FOX "Hannity"- Transcript: Trump Interview

Interview

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

HANNITY: Give me an idea of what a Trump cabinet, a Trump White House would look like, maybe a VP choice, secretary of defense, secretary of state. Give me some ideas, names you like.

TRUMP: Look, I don't want to use names. I could say a Jack Welch, who'd be great. I could say, you know, Carl and Carl types. You have Henry Kravises. Warren Buffett said the nicest things about me the other day. I have great respect for Warren Buffett. But he said, Trump is here to stay. I was impressed, because I think he's supporting perhaps Hillary or something.

HANNITY: Sure.

TRUMP: But -- but you know, Warren Buffett is a -- a terrific guy, and -- and you know, and a very common sense person. I mean, Warren is a very common sense...

HANNITY: Makes a lot of money.

TRUMP: That's how he makes the money, with common sense and -- smart, but common sense.

You take some of these great minds that we have, nobody can beat us. But we don't use those minds. We use the guy that gives, you know, $50,000 to a Bush or to a Hillary, and they become secretary of this, or they -- it's ridiculous. I would use the greatest minds. I know the best negotiators. I'm in New York. I know the good ones, the bad ones.

I always say, I know the ones that are no good that people think are good. I know people that you've never heard of that are better than all of them. I would put people in charge of these massive economic machines.

HANNITY: And you'd listen to them.

TRUMP: I would.

HANNITY: They'd come into the Oval Office, and they'd say, Donald, you -- I know you want a flat tax. I know you want to save Social Security. I know you want to look out for the poor and reduce the debt, but the numbers don't add up, because those are all things you've talked about.

TRUMP: Look, our jobs are being taken by everybody. Think of it. We don't make good deals anymore. We have incompetent people, probably stupid, but incompetent people. They're making deals.

I look at Japan and I see Caroline Kennedy, who is a very nice person -- you know why I say she's nice? Because my daughter thinks she's nice, Ivanka. Anybody that Ivanka likes, I like.

But that doesn't mean I want her as our chief trade negotiator. She didn't -- she was shocked that she got the job. She was on "60 Minutes," and they said -- she said she went and she said I'd like to work for the administration. Would you like to be ambassador to Japan? She goes, Really? That was her response.

She's now in charge -- I mean, essentially, as the ambassador, she's really in charge because for some reason, that particular ambassadorship, very important having to do with trade. They're killing us! Japan is killing us!

And by the way, they have a great leader now, Abe. And Abe is cutting the hell out of their currency -- cutting, cutting, cutting. And they're back. Japan is back.

Look what happened today. Today, front page of The Wall Street Journal, China devalues its currency big league. You know why? Because they have no fear of us. They're killing us. When they do that, they are killing us.

Now they're going to take more jobs. They're going to take -- I mean, it's ridiculous!

HANNITY: We already owe them a boatload of money.

TRUMP: Here's the beauty. They take our jobs, they take our money, and we owe them $1.4 trillion. How do you figure that one? That's like a magic act.

HANNITY: That's scary. Let me go to specifics on the economy. You want to lower the tax. You want to implement a flat tax.

TRUMP: No, no.

HANNITY: You don't? I thought you liked the flat tax. I read it in a couple interviews.

TRUMP: The problem with the flat tax is it's sort of the same. I actually believe that people, as they make more and more money, can pay a higher percentage, OK?

HANNITY: How high?

TRUMP: To be honest.

HANNITY: What's the cap?

TRUMP: We will set the cap. I want to have a cap so we have a lot of business, a lot more activity. I want to get rid of all this deficit. We'll make it -- we're losing $600 billion, $700 billion! We're going to be losing. And by the way, when ObamaCare kicks in, we're going to be losing a $1.3 trillion, $1.4 trillion a year. We can't do that. We're going to be a Greece on steroids!

Here's what I want to do. I want to simplify the tax cut. I want to cut taxes. But I want to simplify the tax code. I want to make it great for the middle class. The middle class is being killed.

I want to put H&R Block -- it's an ambition of mine to put H&R Block out of business. When a person has a simple tax return, they have a job, and they can't even figure out when they look at this complicated form -- they can't figure out what to pay.

And you know what? I have guys that are friends of mine, they make a fortune. They're hedge fund guys. They move around paper. Look, at least I build things. I put people to -- these guys move around paper. And half the time, it's luck more than talent, OK?

They pay peanuts, OK? I want to make it so the middle class -- I want to lower taxes, but I want to make it so the middle class benefits.

HANNITY: OK, do you believe in supply side economics inasmuch as you reduce taxes on everybody, including the wealthy, and that a rising tide lifts all boats? Are you -- do you...

TRUMP: I don't fully believe it, but there is something to it. I don't fully. You know, I've studied it...

HANNITY: But you don't want a flat tax. You've said that.

TRUMP: I don't like where everybody is paying the same.

HANNITY: Do you like a fair tax?

TRUMP: If I make a billion dollars and somebody else is making $100, and he's paying $10 and I'm paying -- to me, I don't know. I like somewhat of a graduation. What you have now is a system that's too complicated. The easiest thing to do is make that system uncomplicated and make it really good -- make it really good.

And you know, as far as the IRS, people say, Let's get rid of the IRS. Somebody's got to collect the money.

HANNITY: Well, a fair tax, a consumption tax is...

TRUMP: Look, we have a system now. It's -- it's morphed into something that's become -- you have to be a nuclear physicist from Iran...

HANNITY: It's crazy.

TRUMP: ... OK?

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: You have to be a nuclear physicist from Iran...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: ... that guy

TRUMP: Yes, you could be him. He would -- he's not smart enough to figure it out.

HANNITY: The biggest accounting companies can't come to the same tax debt that somebody owes when you give them the same information.

TRUMP: I'm talking about -- the word is simplification. We can simplify. We can get rid of deductions, which is in some cases -- and lower the taxes.

HANNITY: How big a -- how big do you believe -- because I think energy -- we've got all this energy. We've got coal. We've got fracking, hydro-fracking. We've got natural gas. We've got all the oil, ANWR, everywhere.

Why do we import one barrel of oil when we can be exporting oil and be so energy-independent?

TRUMP: It's 100 percent. Look, the Keystone pipeline should be approved immediately -- not that I want it because we're bringing in oil from Canada. But you know what? It's a lot easier than Saudi Arabia and some of these other places. And Canada's been a great neighbor, et cetera, et cetera. But they should approve it.

Number one, it's jobs. Immediately, you're building it, it's jobs, it's good. It's not going to hurt anything in terms of environmentally. It's hard to believe that that has not been approved. Let's get it approved. More oil coming in -- the more we can have where we don't have to go to foreign places, really foreign places to get the oil.

So there's a simple one that's going to create jobs. It's overall good. But we don't even need it in one sense because we have so much under our own land, we can do it, but we have to get rid of some of the restrictions. The restrictions...

HANNITY: That would help the economy dramatically, in my opinion.

TRUMP: Immediately.

HANNITY: All right, let me ask you this. You came out with an ISIS plan yesterday. You said boots on the ground. You said take their oil. You said create a perimeter. Explain that, and then I want to know what else you want to do.

TRUMP: I'd like to go back into history a little bit. In 2004, Reuters wrote an article, in July of 2004. It was an article, "Trump says don't go into Iraq." I was totally against it. I am the most militaristic person that you have ever interviewed. I would make our military so strong and so powerful that nobody will ever mess with us.

You know, Putin two months ago, started saying, Well, we have nuclear weapons. You better not mess around.

HANNITY: He's coming to town. Would you meet with him?

TRUMP: I would meet with him. Frankly, I'd get along great with him. You've got to get along with these people. Obama doesn't get along with anybody.

We have all enemies. That's why Hillary Clinton, like her or not, she was the worst secretary of state in the history of this country. Obama has been a disaster. Who does he get along with? He doesn't get along with anybody. It's hard to believe.

I didn't want to go in. In fact, people came from the Bush administration because I was getting a lot -- I was pretty vocal on the fact, Don't do it. I said, You're going to destabilize the Middle East. And when you destabilize, that means -- you know, Iraq and Iran were the same. They'd go 10 feet this way -- for years, for decades, they would fight, they'd go -- they'd use the poison gas. It would be terrible. They'd use something else. They'd go -- and then they'd go home and rest for another 10 years.

Now, all of a sudden, we knocked off one of them, and Iran is taking over the world. I mean, I said the other day -- I said -- a sad joke, frankly, but I said if Iran was a stock, buy it. You'll make 100 times your money in a very quick...

HANNITY: They're about to get $150 billion.

TRUMP: What we're giving them -- we're giving them $150 billion, plus tremendous other things that we're giving them. And you know the saddest part? Even if the deal isn't approved, we now agreed to give more money.

HANNITY: You actually said, They, meaning Iran, will do what I tell them to do.

TRUMP: They'll do what I tell them to do.

HANNITY: What does that mean?

TRUMP: OK, here's the story. We have to go in -- we have to stop, if we can, this deal from being made. But the deal is already a disaster. You know, if we stop it, they already -- we would lose the money. We lose $150 billion, plus -- plus not just $150 billion, it's a $150 billion plus.

If the deal were dead, where Schumer goes against it -- now, I would bet that Schumer went against it with a wink to the president.

HANNITY: I'll bet.

TRUMP: They know they have the votes. Schumer's a guy from New York City, and a lot of pressure is putting -- being put on by Israel. I guarantee you that's a deal where he winks at them, they wink at him, I'm against it, but they have the vote. I guarantee.

(CROSSTALK)

TRUMP: That's the way it works. We have to go in. So I did not want to go in, but now it's totally messed up. Now you have ISIS -- and others, but you have ISIS cutting off Christians' heads and others. They cut off anybody's head. They're drowning them. They're cutting off their heads. We have to go in with force. We have to take the oil because the oil is their source of wealth.

Now, other things -- money is coming out of Saudi Arabia. Money is coming from ...

HANNITY: How would you deal with that?

TRUMP: You have to stop the money at the banking sources. We have to stop the money at the banking sources.

HANNITY: You'd be hard on Saudi Arabia?

TRUMP: Well, look. Saudi Arabia makes a billion dollars a day. Thank of it, a billion dollars a day. We protect them. We get nothing! How stupid are we?

We protect Saudi Arabia -- if we didn't protect them -- because you know, when we had the war with Kuwait and Saudi Arabia was attacked, boom, they ran. We had our beautiful Marines standing there, bing, bing, bing, bing, we got them back.

But they ran. You never saw anything like it. They ran so fast. When Saddam Hussein started sending people in there, you know, on the border, when he took over Kuwait, there's another example. We take over -- Saddam Hussein takes over Kuwait. The wealthy Kuwaitis go to Paris, and they take not -- not suites. They take whole buildings, hotels. They live like kings.

We then go into Kuwait, spend billions of dollars, lose lives, take over Kuwait, hand it back to them. Then about two months later, the Kuwaitis came to my office to see me.

I had a deal I wanted to do with them. They said, No, no, no. We do not invest in the United States. We do not like the United States for investment purposes.

HANNITY: We just liberated them.

TRUMP: We will not -- we just liberated them. They have this huge Kuwaiti fund. They said, We do not invest in the United States. We have great respect for you, Mr. Trump, but we want deals outside. We do not like the United States.

We just gave them back their country! I say, How stupid are we? Why didn't we say, We want 50 percent of your oil forever, or we're not letting you go back in? But nobody -- it's hard to believe.

HANNITY: Go back to ISIS.

TRUMP: It's hard to believe.

HANNITY: You talked about taking their oil, surrounding, a perimeter.

TRUMP: Correct.

HANNITY: OK. I like the idea of -- I think...

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: First thing we're going to do with the money we get from oil is give it to the families...

TRUMP: Correct!

HANNITY: ... of the military.

TRUMP: Correct! We lost thousands of people...

HANNITY: Five thousand.

TRUMP: ... you know, in Iraq. Well, and we have people walking around without an arm, without a leg, and worse than that.

HANNITY: Give them the money.

TRUMP: Give them millions! And by the way, that's peanuts compared to what you're talking about in terms of money.

HANNITY: All right, is that enough...

TRUMP: Give them a lot of money and keep a lot of money.

HANNITY: All right, you're going to surround the perimeter. You're going to take the oil. What else do you got to do to stop ISIS?

TRUMP: That will be the beginning of the end because that cuts off the money. That cuts off the head. When you take the oil and when you stop the banking sources -- you've got to do that, too. The problem is, we have people in the administration that aren't smart enough to understand what's going on. You have to stop the banking flow.

But when you do that and when you take the oil, that's the beginning of the end of ISIS. They don't have the money.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

HANNITY: And coming up, will Donald Trump stop using Twitter if he's elected president? He answers that question next.

Plus, more on Hillary Clinton handing over her private e-mail server to the Justice Department. Well, how much is this going to hurt her politically? Any chance she can go to jail, maybe face legal charges? That and more as "Hannity" continues.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

(NEWSBREAK)

HANNITY: Welcome back to "Hannity." Now, in just a few minutes, we'll have a debate on Hillary Clinton turning over her private e-mail server to the Justice Department. Could she end up behind bars?

But first, here's more of my sit-down interview with the one and only Donald Trump from yesterday.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

HANNITY: Let me go back to Iran. You said, They will do what I tell them. How do you make them do what you say?

TRUMP: They will know I'm not playing games. And you know what? I hate to inherit a bad deal. And I know some of my compatriots said, We won't honor the deal. That's a little tough. I like to honor deals.

HANNITY: They have the money. They have the money.

TRUMP: Well, no, the problem is, by the time -- if I make it, by the time I get there, they will be very rich because Obama will have given them all of these many billions of dollars, et cetera, et cetera.

However, all contracts -- I study contracts. I'm a -- I'm a -- you know, in golf, I say I'm a plus-five at contracts, OK? I study contracts. No matter how bad this contract is, I will make this contract be enforced to such an extent that they will not be able to do it. And then I will do things that you won't believe.

But -- but listen, it is so important that they not have nuclear weapons. The problem with this deal is they will have them, and all other surrounding countries are going to be forced to get them, too. You're going to have a nuclear holocaust.

HANNITY: I don't see a scenario under which the Israelis, probably joining with the Saudis, Egyptians, Jordanians, don't take out those sites before they get them.

TRUMP: Well...

HANNITY: And the United States -- I see that happening.

TRUMP: I mean, we're in trouble, but Israel would be in very big trouble if this deal is allowed to go forward. What I hate so much about the deal -- the 24 days is ridiculous.

HANNITY: Nuts. Yes.

TRUMP: But you know, before you get to the 24 days, there's a whole process -- I don't know if you know that...

HANNITY: Of course.

TRUMP: ... that can take much longer than 24 days. So we start the process, we go through a whole procedure. Then after weeks, we may get to the 24 days. The whole thing's ridiculous!

But you know what else bothers me so much? The money bothers me, like I would have never given them the money. We have four prisoners. Why didn't they say, before the negotiations start -- this should have happened two years ago. Did you ever see such a long negotiation?

HANNITY: It's crazy.

TRUMP: You know, we're not sending a rocket to the moon. But why didn't we say, Fellows, we want the prisoners.

HANNITY: $150 billion is the equivalent of $8 trillion USA dollars based on the size of their economy.

TRUMP: Yes. Yes. Yes.

HANNITY: Let me ask you a couple more things. You wrote "The Art of the Deal," best-selling book. Are you learning that the art of politics is different than the art of the deal?

TRUMP: Well, I mean, so far, I'm enjoying politics, and I guess I'm enjoying because, I mean, a poll just came in where I'm 32, at 32 percent.

HANNITY: You have five good polls post-debate.

TRUMP: Yes, no, I'm doing well. But it's a long process. It's a very long process. I don't want to get overly excited because you're going to have ups, you're going to have downs, you're going to have good days, you're going to have bad days. The end result is you have to win.

And I don't want to win for the sake of winning. I want to make the country great again. It's my whole theme, making America great again. And the word "again" is a very important word...

HANNITY: We were once great.

TRUMP: ... because right now, we're laughed at. We're scoffed at. We don't do anything right. You see what's going on.

As an example, our military -- it's depleted. We send Humvees, the best in the world, 2,300 -- this -- I'm not talking about three or four. I thought they were talking about, like, 23 or 2. We send 2,300 Humvees, the finest in the world, armor-plated, everything, over to our allies.

HANNITY: ISIS has them.

TRUMP: One shot is fired, our allies run. ISIS now has 2,300. Do you know how many that is? I thought they were wrong. I thought I -- when I read it, I thought they maybe made -- it's a typographical, like, 23, so -- and by the way, we don't have the quality Humvees. So now they have better machinery than we. Our guys are driving around, they don't even have protection underneath. That's why they're losing their legs and their arms.

HANNITY: Scary.

TRUMP: We need smart people. We need a great military, a strong military. You know, they all say, I'll be the best on jobs. Everybody says that. You probably (INAUDIBLE) I will be so great on jobs. I think I'll be equally great on the military.

And the other thing we have to do, we have a moral obligation to take care of our vets. And by the way, unlike Jeb Bush, take care of our women.

HANNITY: And you wouldn't cut Social Security?

TRUMP: We have to take care of the women, with the women's issues.

HANNITY: 67 million Americans out of the labor force. You wouldn't - - you wouldn't raise the retirement age or...

TRUMP: No, I wouldn't.

HANNITY: ... means test Social Security.

TRUMP: These people made a deal. What I will do is, I'm going to take our money back from China. And China's going to like us.

You know, if you go into this building, if you go to a certain floor, the biggest bank in the world is there, by far. Like, Citibank is the -- as they say...

HANNITY: It's a Chinese bank.

TRUMP: Citibank is a small subsidiary, OK?. If you go to a certain floor of the biggest bank in the world -- from China. I say -- I just renewed their lease for another 10 years. I said, Do you guys want to be here? Oh, absolutely. We love you, Mr. Trump. We respect you.

Here, China takes advantage of us, they make a fortune, and they don't even like us. We will make China like us, and Russia and other places, and we'll also benefit economically.

HANNITY: A lot has been made over your Twitter account. If you won the presidency, would you still stay on Twitter? Would you be out there at 1:00 o'clock in the morning tweeting?

TRUMP: Well, probably a little bit less. But I'll tell you, it's pretty amazing.

HANNITY: You'd still do it?

TRUMP: I do get my point across.

HANNITY: You do.

TRUMP: You know, it's funny. For years, if somebody did bad stuff to me, I couldn't fight back. Now I have @realdonaldtrump, and I can sort of tweet some bad stuff about them...

HANNITY: Real quick.

TRUMP: ... and if people like it, it's all over the world.

HANNITY: Who are the people you listen to the most as it relates to politics? Who do you -- who -- who can come into your office and say, I don't like this?

TRUMP: You know, I listen to your show. I listen to other shows. I see some very smart guys on the shows. I like Bolton. I like a lot of the guys that you have and that, frankly, I see on other networks. I mean, I respect them, even if they're not necessarily...

HANNITY: So you listen to everybody?

TRUMP: Oh, I listen to everybody.

(CROSSTALK)

HANNITY: ... close to you that really -- that you count on the most?

TRUMP: Well, I have some very smart people in my organization, and my children are very smart. You know, and you know Ivanka, how smart, and she's got a great sensibility...

HANNITY: I know Eric. I know Donald, Jr.

TRUMP: I'll tell you what. Ivanka came to me the other day. It was very interesting. And you know, with this whole thing with Megyn Kelly, and it's really -- in theory, it's not a big deal...

HANNITY: Right.

TRUMP: ... but Ivanka said, Dad, you love women. You cherish women. She said that. She used the word "cherish." She said, You respect women. You have so many women working for you, probably more women executives than male executives. She said, Dad, you've got to let people know how much you adore women and how you'll take care of them.

And right after she said that, Jeb Bush came out with that horrible statement, where essentially, he's not going to take care of women's health issues. And I said, Wow, that's incredible. That's a really stupid statement to make.

But Ivanka is so much into that whole issue of women's health and women, and she's my guide on that whole subject. But she understands how I feel about it.

HANNITY: Mr. Trump, thank you.

TRUMP: Thank you very much.

HANNITY: Appreciate you being with us.

TRUMP: Great honor.

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