Kristen Welker's interview with Trump
Interview
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Thank you.
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Good.
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Well, it's a very simple answer, and I can give it very easily. It's called: "Make America Great Again." Our country is in serious trouble. I don't think we've ever been so low in terms of, certainly opinion, world opinion and country opinion. People are devastated. They look at what's happening with millions of people coming in, millions of illegal immigrants coming into our country, flooding our cities, flooding the countryside. I think the number is going to be 15 million people by the time you end this -- by the end of this year, I think the real number's going to be 15 million people. They come from prisons. They come from mental institutions, insane asylums. They say, "Sir, please don't use that term," but it's true. They're terrorists at a level -- you know, it was very interesting, on NBC, I saw a poll, and I saw some statistics, and it said in 2019, there were no terrorists. They caught no terrorists. There was nothing that they saw. There was no anything. And now, this year, it's a record number like they've never seen before. So, we did a great job at the border. We did a great job with the military. We did a great job with inflation. We had essentially no inflation. We had a great economy. And, we didn't have an Afghanistan disaster. We were getting out, but we were going to get out with dignity and pride, not the way they got out. That was a surrender, and an embarrassment, and horrible. We gave $85 billion worth of equipment to the Taliban. We had death, so much death, and so much horrible destruction. And it was a terrible thing. I think it was the lowest point in the history of our country. Now, with all of that, we can change it, and we can make America great again. And that's why I'm doing this.
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Okay.
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Sure.
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Well, I think there's no question about it. He had a plea deal that was the deal of the century -- the art of the deal. You could write a book on it. The art of the deal. And, all of a sudden, that was broken up by a judge who was able to -- a brilliant judge, actually, who was able to see through what was happening. And it's a sad situation. I mean, nobody should be happy about this. I'm not happy about it. Nobody is. It's a very sad thing, and it's so bad for our country. But, you know, if you think about it, I've been under investigation from the day I came down the escalator, and phony investigations, fake investigations, investigations that I beat every single time. Still under investigations. But it's a very sad thing, and it's a slippery slope --
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-- and dangerous, very dangerous for our country.
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Yeah, sure, sure.
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Well, look, it's one of 12 charges. There are 12 possible charges, and this --
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-- is the only charge that doesn't affect his father.
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Well, sure, maybe. I mean, let's see what happens. But this is the only charge that doesn't affect Joe Biden. This was the gun charge. But gun charges are very serious. You know, people have had gun charges and gone to jail for a lot of, a lot of years. I pardoned some people who I thought it was just horrible what happened. But they were put in jail for many, many years, rappers and others. So, look, it's a bad thing. But it's one of 12, and it's the one charge that doesn't affect Joe Biden.
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Well, I don't --
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-- necessarily agree.
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He called in. I mean, he called in to all these meetings. He was calling in on the meetings. He was put on speakerphone and -- every single day and --
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-- literally many, many calls. And what about the fact that he got rid of the prosecutor for a billion dollars? They said --
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"You don't get rid of this prosecutor, we're not giving you a billion dollars to Ukraine." He said that. I mean, there are a lot of things here, Kristen.
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But, wait, wait. You saw the prosecutor --
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-- thing on television, because I saw it on your network. He said, "You don't get rid of this prosecutor, I'm not giving $1 billion."
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Oh, come on.
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If I ever said that --
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-- quid pro quo.
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Sure.
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I think retribution is talking in terms of I have to protect people. What they're doing to people is so horrible. They're putting people in jail for long periods of time, firemen, policemen, accountants, even lawyers. They're in prisons for years now and don't even have trials in some cases. And if you look at antifa and other groups, practically nothing happened to them. They burned down Portland. They burned down Minneapolis. They took over Seattle. I mean, they literally took over a big chunk of the city. People died, and nothing happened to them. We have to protect all people.
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When I talk about retribution, I'm talking about fairness. We have to treat people fairly. These people on January 6th, they went -- some of them never even went into the building, and they're being given sentences of, you know, many years.
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And nothing is happening.
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Well, I'm going to look at them, and I certainly might if I think it's appropriate. No, it's a very, very sad thing. And it's -- they're dividing the country so badly, and it's very dangerous.
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I'm looking to appoint an attorney general who's going to be tough on crime and fair. Very simple.
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No, no. I would never do that. But Biden has done that. Look, Biden -- these aren't indictments against me. These are Biden indictments. This isn't God coming down and very fairly said, "Oh, you spoke badly about an election." The election was rigged. There's no question about that. There's so much proof on it. Even if you go to the more modern-day proof with the -- they call it Twitter Files, FBI and Twitter, or you take a look at the Amazon stuff or the Google stuff, or you take a look at "2,000 Mules," you take a look at all of the ballot stuffing that's on tape, you take a look at the fact that the legislatures didn't approve a lot of the things that were done in the elections, and they had to approve. And we could go on forever. We could go on forever. But, but no. I want somebody that's going to be strong, respected, tough, and fair.
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It hasn't been debunked. It's on camera.
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Yeah, but, Kristen, it's on camera. Hundreds -- even thousands and thousands of people. You take a look. True the Vote. Take a look. It's on camera. They have thousands of --
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I know, but, Kristen, you can't say -- They have thousands of pictures of people -- I know you have to say that for your network, but you shouldn't say it, because that's the problem.
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The news has lost such power.
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No, but you're saying-- It hasn't. We have thousands of essentially motion pictures of people stuffing the ballot boxes. Tens of thousands.
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You have people that went and voted in one place, another place, another place, as many as, I understand, 28 different places in one day with seven, eight, nine ballots apiece. They can't do it anymore, because it would look too phony. These were professional people. They were stuffing the ballot boxes. It's there.
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I mean, it's there to see. A lot of people don't like looking at it.
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We lost because the judges didn't want to hear them.
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But if this were ever before a court, we would win so easy. There is so much evidence that the election was rigged. And you may not even put this section on your show, and you'll have to decide what you want to do. But people know it was rigged. Look, the media --
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When I first got involved in politics --
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Tremendous evidence.
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Kristen, let me ask you this.
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You agree there was Twitter Files, right?
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You agree there were 51 intelligence agents that lied? You agree with that?
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Well, no, but -- I know, but that's rigging the election.
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Go ahead. Go ahead.
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No, not at all. I think, look, you look at the terrible things that have been happening with respect to Biden. Look at everything: Jamie Comer, Jim Jordan, who are fantastic people and very legitimate people. I watched Jamie Comer just a little while ago talking about a lot of different facets of what's going on, and he was the one that said, "I guess there were -- there were 12 things where it looks like it's stone-cold guilty, and the gun charge is only one of the 12." He said, "This is the only one that doesn't implicate Joe Biden."
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No, no. I don't talk to him like that.
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No, no. I don't do that. I don't think he'd do that. I mean, he wouldn't do it based on me, no.
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No, I don't have to talk -- they're more proactive than I am. They think it's terrible. I will say this: They think I was treated very unfairly. I mean, when I was impeached for a perfect phone call, and now it turned out to be perfect. I hope you will admit that, at least. Because I was right, 100% right. But I was impeached for a perfect phone call. And how sad that is. And we had 196 to nothing vote -- Republicans. Very unusual for the Republican Party. I was so proud of them. A hundred ninety six. The entire House, not one person dissented. And then -- other than Romney, who sort of gave me half a vote. But we had 100% in the Senate. People think I was treated very unfairly.
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And I know, I know I was treated --
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It was perfect.
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My phone call was perfect. My phone call was saying, "Please investigate any crimes that you see." And by the way, I'm mandated to do that as the president of the United States. And it was really, really a call to congratulate him on winning the election. But --
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No, what -- when you talk about quid pro quo, please don't talk about quid pro quo, because there was none in the call at all. Where there's a quid --
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Where there is a quid pro quo --
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-- was when Biden said, very strongly, "We're not going to give them the billion dollars unless they get rid of the prosecutor." That's a quid pro quo.
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Sure.
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I have no focus on the past except that you have to learn from history. You have to learn from the past. We had an election that was very, very terrible. It was a terrible thing for our country. And you have to learn from that. You can't forget that and just go -- now, with all of the things that we said, I had the best economy maybe in history.
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Right.
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I had the best economy in history, and I'm going to do it again. I had the best energy. We were energy independent, soon to be energy dominant. Now, we're begging for energy. I mean, what they've done to this country, they're destroying our country.
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No. I think if they don't get a fair deal -- we have to save our country. We have $35 trillion in debt. We have to save our country. You know, the --
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I'd shut down the government if they can't make an appropriate deal, absolutely.
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Yeah.
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I'm on the side of making our country great. The auto workers are not going to have any jobs when you come right down to it, because if you take a look at what they're doing with electric cars, electric cars are going to be made in China. The auto workers are not going to have any -- I'll tell you what. The auto workers are being sold down the river by their leadership, and their leadership should endorse Trump. The reason is: You've got to have choice, like in school. I want school choice. I also want choice for cars. If somebody wants gasoline, if somebody wants all electric, they can do whatever they want. But they're destroying the consumer, and they're destroying the auto workers. The auto workers will not have any jobs, Kristen, because the -- all of these cars are going to be made in China. The electric cars, automatically, are going to be made in China.
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Well, if that's the case, I probably won't win his -- I don't know the gentleman, but I know his name very well, and I think he's not doing a good job in representing his union, because he's not going to have a union in three years from now. Those jobs are all going to be gone, because all of those electric cars are going to be made in China. That's what's happening, number one. Number two, the electric cars are much more expensive and they don't go far enough. So if somebody wants to take a little bit of a long -- just like the trucks. If somebody wants to take a little bit of a long ride, let's go to Maine, or let's go to Kentucky from New York, let's -- you can't do it. I mean, you have to stop all the time. They don't go far enough. They're very expensive. They have a lot of drawbacks. Now, with that being said, some people are going to want them. Some people are going to travel short distances. What they're doing with our trucking industry is a disaster, because they want all electric trucks. And a truck on a -- with a large tank, large gasoline or diesel capacity, can go up to 2,000 miles. An electric truck goes 300 miles. So, what are these guys going to do? They're going to, they're going to stop every 300 miles and recharge their truck and spend three hours?
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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Well you know that I put a lot of pressure on him. It was outside pressure, because nobody knows whether or not you can really do that, but I did, because I thought his interest rates were too high. And he ultimately dropped his interest rates. The same gentleman, as you know. And -- but it was a lot of pressure. I mean, I was very active on that. Right now, interest rates are very high. They're too high. People can't buy homes. They can't do anything. I mean, they can't borrow money. The banks don't have the money. The banks aren't lending the money. The banks -- by the way, Chase Manhattan Bank, Bank of America, they discriminate against conservatives. It's a disgrace, and they shouldn't be allowed to, and I'm going to do something about that. But you take a look at banks throughout the country. And I think because of the regulators -- but you take a look at Bank of America and Chase, they discriminate against conservatives and Republicans.
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Oh, we'll give you plenty of evidence --
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Depends. It depends.
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Depends where inflation is. But I would get inflation down, because drill we must. We will be drilling for oil. We are going to become, again, energy independent. We are going to reduce our debt, because we're also going to become energy dominant. You know, we were ready to go dominant within a matter of months. We would have been making so much money. We have more oil, I call it liquid gold, under our feet than any other country -- Saudi Arabia, Russia. There's no country with more -- and it's sweet. It's the finest. We have the best. You know, we're taking it from Venezuela. You know what it is? Tar.
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It's the worst.
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Well, I guess he would have two years left or something like that, so we'll see.
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You know the word jawboning? I did a lot of jawboning against him, and he ultimately lowered interest rates. We had low interest rates. We had the best housing market ever. We had people buying homes.
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Today, people can't buy homes.
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Oh, I don't know. You got -- people are going to -- they say that, and then you end up in a depression. They say you're going to do great, you end up bad, and the opposite. These -- most of them don't know what they're doing. It's a touch. It's a feel. And I predicted a lot of markets. I predicted a lot of things, frankly, you know? They say, "Trump was right about everything." I think that the way it's going now, you're going to have to -- things are not going, right now, very well for the consumer. Bacon is up five times. Food is up horribly, worse than energy. Energy is starting to go up at a level that we haven't seen in a long time, meaning a couple of years -- since he took over, because I had energy prices very low. I had gasoline very low. We have to get the energy down, which they will never do. And they kept it artificial because they took the strategic reserves, which I had a lot to do with filling up for the first time ever. They took the strategic reserves, and he issued it to everybody so that he could keep the gas prices down. Now, strategic reserves are at the lowest level they've ever been at, and we need that for war.
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We need that --
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Well, no. The big factor is the fact that he took that oil --
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-- he took that and he let -- he wanted to have low gas prices for an election. And now, we have nothing left.
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I don't know why people stick up for him so much --
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-- when he makes bad decisions, like you.
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I don't know why, and I have a lot of respect for you, and you were very fair in the debate. But I don't know why you and other people say, "Oh, it's okay that he's destroyed the strategic --
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-- petroleum reserves." I mean, why do you do that? Or, "It's okay that he has open borders." Somebody who was --
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-- in your position, not quite as good, said this morning, "Oh, having open borders is a wonderful thing." I don't know why. And I think that's why the media --
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-- has lost so much credibility.
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Sure.
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I'd like to lower them a little bit if we could. But, what I want to do is we have to get some income coming in. You know, when I lowered taxes, we took in more revenue.
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You know, that when I -- depends. It depends on where we are at the time. You know, a lot happens in a year. But when I lowered taxes, I cut taxes tremendously, created tremendous jobs. So more importantly, we had more revenue with lower taxes than we did with higher taxes.
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So, we had a thing happen to us. We had the greatest economy in history, and then we got hit with Covid. And we had to keep this, this beautiful thing going. And if I didn't do that, if we didn't put some money -- and nobody knew what Covid was. Remember this was a new thing that came in. Somebody said, "It's dust coming in from China." It came from China. They tried and denied it, or they tried for a little while, and we didn't let it. It came from Wuhan actually, which now they agree. Everybody's now agreeing that it came from Wuhan. I said that years ago. But we had to do things that were very severe. We had to let some money come out. We were going to -- we were on the verge of doing something that was amazing. We were going to have energy at a level bigger than Russia and Saudi Arabia combined. That energy was going to be sold to Europe and all other places. The prices would have come down. We were going to make a fortune, and we were going to start paying off debt. Instead, we got hit with Covid. People didn't need oil, because nobody was driving all over the world, I mean, frankly. It was a disaster. What China did to the world with Covid is something that we're going to get to the bottom of. And they have to pay something back. You know, nobody can pay back the cost of all those lives and all the money that was lost. But nobody can back the lives and all of the damage that was caused, including China --
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But you know what, they have to, they have to pay something back. They have to do something --
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What does Nikki Haley know? I mean, I know Nikki Haley very well. She said I'm the greatest president. She left, she said I'm the greatest president. Now she's running for office, and she says something. Look, look, Nikki Haley doesn't know anything about it. She's a politician. She knows nothing about it. Very nice woman. Some people like that, I would say. But she left office. She said very strongly, "I will never run. He was a great president," and then in some cases said, "the greatest president in my lifetime," in one case said, " the greatest president ever." Now she's running. Nikki Haley has nothing to do with this. We will -- we were going to make a fortune off our energy. We were going to send the energy to Europe. Europe was going to pay us tremendous amounts of money. And I'll tell you, you would have never had the Ukraine monster at all. It would've never happened. Russia would've never gotten -- just by sheer force of personality. But beyond personality, what happened is when oil hit $100 a barrel, and by the way, it's right there right now again, Putin makes a fortune on this war. You know, everybody said, "Oh, he can't afford it." If Biden allowed my policies to stay in place, oil would right now be at $40 a barrel, and Putin wouldn't be able to afford the war.
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Okay.
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Ready? Little bit of a long answer. I hope you have time.
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So you have Roe v. Wade, for 52 years, people including Democrats wanted it to go back to states so the states could make the right. Roe v. Wade -- I did something that nobody thought was possible, and Roe v. Wade was terminated, was put back to the states. Now, people, pro-lifers, have the right to negotiate for the first time. They had no rights at all, because the radical people on this are really the Democrats that say, after five months, six months, seven months, eight months, nine months, and even after birth you're allowed to terminate the baby --
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Of course they do --
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You have a Virginia governor, previous governor, who said, "After the baby is born, you will make a determination, and if you want, you will kill that baby." The baby is now born.
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Okay. They are the --
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-- radical people --
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-- because nobody wants to see --
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-- abortion after five months and six months and seven months. And, now it's going to -- it gave people the belief -- and pro-life, look, just so you understand, it's pretty much 50/50. It's a 50/50 issue, amazing. If you look at the charts, it's been 49/51. It's been like that for many years, goes both ways -- 51 -- both ways. Ready? I was able to do something which gave at least pro-life people a voice. Now it's going to work out. Now, the number of months will be determined.
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And you're going to have something where everybody comes together.
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What's going to happen, this is an issue that's been going on for a long time. And it's a very polarizing issue. Because of what's been done, and because of the fact we brought it back to the states, we're going to have people come together on this issue. They're going to determine the time, because nobody wants to see five, six, seven, eight, nine months. Nobody wants to see abortions when you have a baby in the womb. I said, with Hillary Clinton when we had the debate, I made a statement, "Rip the baby out of the womb in the ninth month, you're allowed to do that, and you shouldn't be allowed to do that."
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Again, listen, look --
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Look, the Democrats are able to kill the baby after birth.
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Nobody wants that.
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So we're going to come together --
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We are going to come together --
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No, no. Let me just tell you what I'd do. I'm going to come together with all groups, and we're going to have something that's acceptable. Right now, to my way of thinking, the Democrats are the radicals, because after four and five and six months. But you have to say this, after birth. You have New York State and other places that passed legislation where you're allowed to kill the baby after birth.
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Yeah.
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I think they'll -- I think they're all going to like me. I think both sides are going to like me.
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What's going to have to happen is you're going to have to --
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Kristen, you're asking me a question. What's going to happen is you're going to come up with a number of weeks or months. You're going to come up with a number that's going to make people happy. Because 92% of the Democrats don't want to see abortion after a certain period of time.
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Are you talking about a complete ban?
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Well, people, people are starting to think of 15 weeks. That seems to be a number that people are talking about right now.
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I would sit down with both sides and I'd negotiate something, and we'll end up with peace on that issue for the first time in 52 years. I'm not going to say I would or I wouldn't. I mean, DeSanctus is willing to sign a five-week and six-week ban.
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I think what he did is a terrible thing and a terrible mistake. But we'll come up with a number, but at the same time, Democrats won't be able to go out at six months, seven months, eight months and allow an abortion. And Kristen, you have to look at this, because you said "no." You have some states that are allowed to kill the child after birth, and you can't allow that.
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But you have legislation --
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Kristen, you have legislation in certain states where it's allowed.
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The governor of Virginia, previous governor, who was a whack job --
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I call him the Michael Jackson governor.
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That governor --
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Excuse me, that governor said you can kill the baby after birth.
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We will agree to a number of weeks, which will be where both sides will be happy. We have to bring the country together on this issue.
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I care about it too. Oh, I care about it too.
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No, I don't think you should have -- I don't think you should be allowed to have abortions well into a pregnancy.
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We're going to agree -- no -- we're going to agree to a number of weeks or months or however you want to define it. And both sides are going to come together and both sides -- both sides, and this is a big statement, both sides will come together. And for the first time in 52 years, you'll have an issue that we can put behind us.
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It could be state or it could be federal. I don't frankly care.
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I will say this. Everybody, including the great legal scholars, love the idea of Roe v. Wade terminated so it can be brought back to the states.
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Well, I, I would, I would say this: From a pure standpoint, from a legal standpoint, I think it's probably better, but I can live with it either way. It's much more important, the number of weeks is much more important. But something will happen with the number of weeks, the amount of time, after which you can't do it. And you know what? The most -- the most powerful people that are anti-abortion are okay with that now. And you know what? They weren't okay with that even a year ago.
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Well, Mike Pence said something about 15 weeks too, which was a big change for Mike Pence, because Mike Pence had no exceptions. I have exceptions, by the way. I think people should have exceptions. I think if it's rape or incest or the life of the mother, I think you have to have exceptions. It's very important.
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And a lot of people, when they don't have exceptions -- now, I will tell you that I think most people, most Republicans are willing. You go: life of the mother, rape, incest. I think most of them are there.
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That's a big statement.
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Well, I don't know, I don't know what he's saying, because before, he wanted, you know, you couldn't have abortions at all --
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Now all of a sudden -- excuse me -- now all of a sudden he's saying 15 weeks. I said, "Wow, where did that come from? That's a radical change." Look, something is going to happen that's going to be good for everybody. And that's what I'm -- I'm almost like a mediator in this case. They wanted Roe v. Wade terminated because it was inappropriate. We got it done. Something is going to happen. It's going to be a number of weeks. Something is going to happen where the both sides are going to be able to come together. And then we'll be able to go onto other things, like, the economy, our military --
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What I say is very simple, because you can't put words in my mouth like that --
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-- because you've been hearing me talk about this--
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-- issue --
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-- and I think talk about it very productively. It could be a state ban, it could be a federal ban, but Democrats want that too. Democrats don't want to see abortion in the seventh month, okay. I speak to a lot of Democrats. They want a number. There is a number, and there's a number that's going to be agreed to, and Republicans should go out and say the following. They -- cause, I think the Republicans speak very inarticulately about this subject. I watch some of them without the exceptions, et cetera, et cetera. I said, "Other than certain parts of the country, you can't -- you're not going to win on this issue. But you will win on this issue when you come up with the right number of weeks." Because Democrats don't want to be radical on the issue, most of them, some do. They don't want to be radical on the issue. They don't want to kill a baby in the seventh month or the ninth month or after birth. And they're allowed to do that, and you can't do that.
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Sure.
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Biden indictments. Excuse me, Biden political indictments. He said to the attorney general --
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-- he said to the attorney general, "Indict him." They put in the New York DA case --
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-- which everybody admits isn't even a case.
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Excuse me, but they're Biden indictments --
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You know what? He started something that's a very slippery slope. He said, "I've got a guy that's beating me in the polls." I'm beating all the Republicans by a lot, and I'm beating him by a lot. "I have somebody that's beating me in the polls. Indict him." And they, not only that, they took their top person in the Department of Justice and put him into the Manhattan DA's office. They're dealing with Fani Willis all the time.
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These are political indictments.
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But President Biden does not fall within the Presidential Records Act. And frankly, you don't ever hear anything about the special counsel. But they gave me this deranged person named Jack Smith. He's a deranged lunatic. We -- I fall within the Presidential Records Act. It's very simple. It's a civil thing. In fact, the New York Times of all institutions did a story, and it was headlined, "Please, please, please, Mr. President, could we take a look at the documents." And they said in the story that "The only way you can get documents from a president is if you go there and say please." Because this is civil. And they won't even have a lawsuit. They may have a civil lawsuit at most, but they probably don't even have a civil lawsuit. And this should never have been an indictment. There's no criminal. Now there is criminal for Joe Biden, because he was a senator and he was a vice president. And as a senator and a vice president --
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But wait a minute. This comes within the Presidential Records Act --
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That's what it's about. It's about records.
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If you would say it properly, I'm facing four Biden indictments. He told the Justice Department to indict him, or Merrick Garland said, "Let's indict him."
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They indicted their political opponent --
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No, I don't really. I don't even think about it. I'm built a little differently I guess, because I have had people come up to me and say, "How do you do it, sir? How do you do it?" I don't even think about it. These are corrupt people that I'm dealing with. They're destroying our country. I don't even think about it. All I think about is making the country great, making America great. Look, these are political, these are banana republic indictments. These are third-world indictments. The president of the United States sees how we're doing. We have a movement the likes of which has never happened in this country before. And you see it with the polls. I mean, I'm up on these people by 60 points and 59 points. And, I don't mean I'm at 59, I'm leading them by 59. You almost say, like, "Why are they campaigning?" Asa Hutchinson, he's at zero. Christie's at two. Other ones are at one. DeSanctimonious is at nine. I just see a poll come -- I mean, I'm leading him by 60 points.
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And you say, "Why are they doing that?" But here's what they did. They saw this happening, and he went to the attorney general of the United States, and he told them, "Indict Trump."
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Oh why? Because you mean he's honest --
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Look at all the lies he's told--
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Kristen, wait a minute, wait, wait. Could I say one thing? Look at all the lies he's told over the last couple of weeks. He said he was at the World Trade Center and he wasn't. He said he flew airplanes, right? He didn't. He said he drove trucks, and he didn't. Everything he says is, like, a lie. It's terrible.
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Even his handicap in golf, he said he's a six --
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He's not a six.
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Okay.
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Well, I'd like you to, but you keep interrupting me.
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I see somebody that loves this country, and me, that loves this country. I see tremendous unfairness. I think very few people would have been able to handle what I handled. When I was coming down the escalator with Melania, I was already under investigation, because they saw how well I was doing in the polls. And it just got worse and worse, and we caught them. We said, "They were spying on our campaign." It turned out to be true. They had the fake dossier. That turned out to be true. It was paid for by the Democratic party. It was all fiction. All of these things happened. Impeachment hoax number one, impeachment hoax number two. I've been treated very badly. And, I've won every single time. When you say, "Do I sleep?" I sleep, I sleep. Because I truly feel that in the end, we're going to win. I think we're going to win an election the likes of which nobody's ever seen before. I don't think anything's going to stop it. Nothing's going to stop it, because people see what's happened to our country. We're not respected in the world. Look at other countries. Look at what's happened. Everybody's going to the side of China, Russia, Saudi Arabia --
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No, no. China is taking over the world --
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Okay.
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Well, I hope he's loyal to me.
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I mean, I didn't do anything wrong --
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I didn't do anything wrong --
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Sure.
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By the way, that was even more perfect than my call to --
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-- the president of Ukraine.
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It was a perfect call. Just before you start, many top legal scholars, almost everyone, but many top legal have analyzed that phone call. That was a phone call made in front of, I guess seven or eight lawyers. Brad Raffensperger, the head, who by the way last week said, I didn't do anything wrong. He said "that was a negotiation." Brad Raffensperger, who I was dealing with, I appreciate that he said that. But he said last week, I didn't do anything wrong --
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No, no, let me just tell you one other thing. When I spoke, I knew I was probably being taped. I didn't ask, but I knew I was probably being taped. You know, they illegally tape me, because they tape me in Florida. It's a two-party state. You know that, right? So they illegally taped the call, but forget about that for a second. I knew that there were many lawyers on the phone from the other side, from -- there were many people, there were many people on the phone. What I told them, I said "The election was rigged." I said all sorts of things about the election, which I believe --
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-- it 100%.
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No, I believe, no, I have all the facts. Look, I have all the facts. In one way, I look for a trial because it was so dishonest, okay, so rigged, and such a dangerous thing for our country. We have to have borders, and we have to have fair elections. We have neither. But let me just say --
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-- when I spoke in front of Brad Raffensperger, who again last week said I didn't do anything wrong.
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Brad Raffensperger said "it was a negotiation."
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No, and you know that. You're terrible when you say this. You're off to a bad start, because what I said is very simple. "I got cheated in this election."
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"And all I need is, like, 11,000," whatever the number was.
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I got cheated in the election --
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Well, he said that, but we have to go and see. You know, there's some court cases out there. We want to go into Fulton County, and we want to see the real votes. And it's so hard --
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They can look into it. I don't want them. I want to look into it. I would say that if we got access --
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-- to the votes, which we're close to getting in court, as you know. If we got access to those votes, if we look in, you will find numbers that you wouldn't believe. More importantly, though, let me just say this.
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Kristen, you have to just hear me out for one second.
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They said --
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This is a hoax.
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This is a hoax just like Russia, Russia, Russia. Just like Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine. This is a hoax. Let me tell you, I spoke to them on the phone, and it was left, I think, something to the effect, "Okay, we'll get together tomorrow." Nobody said, "Sir, you shouldn't speak." If I said something incorrect, one of the lawyers for the State of Georgia, which I love, one of those lawyers would have said, "Sir, you'll have to take that back. That's an inappropriate statement."
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Nobody said that.
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Okay, you're, you're talking about a different subject. If I said something wrong on the call, he or one of his many lawyers that were on the call would have said, "It's inappropriate what you just said." Nobody said that. We had a normal phone call. This became --
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Do you have any regrets about that call --
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No. None --
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None whatsoever.
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I called to complain about an election.
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And I have every right to do that. Would you say --
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Do you think I have a right to complain about an election?
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No, no. I didn't do it 60 times --
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They wouldn't hear it, based on all sorts of crazy -- they wouldn't hear it. We never got -- we never got a trial. Judges would look at stuff, say, "I'm not getting involved." They didn't want to get involved.
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If you take a look at the evidence, we have so much evidence. If you take a look at the evidence, even you I could convince.
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No, because I'm using it in my court case instead.
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That's false.
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That's false, but let me tell you --
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Sure. I'm going to. I'll testify --
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It's a fake --
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-- charge by this deranged lunatic prosecutor, who lost in the Supreme Court nine to nothing. And he tried to destroy lots of lives. He's a lunatic. So it's a fake charge. But, more importantly, the tapes weren't deleted. In other words, there was nothing done to them. And they were my tapes. I could've fought them. I didn't even have to give them the tapes, I don't think. I think I would have won in court. When they asked for the tapes, I said, "Sure." They're my tapes. I could have fought them. I didn't even have to give them. Just so you understand, though, we didn't delete anything. Nothing was deleted.
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Number one, the statement is false. Much more importantly, when the tapes came, and everybody says this, they weren't deleted. We gave them 100%.
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And, and, and, just so you know, I offered them. I said, "If you want to look at tapes, you can look at them."
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Let's move on to January 6th and the allegations that you tried to subvert the election. And, again, I just want to give you a chance to talk about this because voters want to hear about this. The most senior lawyers in your own administration and on your campaign told you that after you lost more than 60 legal challenges that it was over. Why did you ignore them and decide to listen to a new outside group of attorneys --
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Because I didn't respect them --
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-- as lawyers. Sure. But that doesn't mean -- you hire them, you never met these people. You get a recommendation. They turn out to be RINOs, or they turn out to be not so good. In many cases, I didn't respect them. But I did respect others. I respected many others that said the election was rigged. Look. We have many people, and it's my choice -- I happen to, I happen to know that the election was rigged. Okay? I know it because I have so much, there's so much proof of ballot stuffing. You know, It's amazing. Right just a little while ago, in terms of the modern history, where the 51 intelligence agents said very specifically they lied. They all lied. And they said about the laptop that it was Russia disinformation. That was a lie. That had a huge impact on the election. In fact, the pollsters say over 10 points. I didn't need 10 points. I needed one-tenth of a point. If you take a look at the Twitter Files, with the F.B.I. and Twitter dealing, that had a huge impact on the election. Just those things. But in addition to that --
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-- you have ballot stuffing. You have a lot of other things.
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I needed a very small --
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I think somebody said 22,000 votes.
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Yeah. If you divide it among the states, it was 22,000 votes, something to that effect --
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Yeah. If I would've had another 22,000 votes over the whole -- but, look. They rigged the election --
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If you look at Pennsylvania --
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If you looked at all the stuff --
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Excuse me. If you look at all of the statistics, all of the votes, they say 22,000 votes. Over millions and millions of votes, 22,000 votes. So when they do Twitter Files, or when they have 51 intelligence agents come out and lie that the laptop from hell was Russia disinformation, and now they find out it's not, but they knew that at the time. They cheated on the election in that way too.
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I'm not acknowledging. No. I say I won the election.
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No, no. No.
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Some people told me that.
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But many people told me the opposite.
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You know who I listen to? Myself. I saw what happened. I watched that election, and I thought the election was over at 10 o'clock in the evening.
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My instincts are a big part of it. That's been the thing that's gotten me to where I am, my instincts. But I also listen to people. There are many lawyers. I could give you many books. There are books that are written on how the election was rigged. There are numerous books that were written on how the election was rigged.
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I was listening to different people. And when I added it all up, the election was rigged. There are books that are written --
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In fact, Mollie Hemingway wrote a great book --
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-- called "Rigged" --
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Excuse me. Mollie Hemingway, who's highly respected and great, she wrote a book, a bestselling book called "Rigged."
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As to whether or not I believed it was rigged? Oh, sure.
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It was my decision. But I listened to some people. Some people said that. Like, guys like Bill Barr, who was a stiff, but he wasn't there at the time. But he didn't do his job because he was afraid. You know what he was afraid of? He was afraid of being impeached. He was petrified to be impeached. And he -- how do you not get impeached? Don't do anything.
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Sure.
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So, let me just tell you about January 6th. First of all, I had very little to do with January 6th. I was asked to speak. And I was the president of the United States. I'm allowed to do that. But I was asked to speak. Other groups, I think it was women's groups, a lot of people were involved in that. And it was incredible. It was incredible. It was, I think, the largest group I've ever spoken. You never see that. You never see pictures of the group that I was speaking to. I think it was the most people I've -- and I've spoken to some very large groups. Hundreds of thousands of people were there, and it was a beautiful, beautiful sight. But just so you understand, I went, and I spoke. And, by the way, peacefully and patriotically. And all of that, which wasn't reported, which wasn't reported, but when I spoke, I have had senators go up, I said -- they said, "I've never heard you speak so moderately. You were very moderate."
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Well, wait. Wait. Let me just say. So I spoke. And then I went back. I wanted to go down peacefully and patriotically to the Capitol. Secret Service, who I have great respect for, said, "Sir, it's better if you don't do that. It could be unsafe." Because -- they didn't mean because of riots because, you know, it takes one guy with bad intentions, okay. So I didn't have a dispute with them. You know you had that one person said I grabbed the man around the neck. Actually, I wish I was so strong to be able to do that. These are all tough guys, smart guys --
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Dispute it? Who wouldn't dispute it? She's -- the craziest account I've ever heard. You mean that I was in "The Beast," and she said I was in "The Beast," and the Secret Service didn't want -- so I took a guy who was like a black belt in karate and grabbed his neck and tried to choke him --
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How ridiculous. Just so you understand, and I have great respect for Secret Service, by the way. They're fantastic. The Secret Service said, "Sir, it would be better if you didn't." I said, "I'd love to do it." They said, "It would be better." And so we went back to the White House. Just so you understand: I spoke. I made a very nice speech. I wasn't Maxine Waters that calls for people's death, and some of these -- take a look at what these other people say. It's so --
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-- ridiculous.
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Well, let me tell you --
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-- much more importantly, I offered two days before -- two or three days before -- 10,000 soldiers, right? And they were going to go -- because everybody was telling me, I knew it was going to be big in terms of the crowd, because everybody I spoke to said, "Hey. I'm going down on January 6th. I'm going down. I'm going to listen to your speech," et cetera. And there were other speak -- I wasn't the only speaker. There were many speakers. But wait a minute. I offered 10,000 people to the mayor of Washington D.C. and Nancy Pelosi, both of them, Nancy Pelosi and to the mayor of Washington. And they turned it down flat. And the police commissioner was very nasty about it to her. And he testified. And here's what happened. The January 6th un-Select Committee of thugs and horrible people, the un-Select Committee destroyed all the evidence. Did you know that --
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Well, they announced that they destroyed --
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-- and deleted most of the evidence.
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Wait. Wait. Wait.
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Well, Kristen.
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They put out an announcement that they destroyed the evidence. And they destroyed all the stuff having to do with Nancy Pelosi. And they wouldn't let her testify. We said, "Why isn't she testify" -- you know it was a whole rigged deal -- "Why isn't she testifying?" I offered them 10,000 soldiers --
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-- she turned them down.
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You know that she's in charge of security --
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Kristen, she's in charge of security --
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I'm not going to tell you. I'll tell people later at an appropriate time. Just so you understand, however --
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And I made beautiful statements.
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Let me just tell you --
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Did you see the statements I made in the Oval Office and just outside of the Oval Office?
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"Go home. Our police are great. We love our police. We love everybody. Go home."
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This was --
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-- a beautiful statement --
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When that statement was made --
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-- I don't know --
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But there --
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-- but there were tweets that were put out --
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-- before that.
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By the way, Nancy Pelosi --
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I don't have -- why would I tell you that? Listen. Nancy Pelosi --
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-- was in charge of security. She turned down 10,000 soldiers. If she didn't turn down the soldiers, you wouldn't have had January 6th.
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What?
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I'm not going to tell you anything. I told --
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Let me put it this way. I behaved so well. I did such a good job. Nancy Pelosi turned down 10,000 soldiers. If she didn't do that --
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-- and now I understand -- I understand that the police testified against -- listen to me, Kristen. Listen to me. I understand that the police testified against her -- the chief, very strongly against her. Capitol Police, they're great people. They testified against her. And they burned all the evidence. Okay? They burned all the evidence.
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They destroyed all the evidence about Nancy Pelosi.
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No, no. She has authority over the Capitol.
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Uh, frankly, just so you understand, I assumed that she took care of it. She turned down --
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Well, you don't realize anything until quite a while. National Guard are not coming. I asked her to be there three days in advance. And she turned it down.
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Oh, stop it. Let me just tell you --
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The mayor of D.C. --
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The mayor of D.C. gave us a letter, saying that she turns it down, okay? We have it. Nancy Pelosi also was asked, and she turned it down. The police commissioner of Capitol Police --
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Wait a minute.
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Capitol Police said that he wanted it. And Nancy Pelosi wouldn't accept it. She's responsible for January 6th.
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Nancy Pelosi is responsible. And the J6 Committee refused to interview her.
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Yes. Absolutely. I did.
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And I showed calm. Nancy Pelosi is responsible for the security. And she did a terrible job. And, by the way --
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-- from what I understand, they burned all the evidence.
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Oh, she's full of it.
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Really?
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And her daughter taping her. Her daughter happened to be documenting what --
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A documentary worker just happened to be there taping her at the time?
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Are you ready?
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I don't know him. I never met him. I never heard of him until I started reading this stuff.
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But I want to tell you: He and other people have been treated horribly. Antifa killed people, and those guys didn't even get tried in many cases.
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They put these guys in jail for 17, 18, and 22 years. They didn't kill anybody. Some of them never even went into the Capitol. Some of them weren't even in D.C. And they got a 22- or a 17-year sentence. 16, 18, 15, 22.
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Wait a minute. Wait a minute. Yeah. 1,000 people. How many people -- let me ask you this. How many people were charged for destroying Portland? How many people were charged for burning down the police precinct and the courthouse in Minneapolis?
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I'd certainly look at it. I'd look at that. And I'd look at all the other people that have suffered, the J6 people.
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People -- people that went there.
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That didn't even go into the building have suffered gravely. And you have to say one system of justice, right? You take a look at what's gone on in Portland. They burned down the city. The city is in shambles to this day. The store owners don't even rebuild storefronts anymore. They put up two-by-fours.
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But why do you do that?
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Why do you give me a horrible question and then you don't let me answer it? You're off to a bad start, I'm telling you.
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No, but I don't mind. I have all the time in the world.
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I have all the time in the world. Why is it that the people, Antifa people, and very bad people, that burned down Portland, burned down Minneapolis, burned down so much -- and New York City, what they did in New York City -- and they were barely charged? And, yet, the people in Washington in some cases never even went into the building. They've been persecuted. They've been persecuted.
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And we'll take a look at everything. But many of these people have been persecuted, what they've done to them.
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And they didn't do this to the people that burned down -- you take a look at Portland. It's like a burned-down hulk of a city, including the federal courthouse.
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I could've pardoned myself. Do you know what? I was given an option to pardon myself. I could've pardoned myself when I left. People said, "Would you like to pardon yourself?" I had a couple of attorneys that said, "You can do it if you want." I had some people that said, "It would look bad, if you do." Because I think it would look terrible. I said, "Here's the story. These people are thugs, horrible people, fascists, Marxists, sick people. They've been after me from the day I came down the escalator with Melania. And I did a great job as president." People are -- great economy, great jobs, great this, great that, rebuilt the military, Space Force, everything. We -- I could go on forever. Let me just tell you. I said, "The last thing I'd ever do is give myself a pardon." I could've given myself a pardon. Don't ask me about what I would do. I could've. The last day, I could've had a pardon done that would've saved me all of these lawyers, and all of these fake charges, these Biden indictments. They're all Biden indictments, political. They indicted -- they want to arrest their political opponents. Only third-world countries do that, banana republics. So, ready? I never said this to anybody. I was given the option. I could've done a pardon of myself. You know what I said? "I have no interest in even thinking about it." I never even wanted to think about it. And I could've done it. And all of these questions you're asking me about, the fake charges, you wouldn't be asking me because it's a very powerful, it's a very powerful thing for a president. I was told by some people that these are sick lunatics that I'm dealing with. "Give yourself a pardon. Your life will be a lot easier." I said, "I would never give myself a pardon."
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Oh, I think it's very unlikely. What -- what did I do wrong? I didn't do anything wrong. You mean because I challenged an election, they want to put me in jail? I challenged an election. But, I challenged a crooked election.
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It was a rigged election. I challenged a rigged election. And now I'm going to win for a third time. And I just hope they have better vote counters.
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Okay. Let me talk about it without interruption. All right? Ukraine would have never happened if I were president. If this election weren't rigged, Ukraine would have never happened. You would have hundreds of thousands of people, including lots of soldiers, still living. The cities would be flourishing, or at least up. These are cities that can never be rebuilt again, certainly not the way they were, magnificent buildings all ripped down like a demolition site. It would have never happened for two reasons. Number one, and most importantly, Putin has a lot of respect for me. And he wouldn't have played games. And I told him, "Don't ever go in." And he would never have gone in. This was only after I left that this happened. Likewise, President Xi would never ever be talking about Taiwan the way he's talking about it right now. And they didn't. They weren't talking about it. It was only after I left. He would have never gone in. Equally as importantly, oil prices would have been at $40 a barrel instead of $110 a barrel. So he wouldn't have been able to afford going in. He actually is the only nation that made money, because oil has been driven up so high by stupid people like Biden. Biden is an incompetent man. And what happened is oil. In fact, you're going to hit a new high very soon again. That means Russia -- Russia makes money from oil. Russia is going to make a lot of money. And because they're making a lot of money, there's no reason for them to settle other than humanitarian reasons. And let's not assume people are going to be so humanitarian. So, Putin would have never gone in, because oil was at $40 a barrel. And he wouldn't have been able to afford to have gone in. At $100 a barrel, he made a fortune. And that's one reason. The other reason he wouldn't have gone in is because I said, "Don't go in. Don't even think about it."
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I think that Europe has to do more. We're in for $200 billion. They're in for $25 billion. And it affects them more than it affects us. It certainly affects them much more than it affects us.
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I think Europe is taking advantage of a stupid president.
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Look. Look. Biden should say to them, "You have to equalize. You have to catch up." You know, Europe is about the same size as our economy if you add them all up, add the countries up. It's about the same size. And Biden should say to them, like I did with NATO -- you know, NATO, they all owed money. I said, "Get your money in." And we had over $430 billion put in almost immediately. And the head of NATO, Stoltenberg, secretary general, nice guy, he said to me, the most amazing thing I've ever done -- and he said it publicly too. He said, "Bush would come in, make a speech, and leave. Obama would come in, make a speech, and leave. Trump came in and said, "You guys aren't paying your bills.'" And I got them to pay. You know, they asked me something, which hasn't been reported, but the media knows it. We had a meeting of the 28 countries, at that time 28 countries, and they said to me, "Are you saying, sir," because I said, "You've got to pay your bills," -- "Are you saying, sir, that you won't protect us against Russia if we don't pay?" I said, "Sorry to tell you, that's what I'm saying." You know what happened?
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They started sending us money like -- and I was never given credit for it. But you wouldn't even have a NATO if it wasn't for me.
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But here's the thing. The European countries have to start paying their share, because we are having to do with Ukraine. Because we are $200 billion. And they're at $20 or $25 billion. It's so unfair.
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Yeah.
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No, look, it would have been easier if the war didn't start. And you'd have hundreds of thousands of people living, most importantly. But it would have been a lot easier if it didn't. But I can get it done and I can get it done quickly.
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There's another example. You talk about Kim Jong --
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-- You talk about Kim Jong Un, right? I got along great with Kim Jong Un after the first month or two when we were sparring. But I got along great with him. We were in no danger. There was -- President Biden said, and he felt even now, and President Obama told me when we sat down, Obama told me, and Biden still to this day, except I don't think he knows, he's only -- he can't put two sentences together. But President Obama told me, "Our biggest threat is from North Korea. We're going to end up in a war." We didn't end up with a war with North Korea. We were going to make a deal. I would say I would have had a deal made with North Korea shortly after the election, had the election not been rigged.
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Well, I can't tell you exactly. Because if I did -- People understand, if I tell you exactly, I lose all my bargaining chips. I mean, you can't really say exactly what you're going to do. But I would say certain things to Putin. I would say certain things to Zelenskyy, both of whom I get along -- Don't forget, Zelenskyy did something that was very honorable. They asked him -- It didn't stop these animals from impeaching me. But, you know, one of those things. They asked him, "Did Trump do anything wrong?" He said, "Absolutely not. It was a very normal phone call." You can't say that about Biden's call, because Biden, what he did was horrible with a prosecutor. But, he said something that was very honorable. He could have grandstanded and said, "Oh, I felt threatened." He said that "President Trump did absolutely nothing wrong on the phone call."
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No, no, no, no. I'd make a fair deal for everybody. Nope, I'd make it fair.
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You know, that's something that could have been negotiated. Because there were certain parts, Crimea and other parts of the country, that a lot of people expected could happen. You could have made a deal. So they could have made a deal where there's lesser territory right now than Russia's already taken, to be honest. And you could have made a deal where nobody was killed. They had a deal. They would have had a Ukraine country. Now nobody even knows if Ukraine is going to be totally taken over. I will say this: something's going on, and it's not good for Ukraine. Because the news is no longer reporting about the war. The fake news. They don't report about the war anymore. You don't find much reporting. That means that Ukraine's losing. Okay? I see very little reporting from NBC, your network. I see very little reporting from NBC, ABC, from CBS, from anyone about the war. It used to be you'd go and you'd watch, even a couple of months ago, you'd watch all of this great strategy. The Spring Offensive never happened. Ukraine's Spring Offensive never happened, because they were met with a wall of armaments and bombs.
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No, no, I'm just saying --
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I'm not seeing anything about the war anymore. To me, that means that -- probably because the press is fake and very discredited -- that would mean that -- You know, look, here's my attitude on the war. I just want people to stop being killed. You know, I was asked by that ridiculous CNN group during my town hall, "Whose side are you on?" I said, "I'm on the side of people stop being killed." I don't want to see people killed. They're being killed by the thousands and thousands and thousands. And that's the side I'm on, I don't want -- And you know what? People like that answer, to be honest. And I stay with that same answer. I want people to stop being killed.
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Well, I like that he said that. Because that means what I'm saying is right. I would get him into a room. I'd get Zelenskyy into a room. Then I'd bring them together. And I'd have a deal worked out. I would get a deal worked out. It would've been a lot easier before it started. Essentially, for four years, I kept them from doing anything. Because you know what? I will tell you this. I never said this. Ukraine was the apple of his eye. I said, "Don't ever do it. Don't ever do it." He would have never done it. But again, oil prices. He wouldn't have done it because of me. But oil prices. The prices were so high that he had so much money. So he had all this money to prosecute the war. The one who drove up the prices was Biden.
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It's all terrible. It's all terrible.
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Look, I had a very good relationship with him. And yet nobody was tougher on Russia than me. I stopped Nord Stream 2. You never heard of Nord Stream 2. That was the pipeline until I got involved. I said, "Nord Stream 2." People that were sophisticated, military people, and political people never heard of Nord Stream 2. I had it ended. The pipeline was dead. Biden came in and he approved it. There was nobody tougher than me with Russia. And yet I got along with Putin. Let me tell you, I got along with him really well. And that's a good thing, not a bad thing. He's got 1,700 nuclear missiles. And so do we. But, look, that's a good thing. Getting along is okay. But I got along through strength. And the war would have never happened. The war would have never happened. Now what's happened, it's so bad, the oil price is so high, it's hard to get it stopped. The oil price is so high. When he goes above $50 and $60 a barrel, he makes a lot of money on the war. Now, it's a humanitarian thing. It's a lot of different reasons. But I will get that war stopped very, very quickly.
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It's too bad we have to wait so long.
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No. Not at all. Because China, he's another one I got along to, until we had the China virus come in. Once Covid came in, okay? It was like -- And I made a great trade deal with China, one of the greatest deals ever made for the farmers and for the manufacturers, $50 billion a year. It was a great deal. I don't even talk about it. Because once Covid came in, it was, like, I didn't want to talk about anything. I was a much different person. What happened to this world, not our country, the whole world. What happened with Covid. And it just shouldn't have happened. It shouldn't have happened. What happened, what China did to the world was so bad. But I had a great relationship with --
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I had a great relationship with President Xi, a really great relationship. And he was going to stop fentanyl from coming in. He was going to do a lot -- He was going to criminalize it if you made it. You know, in China, they have a death penalty for drug dealers. He was going to make that with fentanyl dealers too. But then the election didn't work out and he never had to do that.
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I won't say. I won't say. Because if I said, I'm giving away -- You know, only stupid people are going to give that -- I heard the other day, DeSanctimonious said something about he was willing to do this or he was going to do that. I say, "Well, why is he saying the strategy?" You can't say that. So when you ask me that question, I would never say that. Because you give away all your options.
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I don't take anything off the table, no.
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Well, hold on, hold on. I've got a lot of meetings coming up. I mean, we've been doing this for --
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I can go another couple of minutes.
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But I really, I find it very nice and very challenging. But I can't -- You know, I have all those people waiting.
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Okay. Go ahead. Go ahead.
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I didn't say that. No. People said I said that.
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I didn't say that.
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I wouldn't tell you what I'd do. Why would I say that? Because, again, you don't want people to know your strategy. Now people said, they leaked and said things that I said this, or I said that, or I was going to hit them with Patriot missiles, the drug dealers in Mexico. But I will -- I will say -- and horribly -- that they kill 250,000 people in the United States every year. You know, you never hear that number. You hear 100,000. I think it's much more. They destroy families. Because when you lose a son or a daughter to fentanyl, or a wife, or anybody else, but when you lose a son or daughter, your life is destroyed. Their lives are destroyed. They've destroyed so many families. It comes through Mexico. Something's got to be done. If we were in war, we wouldn't lose 250,000 people. We're losing more people than you lose in just about any war that we've ever had. And we lose them on a yearly basis. Something has to be done. And it has to be done fairly quickly.
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Well, I built -- I built five hundred miles of border wall. It was great. It was just what -- As you know, the border control board, and everybody else. Border patrol, I had them in my office. I wanted to do -- We were going to do concrete planks, 40 feet high. They didn't want that. They wanted to see through it. They want it to be steel, concrete, and rebar. I did everything. I gave them the wall that they wanted. You know, we tested it. We had mountain climbers test the ones that -- That's the wall we built. I built almost 500 miles of wall. We were then going to build another 200 miles of certain areas that all of a sudden people were coming into areas that they couldn't come into anymore. And we were all set to do that. It was all bought. And all Obama had to do, all Biden had to do -- it could be Obama too, because a lot of people think he's calling the shots, so who knows. But all Biden had to do is go out and put it up. And he not only didn't put it up, he took it off the site, and they put it in yards hundreds of miles away, so that Texas and Arizona couldn't get it. I had the safest border in history. I had the best border in history. We had the lowest drug numbers for years, and years, and years, decades. We had the lowest drug numbers. We had the lowest human trafficking numbers. We had the least number of people coming across. All he had to do was go to the beach, like he does all the time. If he went to the beach and didn't do anything, we'd have a great border right now.
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I do. I do. But it has to be a democracy that's fair. This democracy is -- I don't consider us to have much of a democracy right now. They indict their political opponents. Free speech is shot, because the press is very dishonest, very dishonest. Even the way you fight me on simple questions like, you know, the border, and this. You fight me so much. And I say, "Why are you fighting me?" Do you know, when I first ran, the approval rating of the media was very high. And now it's very low. It may be below Congress, which is pretty hard to believe. People understand what's going on. We need a media that's free and fair. And frankly, if they don't have that, it's very, very hard to straighten out our country.
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Well, just so you understand, that's what the Democrats do. Okay? They do it in spades.
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They do it at a level that you wouldn't believe. I mean nobody has ever done that. No, I wouldn't do that. I want great people, whether they're Republican or Democrat. I want great people. But I want people that love our country, not people that hate our country.
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No, I think that's good. I think we did -- I think we did a lot.
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No. Just so you understand, when DeSantis says that, that means he's not your man. He's not your man anyway, because he's a very untalented guy. And he's proven that. He started out, everybody was talking to him. After I worked them over a little bit, he's gone down the tubes. I think he's going to end up being number three or four. He just had a poll today. He was number four. And by the way, the one that was number two was 59 points behind. So, you know, it's very interesting. But when somebody says, "Eight years. We need eight years." No. In six months to a year, many of the problems, almost all of the problems that you and I have just spoken about, will be solved. Anybody that says they need eight years, you don't want that person.
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Thank you very much. And good luck.
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Yes, we did.
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Good luck for many years.
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Good. Thank you very much.
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Sure.
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Yeah, we can do that.
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I like not to think too much about that. You always do a little bit, but I really don't think it's time. I want to win. And, you know, it's very interesting about running mates. When you get down to a vice president, they said, "Nobody's ever made that kind of a difference. It's still about the person that's going to be president." But it's an --
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-- important decision.
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I like the concept, but we're going to pick the best person. But I do like the concept, yes.
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I do. I think she's fantastic. She's been a great governor. She gave me a very full-throated endorsement, a beautiful endorsement actually. And, you know, it's been a very good state for me. And certainly she'd be one of the people I'd consider, or for something else maybe. But we have a lot of people. We have a lot of great people in the Republican Party.
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Oh, I see. She's right now with Barron in school. She loves that boy. And she's very popular. She actually is. Oh, and she'll be with us. She's very, very supportive.
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Yes. Soon? Yeah, pretty soon. When it's appropriate, but pretty soon. She's a private person, a great person, very confident person. And she loves our country very much. She'll be, she'll be -- at the appropriate time she'll be out there. And honestly, I like to keep her away from it. It's so nasty and so mean. And a lot of it's me. I say, "Just, I don't want you coming. It's such a nasty situation." But when we have rallies, the rallies are bigger than ever, better than ever. You saw in South Carolina we had 82,000 people, the biggest rallies we've ever had. There's a spirit in the country now the likes -- look, 2016 was incredible. 2020 was actually much better. We got many more votes, millions and millions more votes. But I've never seen spirit like I see right now. And I really believe part of that is maybe because they love what we're saying, but a big part of it is that our country is doing so badly. Our country is doing so badly with the borders, with the military, with the lack of respect all over the world. And I think that probably adds to what we're doing.
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It's true.
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Yeah.
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You know, it's interesting. He actually said it's up to me to do, and I actually think it's up to him to do. I left him a note. I think it was very -- it was a nice note. I took a lot of time in thinking about it. I'd love him to do a great job, even if it was very bad politically. I would rather have him have wonderful borders, have no wars, have no Ukraine problems, which, you know, to a large extent was caused by him. Because if you looked at the rhetoric before that war started and the things that were said, I would much rather be in a position where the country's doing great now, we had him as a president. But the country's doing horribly. I don't think the country's ever been so disrespected. So many bad things are happening.
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It's wrong. See, that's --
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-- where you're wrong.
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Well, I just looked at a poll, and the Republican Party, 89% want me to run. And that's the highest number that they've ever had. That's higher than Ronald Reagan. The general poll, I mean, I think they love my policy. A lot of people say they love my policy but they don't necessarily like me. I think they do like me. So in the Republican Party, I'm 89, 90, 92%. There's a big lovefest going on. And when you look at these people running, they're at 2%, 1%, 5%. One's at 9%, DeSanctimonious. But, I'm at, you know, beating them by 60, 70 points. It's unprecedented. Nobody's ever seen a thing like that. And the voters themselves, I think they're going to be very happy. Look, we have to turn our country around and very -- I said it before: We have to make America great again.
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No, but there should be a competency. I'm all for the test. You know, I took a test two years ago, three years ago. And as the doctors said -- and it was in front of doctors and a whole big deal at Walter Reed, which is an incredible place. And I aced it. I get everything right. I'm all for testing. I frankly think testing would be a good thing. A lot of people say it's not constitutional to do it. But I would be for testing, to test to make sure everyone's just fine. But a lot of people say that can't happen because of Constitution.
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Well, it's always time for a new generation. But, you know, some of the greatest world leaders have been in their 80s. I'm not anywhere very near 80, by the way. And Biden's not too old. I don't think Biden's too old. But I think he's incompetent, and that's a bigger problem. I don't think 80 is old. I know people that are 89. I know a person 94, 95 who's 100%. Bernie Marcus, take a look at Bernie Marcus, Home Depot. I mean, he has been amazing for so many years. He's 95 years old. It's really a level of competency, not the age.
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Well, I will be toward the end. No, because my father lived much longer than that. My mother lived much longer than that. So genetically, that's a good thing.
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No, I just wish you a lot of luck. You're going to have --
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-- great success --
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-- I predict.
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It's okay.
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Thank you very much.
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Good luck with everything.
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It's true.
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Thank you very much.
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