Kilmeade [00:18:07] Well, but we both think John Roberts.
Donald Trump [00:18:09] By the Democrats.
Brian Kilmeade [00:18:09] Well we he just shared it. But we both love John Roberts. The biggest polls shift in the, in the in this election cycle just happened yesterday, all going your direction. And now the Politico says that New York is in play. So you have Minnesota now in play. You have New Hampshire now play Virginia now and play. And now they’re say in New York’s in play.
Donald Trump [00:18:31] Well, I think the whole country is in play. We have a low IQ president and they don’t like it. We had a great country four years ago. We were respected all over the world. I beat ISIS and there were no wars and no war started. There were no wars contemplated. We weren’t going to have any wars in the world. We weren’t going to. Gotcha. Viktor Orban said, as he said that he’s talking about the world. He said the world is going to blow up unless Trump is blessed because other people did respect me.
Brian Kilmeade [00:18:59] No. I hear.
Donald Trump [00:19:00] You respected our.
Brian Kilmeade [00:19:00] Country. So now you looked at this platform. I know Michael Waltz and Marsha Blackburn worked on it too, and you simplified it. And for the first time, no nationwide ban on abortion. For the first time in 40 years. IVF is okay with you. No mention of traditional marriage, because I guess we’re pulling you, pulling back on that a little. It seems as though this is something that’s targeting moderates. What was your approach to this platform?
Donald Trump [00:19:30] Well, it’s not targeting moderates. It’s common sense. They basically had, in some cases, gay bans. I don’t want that. So what we’re about. They had other things that are ridiculous. The, abortion issue is much simplified right now because I brought it out, you know, by getting rid of Roe v Wade. That was an incredible thing, because after 52 years that everybody wanted this, Democrats, Republicans and all legal scholars wanted it. They didn’t want to be in the federal government. They said it’s a state issue. And I was able to bring it back into the states. And now the states are voting. And honestly, in some cases, the votes liberal, and in some cases it’s more conservative. Right. But the states are now voting and it’s the people that are voting. But, you know, the people are voting, and it’s the way it was supposed to be. If you remember, for 52 years they’ve been trying to get it. So it states it’s in the states, but it got stuck in the federal government with Roe v Wade. I was able to get that out. That was a great service now and it’s turning out very liberal. Look at Ohio, Ohio, which is something that’s much more I will call it liberal than gotcha people would have thought.
Brian Kilmeade [00:20:44] But yet that’s firmly in your column by about nine points. Could you just.
Donald Trump [00:20:47] Quickly vote of the people.
Brian Kilmeade [00:20:49] Real quick on your people and your vice president candidate? Word is that you won’t pick J.D. Vance because of his facial hair. Is that is that true? You know, facial hair. That was a number two. Doug Burke, Doug Burgum. The thing that.
Donald Trump [00:21:04] Hurts young Abraham Lincoln, right?
Brian Kilmeade [00:21:06] He’s a he’s a handsome man. Doug. Doug Burgum.
Donald Trump [00:21:10] Okay.
Brian Kilmeade [00:21:11] On abortion in North Dakota, he signed something legislation two handed him. Does that hurt him?
Donald Trump [00:21:18] Well, it’s a little bit of an issue. It’s a pretty strong band. You know, I think Doug is great, but it is a, a strong he’s taken a very strong stance or the state has I don’t know if it’s Doug, but the state has. It’s, so it’s it’s an issue.
Brian Kilmeade [00:21:33] And lastly, Marco Rubio’s an issue, you know, with Marco Rubio and being from Florida. Would that stop you from from picking him?
Donald Trump [00:21:42] No, but it does make it more complicated. You know, you do that and it makes it more complicated. There are people that don’t have that complication. Now it’s, fairly easily fixed, but you have to do something with delegates or there has to be a resignation, you know, etc., etc.. So it’s not like picking some people where it’s very easy, where there is none of that. Florida, meaning two people can’t be running on the same ticket. You actually can, but they take delegates and taking delegates is, you know, a very risky thing to do. Right.
Brian Kilmeade [00:22:13] See? Milwaukee. Mr. president, thanks so much for the quality time for our audience. And thanks so much for the insight. Do you think you’ll make your pick tomorrow, vice president?
Donald Trump [00:22:23] No. Not tomorrow. I’ll make it close to the convention. I would love to do it. You know, it used to be picked during the convention, and it made the convention practically more interesting. The pic used to be during the convention. That’s what I’d like to do. But it, you know, with modern technology, if you can believe it, it’s like everything else, like voting used to be better with all paper ballots. I mean, modern technology uses a lot of things, and it makes it easier.
Brian Kilmeade [00:22:51] Gotcha.
Donald Trump [00:22:52] If you pick before the convention, Mr. President.
Brian Kilmeade [00:22:54] Thanks.
Donald Trump [00:22:54] I’d love to be the old fashioned way and do it during the convention.
Brian Kilmeade [00:22:57] All right. You do what you do. Make the final, pick there. You’ll make that choice, Mr. President. Thanks so much. Have a great day.
